Hello,
Thought l would add my opinion on this matter. I own G-IPOD a 100hp 912ULS XS
trigear, empty weight 889lb. As an aeronautical engineer (stress being my
specialist
subject!) l pay a lot of attention to the relative performance of my aircraft
to others. Having attended the Popham AGM, LAA Rally, AeroExpo, Aero,
SunNFun, Airventure, etc l gathered subjective data of T/O, landing
performances.
As far as Europa's go, for ground T/O performance (meaning the take off roll
distance)
all the Europas l have seen (encompassing 80 hp mono to 115 hp superships
like Frans') all appear to get off within 20-30m of each other. What happens
next seems power dominated (climb rate, etc). But as far as clearing the
end of a short strip l don't think you have anything to worry about (500m) at
1370 lb MAUW.
Aerodynamically the mono starts off at a disadvantage (high alpha plus full flap
hence high drag), the trigear with sensible tyre pressures on grass (with 15
deg flap) may even have lower drag at this stage. As the T/O alpha doesn't
change
a lot for the mono (tail lifts at 25-30kts?) it probably has a drag benefit
during the 2nd part of the T/O run.
An exception to the above maybe a 80hp trigear with fixed pitch prop, but l
cannot
recall seeing one of those recently.
Once off the ground achieve Vx or Vy as needed and let the wings do the work.
Happy T/O and landings.
--------
John Wighton
Europa XS trigear G-IPOD
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