Dave DeFord and I have been flying our short winged mono-wheel Europa
for over 6 years now, and have been working on interchangeable long
wings for the past four years or so. We finally finished them and had
our first flight yesterday morning.
There was no drama, everything went well. We got in a total of four
flights, two each. A few comments are as follows;
1) There is a slight tendency to roll right, most noticeable a 100+ kts.
We are not sure yet what is causing this.
2) Very preliminary tests of the minimum sink rate were 400 fpm (at 50
kts indicated), later test indicated 350 fpm (at 52 kts indicated) after
taping up the aileron and airbrake gaps. We had hoped for 250-280 fpm,
so we need to look for ways to improve this. Fairings for the
fixed-down outriggers are probably a good place to start.
3) The airbrakes are not as effective as the spoilers on the Katana
Extreme we got our glider ratings in last September. The air brakes
also cause a pitch/speed change, which causes some porpoising on landing
if the brakes are used to modulate your approach/flare. The plane also
tends to float a while in ground effect, even with full airbrakes on.
4) The mono-wheel twitchiness on the ground is greatly reduced by the
bigger, heavier wings.
5) The long wings add 103 pounds to empty weight, compared to the short
wings.
6) Stall speed is about 45 kts indicated, with and without airbrakes
applied. As stall speed approaches, the plane just gets loose and the
nose bobs up and down. No tendency to break, it just bobs up and down,
complaining about it. We haven't tried accelerated stalls yet.
Please note that these test are very preliminary.
Regards,
Terry Seaver
A135 / N135TD
Pleasanton, CA
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