Test Flying

I have decided to write this page up to share with everyone how I went about preparing N378PJ for the initial test flights and how I prepared myself.  Test flying your own aircraft is not something to be undertaken lightly, and as a general comment I would suggest that,  if at all possible you engage the help of a professional test pilot,  or someone with a high degree of experience in type. In my case I considered it as a last resort,  at that particular time the Europa company was having difficulties and there wasn't anyone available to do it for me.

Inspection

The first piece of advice is around inspection.   It sounds pretty obvious,   but I continually frustrated myself on how many plain nuts I discovered after I thought I have finished with my inspection.  Another thing I found was that many of the rod ends locking nuts were loose.   In several cases one locking nut was okay and the other was not.  It is really worth while to get several other sets of eyes over it.  I used both an EAA Technical councilor and a licensed A & P to go over my aircraft before the final FAA inspector.  Both people found stuff that I had missed.  In my case the FAA inspector also found things he didn't like, but to be fair they were not things like loose or wrong nuts. 

The Europa manual has a list of final inspection items to be checked off.  At a first glance they seem like things that you have already done,  and to some extent they are,  but don't skim through this,  you will be surprised how much you discover as you go through it.  The FAA also have a document available titled "Amateur Aircraft and Ultra light Flight testing handbook A90-89a"  Its available from and FAA Flight Standards district office and its an excellent reference document.

Pay particular attention to anything that you have modified,  especially in the area of fuel systems.  If you have made any changes in this area be sure that you're 100% confident of what you have done.  Just because 'so and so' on the Europa forum did it, it doesn't automatically become a good idea. 

Pilot Preparation

This was really easier said than done in my case.   First up, although I had accumulated about 700 hours of flight time, I didn't have any tail wheel experience.  I did have about 50 hours in sailplanes which have a similar landing configuration.  I went down to the local flying school and explained what I was doing and spent 10 hours getting a tailwheel endorsement in a Citaborea which was a very humbling experience.  I really thought that for a while I wasn't ever going to catch on and maybe this tail wheel thing wasn't such a great idea.

I live in the mid west of  the US and there aren't any monowheel Europa's around, but I persuaded Andy Draper to give me a few circuits in the monowheel when I was at Sun and Fun.  If you aren't able to get any monowheel time then I would suggest that you fly a least two to three different types of tail draggers to get used to the different characteristics that they have.  If you can, get a little bit of time in a Cub and maybe a Luscombe.

I am tempted to write up a few tips on flying the Europa here, but its really like trying to describe how to ride a bike,  you really have to do it.  I will offer up a couple of golden rules for the Europa. Come in with your speeds nailed, try and recall the attitude of the aircraft on the ground and add 5 degrees of up attitude, feel for the tailwheel touching, bring the stick back, and keep it hard back. 

What you want to avoid is coming too fast and / or land on the main wheel first.

Get it fixed in your mind to KEEP THAT TAILWHEEL ON THE GROUND all the time the airplane is between 10 and 40 knots. If you do that, it won't ground loop.

Aircraft preparation

The manual has you check if your system will support 125% of the fuel flow required for take off.  In addition to doing this I ran the fuel through a filter while rocking the aircraft to agitate the fuel as much as possible.  I ran the fuel completely though 4 times.  Naturally you need to be careful of static charge build up and the possibility of fire.  Even though I did this I was amazed and shocked at the amount of debris that my gascolator collected over the first 25 hours of flight,  particularly when you consider I had washed the tank out 4 times prior to installation and sealed it during construction. Every time I cleaned the gascolator I kept the residue and I collected up about 2 cubic centimeters of material over 25 hours..  I did read of one builder who bubbled compressed air into his tank while he ran it though a filter, and after my experience I would suggest that this idea is worth considering.  More than 70% of engine failures in homebuilt aircraft are due to fuel problems,   and half of homebuilt aircraft suffer a reduction or complete loss of power in the first 10 hours of flight.  Very sobering statistics. 

For me this was a really cool milestone,  it marked the time when I really thought this was going to be an airplane.  I did this on the apron in front of the hanger. I chocked up the aircraft and cranked it without spark to make sure I had oil pressure.  When I was ready to start it I left the top cowling off and had my mate standing by with a very large CO2 fire extinguisher just in case.

