03 AM 01 01 2000
Happy New Century and Millennium to all involved with Europas, EZs and
every other homebuilt aernear oplane. I hope it goes as well for everyone
as it began to go for us this afternoon on a small airfield in the middle
of old England. Mark and his friends have been working flat out for the
last three weeks to get the diesel engine airborn before Y2K. A week ago
Mark was the only one left among the lot of us, (around 10 including
various helpers lifters, fetchers etc) who had the confidence and drive to
keep on going for it, and that was before both he and I went down with 3
day flu. Nearer 5 in my case but I had the easy job. Sit in the plane and
fiddle with the levers. This morning I arrived at the factory to hear the
ring of spanners on concrete still going on, not a good sign. "Engine must
be female, it won't start now it's back in the plane {!:-< "
Well by 1 PM it started beautifully as though nothing was wrong. Little
matter of draining out a few corners where fuel or oil had collected during
the abuse between lifting the engine from its comfortable test bed and
hanging it on the front of a no doubt unconvinced aeroplane. No doubt also
of the other sex. ( I for one am glad there are only two.)
It took us another 2 hours to get to the stage of an airplane rigged, on a
cold misty field, but with an engine happily purring away. Even the
aeroplane seemed relaxed. We were not. However. It was felt that having got
this far we should get the wheels off the ground to justify all the effort
put in by a lot of people, often with little more to gain than thanks from
the guys at the sharp end. After some careful fast taxiing the third or
fourth run had generated enough confidence in the more nervous members of
the team, (me, Mark and no doubt Bill Wynne, who knows about these things,
) not many seconds after full power the Europa was very definitely off the
ground and letting me know in no uncertain manner that we should land
immediately. It was going to be foggy much higher than this, 10 feet or
less and there wasn't much runway left. So that was it. Enough excitement,
enough euphoria too , let's go home.
A thought, at 1530 GMT or thereabouts were we aairborn in both 1999 and
2000? It was 2K on the other side of the planet, after lal.
Was it worth all the effort? Quite a few people have asked Mark " do we
really need to fly before millennium? so soon? can we really get ready in
time, Why?" Can't we pack in some more dyno testing and get it right
first?" What will a few hops tell us?"
All valid questions. What I would say is that now we've done it we know
quite a lot that we couldn't have learnt any other way. Will it work?
Emphatically yes. (IMHO) I have never felt a smoother surge of power from a
piston engine in an airplane before. Haven't flown a Merlin of course, but
only 3 cylinders and smoother than a six? No clatter from gearboxes,
torsional dampers, whatever. Wonderful. Watching the engine run for the
first time in the aeroplane after the noise in the dyno room was amazing.
So quiet. No vibrating brackets exhausts etc around the engine bay. Just an
engine sat there purring smoothly to itself. You will know how noisy a
Europa cockpit can be at full chat. Not with this engine, the exhaust note
is a mellifluous hum, no diesel clatter much to my surprise, and not that
much prop noise either. (BTW, a perfectly balanced out of the box MT
electric constant speed.) We learnt the most important fact. Is it going to
work? Definitely.
For now, it's back to the dyno . A lot of optimisation of ancillary
systems to do, weight to trim off and reliability to prove. We now know
that its worth doing and possible.Some of us know we can't wait!
So ,a lot of thanks are due. The Wilksch team for the design and concept
and guts to do it, Bill Wynne for the airframe support essential to the
project, investors prepared to put in a lot of cash to keep 2 or 3 young
families eating while Dad develops an engine, Europa for the aeroplane that
could do the job. Lots of folks who were there when needed especially my
young brother Lennie, well 50 is young isn't it? but not least to one of
the best friends European aviation has in these times of bureaucratic and
political nightmare, Francis Donaldson of the PFA, who gave us his time,
understanding, encouragement and trust.
Had my adrenaline, champagne, Aussie and French, seen the Chinese,
Russians, and nearly all the rest share their fun with the world, sorry
about the nuts who didn't see that the world just recognised an oportunity
to share a numerical coincidence of a two and three noughts .
Happy New Year folks and BTW that engine is definitely female, and gorgeous.
Graham
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