Hello All.
When you get to page 2+ on the forum it means to me its a tricky subject under
discussion. When you have flown four engines then come down to flying on 2
engines
flying with one engine become unthinkable.
And the older you get, the wiser you become in valuing your life.
I agree mainly with Jonathan's comments, but I have flown 10,000 hours on single
engine aeroplanes with only one forced landing, and that when part of the prop
decided not to stay with the aeroplanein an inverted spin, really can,t be
call an engine failure. So I have had 10,000 hours safely on one engine,
admittedly
not Rotax engines in home built aeroplanes.The engine does not know it it's
at night, in cloud or over water. Personally I would rather have engine failure
in a light aeroplane at night over land rather than over water.My preference
maybe not yours, however I have taught hundreds of night forced landings,and
estimate 80% would have been reasonably successful.
Please don't post replies; if you like it remember it and I hope it serves you
well if needed; if you don't like it delete it and forget it. You won't find
this
in the text books but it's from thousands of hours of hands on flying and
instructing and just passing it on to you.
Provided the surface wind is below 12 kts forget about it, usually at night the
surface wind decreases and the 2,000 foot wind increases.
At night you want forward visibility, if you have a moon turn towards it, your
visibility will now be more than doubled. Choose your open area, get your
speed
back in the glide to a slow safe glide speed, do all the odds and ends on
the way down. When ready get your flaps down so pointing the nose more down.
Here's the interesting bit: on the C150 we opened the side window and stuck our
heads out, holding on straight with a bit of crossed controls. With the Perplexe
gone a further 5 times increase in visibility is possible, you can see fields,
trees and power lines. In fact its like landing at dusk.
A Europa, will fly without a door. Somehow I would get the door open enough, by
what ever means necessary, to get my head out so as to see ahead. As we know
---From a recent thread the door will happily leave the aeroplane if unlocked,
one
lost door is not important in this situation. But you can hold it open with
one hand until the wheels touch.
The Europa is no different to any other single engine aeroplane at night, it
does
not know night from day, so the chances of failure are the same.
The only thing I would say, the brakes are not as good as a C150 s which will
stop
you on a six pence (dime, 2 cents etc) and that's a plus when it comes to
force landings.
As for flying the Europa in IMC, again in the 60s/70s we did at least 70% of the
course in cloud. I find it hard to believe the whole course can now be done
under the hood where you can peek out.
Cloud is a hostile environment it's bumpy, wet, cold, and dark. With or without
"Know Icing", icing occurs and many aircraft have a point of first detection,
on the C150 it was the little door latch just below the wing,
So if you have done all your IMC rating in VFR you have no experience of this
hostile
environment. Disorientation only take a couple of minutes and losing the
A/H in bumpy cloud in a Europa is not the same as flying in VFR under the hood
on limited panel.
I know owners and groups can receive training and a currency test on a Europa,
but I can find no reference to adding ratings. A heated pitot is required for
IMC, it's checked on the Pre Flight, it's Turned on in the Checks
list,and on entering cloud it's part of the instrument checklist "heaters check
on". I can not see the CAA allowing imaginary checks, in fact if you failed
to do these checks you would fail the IMC.
If the Europa is fitted with all the kit will be fine in cloud, provide you keep
away from stormy weather, and fly in layer cloud or climb and come out on top.
The Europa is very light, and not meant for turbulent cloud, The aeroplane will
handle it better than the pilots, because IFR is a high work load and requires
constant practice to keep currant.
And if you fly on an NPPL of LAPL you can,t add a IMC rating to it.
Regards.
Alan
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