I'm new here, so let me first introduce myself: my name is Marcel, 45 years of
age and from The Netherlands. I am a private pilot license holder since a couple
of years, currently about 125 hours in my logbook and thinking about buying
my own plane. I have decided to go for an Europa (I guess you all the know the
reasons why :wink: ), and instead of building one myself I will be looking
for one that is for sale.
During my search on the web I also visited the Air Accidents Investigations
Branch
website, and what kind of struck me there is the high number of incident-reports
involving Europa's, even though the trend seems to be fewer incidents occur
over time. I have read most of these reports (don't ask!) to learn more about
Europa's and what to expect from this type of aircraft.
One picture that evolved from these reports was that a relative high number of
incidents occurred with the mono-gear type.
Besides incidents with technical causes, a significant number of mono-gear
incidents
were caused by pilot error: not lowering and locking the gear or not being
able to properly deal with cross- and/or gusty winds seem to be the two most
common causes.
What surprised me was that of these pilot-error incidents occurred with
experienced
pilots on the controls (experienced as in: lots and lots of hours, quite
often also with hundreds of hours on type).
Obviously incidents also occurred on the nose wheel types due to cross- and/or
gusty winds, but the number of incidents were significantly lower.
Well, I guess you will know where this is leading: I will have to decide between
a mono-gear or nose-wheel Europa, and would like to find out if flying the
mono-gear
is that much more difficult as compared to the nose-wheel. I also would
like to get some idea of how a nose-wheel Europa compares to f.i. Cessna's
152/172 in terms of handling it in take-off and landings.
All information that you can provide to help me in my decision-making process is
highly appreciated!
Visit - www.EuropaOwners.org
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