It is nice to read all this information and opinions.
I believe the Europa was originally designed for 30 degrees flaps. It seems to
me that you don't deliberately design for 27 degrees, but choose a common round
number, like 30. Also the strap on the outboard hinge points into this
direction.
As someone pointed out, after flight testing it appeared that 30 degrees caused
the mono to fly off prematurely, so they limited the flaps to 27 degrees. It
is unlikely that the flap structure has been weakened afterwards, so the flaps
are most likely able to handle 30 degrees.
For the rest it is a matter of personal preference whether you take advantage of
this information. 3 degrees may not be worth the trouble to fuss with, on the
other hand some of us go through great extends for 3 knots more speed, or 3
kilo's less weight, etc. It is tempting to achieve the best figures possible,
even if they are unlikely to make a noticeable difference in real life.
I agree that cranking out 40 degrees of flaps is not a good idea, the 40 degrees
was only mentioned to point out that some airplanes have it and that it proves
to be very useful. Basically you can't have too much flaps, especially not
in a airplane that builds up speed very easily during a descent. In that
respect,
a maximum of 25 degrees of flaps is not ideal.
BTW, We don't necessarily have to think in the direction of "more" flaps, "less"
flaps (negative) is also possible with a longer stroke. Some people played with
the idea to implement a negative flap option, but so far nobody actually seems
to have tried it. Otherwise I would love to hear about that too.
It would be nice if we could get to know what maximums the flap system could
structurally
deal with.
Frans
Visit - www.EuropaOwners.org
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