Hi Marcel,
You have touched on a hotly debated subject - Mono versus Trigear.
I originally built a Monowheel Europa with a Rotax 912S and Airmaster
variable pitch prop. It was a very capable aircraft, enormous fun to fly
and no real problem taking off and landing on grass. I found it quite
challenging to land in a crosswind on tarmac and eventually decided to
convert the aircraft to Trigear configuration. It is now a much more
forgiving aircraft to land in crosswinds but it does not enjoy bumpy grass
so much. If the aircraft has been modified to fit steel nosewheel springs
instead of the original bungee cords it can get quite "bouncy" if not
handled carefully on bumpy surfaces.
As with most aircraft types, once you have developed your technique none of
these things are a real problem.
Most Trigear are about 16Kg heavier than an equivalent Monowheel and tend to
use slightly more fuel. The difference only really shows up on long
distance touring were the Mono has the edge on performance. If you intend
to do long distance touring and want to exploit the full capacity of the
aircraft in terms of full fuel, two people and ample baggage, look for a
Europa that is no more than 400Kg empty weight.
>From a pure enjoyment angle I found the Mono much more challenging and much
more fun. As a Trigear it gives me a much more relaxed flying experience
and more enjoyable touring.
There are a number of high quality Europas fore sale at the moment so this
is a good time to buy. I suggest you join the Europa Club and get access to
a great deal of additional help and information. Go to their website
www.europaclub.org.uk and follow the links to join online.
Best regards
Brian Davies, Membership Sec.
The Europa Club
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-europa-list-server@matronics.com
[mailto:owner-europa-list-server@matronics.com] On Behalf Of zwakie
Sent: 22 August 2008 20:12
Subject: Europa-List: Mono or Tri-Gear, what to choose?
I'm new here, so let me first introduce myself: my name is Marcel, 45 years
of age and from The Netherlands. I am a private pilot license holder since a
couple of years, currently about 125 hours in my logbook and thinking about
buying my own plane. I have decided to go for an Europa (I guess you all the
know the reasons why :wink: ), and instead of building one myself I will be
looking for one that is for sale.
During my search on the web I also visited the Air Accidents Investigations
Branch website, and what kind of struck me there is the high number of
incident-reports involving Europa's, even though the trend seems to be fewer
incidents occur over time. I have read most of these reports (don't ask!) to
learn more about Europa's and what to expect from this type of aircraft.
One picture that evolved from these reports was that a relative high number
of incidents occurred with the mono-gear type.
Besides incidents with technical causes, a significant number of mono-gear
incidents were caused by pilot error: not lowering and locking the gear or
not being able to properly deal with cross- and/or gusty winds seem to be
the two most common causes.
What surprised me was that of these pilot-error incidents occurred with
experienced pilots on the controls (experienced as in: lots and lots of
hours, quite often also with hundreds of hours on type).
Obviously incidents also occurred on the nose wheel types due to cross-
and/or gusty winds, but the number of incidents were significantly lower.
Well, I guess you will know where this is leading: I will have to decide
between a mono-gear or nose-wheel Europa, and would like to find out if
flying the mono-gear is that much more difficult as compared to the
nose-wheel. I also would like to get some idea of how a nose-wheel Europa
compares to f.i. Cessna's 152/172 in terms of handling it in take-off and
landings.
All information that you can provide to help me in my decision-making
process is highly appreciated!
Visit - www.EuropaOwners.org
Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com
06:48
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