Marcel, welcome to the forum. I won't go on too much about the Europa other
than to say it is fun to fly, economical and fairly fast - you will
probably no most of this already. I fly a monowheel and would advise your
findings about crosswinds are correct, the mono can be tricky and I am told
by pilot's far more experienced than me, that they are quite different to
fly than other taildraggers.
I would strongly advise that if someone allows you to take off a mono
without an instructor or well experienced pilot on type with you, you tread
carefully.
Having said that, in normal conditions and wind direction it is quite
docile, but must hold your complete concentration at all times.
I would not consider a trike or conventional set up but that is simply my
choice, I like retractables. And if you do decide to take the plunge you
will love the flying, and I strongly recommend a VP prop - I sit behind an
Airmaster and think it's the best addition you can fit.
Interestingly at our strip we have a Tecnam Sierra, Sport Cruiser and RV9.
I have flown in formation with the Tecnam and can confirm it appears
significantly slower, The Sport Cruiser is yet to start its test programme
but I suspect will perform the same, and the RV9 is pretty much untouchable
!
Hope this helps, good luck !
Tony.
Original Message:
-----------------
From: zwakie marcel@zwakie.com
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2008 22:12:26 +0300
Subject: Europa-List: Mono or Tri-Gear, what to choose?
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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