Chris,
Two comments:
There is nothing wrong with the NACA duct. They work well. The only issue I
have
is they take room to install properly. They work great in conjunction with
an air deflector or ball shut off, but it is somewhat long and protrudes into
the cockpit. Properly ducted and maintainable, they are great.
The only reason I liked the Ultimate ventilator was it is easy to install and is
acceptable for use in the Europa lower windscreen and or side of the aircraft.
Not perfect but it allowed me to have an easy to direct airflow into the cockpit
that still sealed when at altitude with minimal effort.
As far as Mono landings/decoupling the flaps and gear: David Joyce is spot on.
Eric Trombley has a slick setup, but it is not retrofittable easily. He did
much work to make it full proof.
The mono is unique. It is not a tail dragger at all. It is a monocycle with a
cheater wheel on the rear. Think of it as a conventional with stiff gear that
are placed six inches apart.
I wrote about my technique. Like David, I touch tailwheel first. If you cannot
comfortably fly the plane into ground effect and hold it inches above the runway
until the speed bleeds off and continue to slow until the tail wheel touches
first, the landings can be sporty. The Europa has honest and light controls
that allow the pilot to precisely fly the aircraft in formation with other
aircraft and in formation with the runway. In my opinion, you must learn to
slow
flight precisely down the runway constantly correcting for the winds and
turbulence
while holding exact fuselage alignment with precise small rudder inputs
until reaching the landing attitude (which is still above the stall I might
add) until the nose has raised high enough to allow the plane to settle tail
wheel first which will immediately drop the main wheel to the runway. Don't
relax the stick. Keep the stick back and don't relax until in the chocks.
Wheel
landings are not an option.
One must be patient with a fixed pitch prop set IAW the Rotax manual on a
912/914
engine. There is much float due to residual thrust in the flare with a fixed
pitch cruise prop. This keeps your plane flying much longer than is normal
(or tolerable in my opinion). Much has been discussed on this and some may
approach
as low as 55Knots. At 55Knots the plane is behind the power curve and
only 10 knots above the stall when loaded. The sink is quite pronounced unless
power is kept on. Once in the runway proximity, nose high, if the power is
cut over a hard surface runway, it is very easy to drop in and if not in exact
runway alignment, it can get sporty. Like many others, I'm comfortable with
a 60 KIAS stabilized approach. Your inflight final approach RPM is normally
still
a high 22-2400 RPM even at idle. I put the nose on the aimpoint and pull
a bit of power, if still on, to cross the threshold about 55 IAS and concentrate
on maintaining runway alignment. I maintain a slow flight attitude as close
to the runway as possible and retard any power remaining and patiently wait
for the float to diminish and try to get a two point landing. If the main
touches
first I just keep flying the plane and keeping it straight until it finally
settles. Never relax and keep flying through the rollout.
A constant speed prop tends to cut out that painfully long float over a hot hard
surfaced runway. The blades flatten and with an idle of about 1600-1800 static
and allow a simple throttle retard and a smooth round out to the landing
attitude.
A fully finished airplane with a slick paint job has excellent slow flight
characteristics
so practice.
Consider setting tire pressure to 16PSI to reduce bounce.
Grass strips are more forgiving to land on. Less float and a bit softer bounce
if any provided it is a smooth runway.
Enough of my ramblings. You can read my paper on landing the mono on my website
and on the Europa Club website. .
Bud Yerly
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-europa-list-server@matronics.com
<owner-europa-list-server@matronics.com>
On Behalf Of n7188u
Sent: Thursday, May 27, 2021 5:22 PM
Subject: Europa-List: Re: Vents (again)
Thanks for the reply.
I would inquire but the Europa Club web site says "Following a successful
initial
run of 20, a further batch is being considered, subject to interest." so it
kind of sounds like it's not available right now. But I haven't really email
to ask.
But are NACA scoops really that bad in the Europa? RVs use them and my LongEZ
has
a tiny one that provides air to the entire cabin. Works really well!
Chris
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