Ilona & Frans,
Congratulations on the first flight of PH-DIY! Sounds like you folks did an
excellent
job in the build.
Have a wonderful time learning about your new flying machine and its wondrous
capabilities.
Wishing you severe clear,
Bob Borger
On Tuesday, April 20, 2010, at 12:50PM, "Frans Veldman" <frans@privatepilots.nl>
wrote:
>Hi everyone!
>
>Today, at 12:25 LT on EHHO, PH-DIY made his first flight.
>Conditions were vulcanic ash, 17-22 KN head wind (straight on the runway).
>
>According to the test pilot, the PH-DIY flies beautifully, straight and
>balanced, can be flown hands-off, with a very slight tendency for left
>(but this can be attributed to the asymmetric load). Only the rudder
>seems to be a bit out of balance: there is always some "right rudder"
>required. A trim tab would solve this. This needs some investigation.
>
>Stals:
>The stall is, clean and dirty, benign. Some buffetting, and then nothing
>really happens, he just parachutes down. Absolutely no wing drop. "Like
>a Cessna" according to the test pilot.
>Stall clean is at approximately 50 Knots, with full flaps it is 42 knots.
>
>Performance:
>The pilot was amazed at the performance of this airplane.
>Climb was 1500ft/min with 80 knots, with the power to 100% (not 115%).
>Cruise was with 4200 rpm and a manifold pressure of 28 good for 120
>knots IAS (the airspeed indicator has been calibrated to a maximum
>deviation of 1 knots).
>Conditions were somewhat turbulent, but performance data was verified in
>a sequence of tries (because the pilot had some trouble to believe this
>data, he tried it a few times at some distances apart to rule out local
>updrafts).
>We have had some temperature problems on the early ground runs, but
>although the temperatures on the ground still have a tendency to rise,
>during flight the temperatures were actually quite low (this was with
>the cowl flap 3/4 open, I asked the pilot to leave it at this setting to
>keep things simple and comparable).
>
>Quirks:
>The PH-DIY needs constant right rudder. If anyone has a good idea what
>the cause can be and/or what to do about this, let us know!
>In cruise, there is some down trim necessary. Trim setting is not in the
>middle of the scale. I believe that this is a common thing, but I have
>not yet checked the Europa forum archive for this.
>
>Comments:
>After some horror stories of Europa's that flip upside down on the
>stall, we are very pleased with the benign stall characteristics of the
>PH-DIY. The performance data is better than we expected, and we will of
>course repeat the tests. (We have Fred Klein's wing root fairings, a
>radically trimmed down and optimized cooling duct, and of course this
>"can't be true" 2-blade high twist large diameter prop, so we expected
>performance to be on the good side of the scale, but this is more than
>we accounted for).
>
>Well, tomorrow we will give the PH-DIY a thorough check, so if weather
>cooperates we will saterday fly ourselves (first with an instructor of
>course).
>
>Pictures of the first flight can be found on our website at
>www.privatepilots.nl/europa/firstflight.htm
>
>Ilona & Frans
>
>
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