Hi everyone,
My partner, James Murphy and I are building kit #176. We seem to be making
slower progress than many (not that that's important if you're having fun!),
in that we're just getting to the end of the tail kit and saving up for the
wings. It's getting away from the household chores that's the problem!
I've been finding the Q&A's on this list extremely interesting and helpful,
but would welcome seeing some of the earlier correspondence from when people
were building their tails. Is there an archive?
We've had no major problems, apart from keeping trailing edges straight (our
rudder was bowed by about a quarter of an inch, fixed by clamping it to a
straight edge and baking it for 24 hours at gas mark 1.5 in our curing oven),
but find it frustrating not knowing what standard we are aiming at. Our
inspector seems happy enough, though, so I guess we can't be doing too badly.
Incidentally, our inspector has advised us that we SHOULD peel ply the whole
surface of layups, to further remove excess resin and to make a smoother
surface (needing less filler to finish). He assured us that tales of
structural weakening are rubbish, and sent us out to buy a roll of dacron
(well, actually the stuff you line coats and jackets with). Is this just a
contentious subject for speculation, or is there actually any hard evidence
either way?
I too was concerned by the high weight of the first flier - congratulations,
by the way. I don't accept that 100 lbs can be generated by the odd wet
layup and a thick coat of paint, particularly as more than half the laying
up (the fuselage) is done by the factory. Mind you, having hefted the
instrument panel being displayed by RS at Cranfield, I can see where some of
it may come from. I think I'd rather go for fewer smaller instruments and
not panic so much about removing every gram of surplus resin!
On the subject of the instument panel, are James and I the only ones who
don't like it? I know it's one of Ivan's pet design features, but the way
it is curved does rather turn the Europa into a one pilot plane. Surely it
must be possible to design the thing so the chap in the right hand seat can
fly it as easily as the one in the left?
This does seem to have become a rather lenghty note - first-timer's brain
dump I suppose! I'll let you get back to building (and flying) now. Best
of luck, everyone.
Matthew.
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