I mad or
Hi all,
I am always intrigued by this perennial debate and I rarely
participate, however Nigel's comments made me think about the question
in a different context.
When I purchased my kit, (way back when) I was living in Australia at
the time and the Europa Mono wheel had a couple of important
attributes I needed, it would work off unimproved fields, and it
fitted on a pretty neat trailer fairly quickly so I could keep it at
home. When Ivan and friends designed this aircraft that is what its
mission statement was.
I remember thinking at the time, "well it looks a lot like some
gliders I have flown so it can't be all that hard to land". Well I
suppose with experience I know that assumption is wrong.
How hard is it?. I am having an interesting experience of teaching my
daughter to handle the aircraft in the landing ground roll out phase
and it made be realize that this is just an airplane that "keeps you
honest".
It is not until you teach and watch someone else that it becomes
apparent that the airplane demands accuracy from the down wind phase
until you have stopped. Nail the speeds and aim point and it all
falls into place, and the airplane has such nice aerodynamic qualities
that it isn't difficult to do any of this, it is just that it if you
don't pay attention to the basics then you start to fall behind.
The other interesting point Nigel makes is, once you move into the
Trigear category, then there are a lot of contenders to choose from,
and the differentiating attributes of a Europa become significantly
smaller. This is what makes the Europa mono wheel some what unique, it
meets its design criteria very well without many competing designs.
So which airplane is best, in my opinion, it comes down to your
mission statement.
Paul N378PJ
860 hours and still grinning every time I fly it.
|