I took this pretty easy. For the first hour or so I taxied around at a walking pace just to get the engine loosened up.  I'd suggest that you put in a test patch for carbon monoxide,  I didn't have any problems, but other people have. One builder had a leak around the turbo charger and others have had problems with leaks finding there way into the cabin.  Once I was satisfied I secured the aircraft for a full power run up.  I would highly recommend this because it took me several attempts before I could get full take off power.  I tied the tail wheel to my car and placed an 80 pound bag of salt on the tailwheel spring, and used the biggest wheel chocks I could find on the main wheel.  I found 3 problems when I did my run ups,  a hose hitting the throttle linkage,  the turbo waste gate needing adjustment,  and the propeller pitch needing setup.  Once I had all of this working properly I did a full 5500 RPM run for 5 minutes to ensure that I could develop enough take off power to get me to pattern altitude and back on the ground.  Many people suggested to me that a couple of minutes was a sufficient test,  however I would recommend the full five minutes.  

Taxi tests

I did high and low speed taxi tests but I now debate in my mind the value of high speed taxi tests.   I certainly got value out of taxing around the airport to get comfortable with the monowheel. It was very valuable to get familiar with the position of controls, coordinating the rudder / engine power settings and generally just getting used to operating the aircraft.  They are also  particularly valuable to get familiar with the attitude on the ground and getting used to rapid recognition of any developing yaw.

If I was to do it over again I would not do high speed taxi tests.  The monowheel is a handful on the ground and this is the most critical phase of handling the aircraft. In addition the Europa doesn't have to be going very fast to get airborne.  Several years ago a Europa builder in the UK was killed doing taxi tests,  apparently he turned it over and was not wearing his seat belts.

This is something that you need to have done as part of your transponder set up, but I went one step further and had the shop check out the airspeed indicator and the vertical speed indicator.  While they can't tell you what your pitot position error is going to be, at least you will know that your ASI will be working and is likely to be in the ball park.  Its important to have the ASI reading pretty close in the 40 ~ 60 knot range for when you set your self up for landings.

I borrowed a bunch of equipment from friend for this.  I used a Nomex flight suit and gloves,  a parachute and a crash helmet. I also had a Halon fire extinguisher and crash axe on board.  This might sound like overkill,  but I was planning on a worst case outcome and every little thing that I could add to increase my survivability was worthwhile to me.  I also practiced getting out of the aircraft wearing all of this stuff.  I chatted with a couple of military pilots to get some ideas, and one valuable tip was to practice the emergency exit sequence. Trim full forward, canopy open, seat belts off, fuel off, master off, stand on the seat, let go of the stick and jump.  It might sound like overkill,   but my suggestion is to practice it until your comfortable with the sequence.

My airport has two runways,  giving me 4 options for take off.  Only two of them were really suitable,  the west and north directions have several potential landing spots in case of an engine out.  I took a low flight as a passenger over the area and took a long hard look at where I might land, noting trees and power lines.  The south and east facing runways were no good at all, both of them ending up over urban areas. The west runway was the best because at 5500 feet it allowed me to easily abort a take off and land straight ahead.  Essentially what you're looking for is a runway long enough to allow you to abort a take off and land, and to have plenty of open areas for emergency landings. A grass strip is nice if you can find it as it is far more forgiving for landing a monowheel, or any tail dragger for that matter.

For at least the first 3 flights you need to have a specific plan in mind and don't deviate from it.   I set my first flight parameters as a high ceilings, winds 5 knots and no more than 20 degrees off the center line for the west facing runway. I decided on a simple first flight, take off, one circuit, leave the gear down and land.

After my first flight I took the aircraft back to the hanger,  pulled all of the covers off and gave every thing a look over. I then hoisted the aircraft and did a gear retraction test in preparation for flight number 2.

The second flight was gear up, climb to 3000 feet, clean and dirty stall tests and land.  The third flight was one hour, 3500 feet circling over the airport. 

With hindsight I would not have done it this way.  If I was to do it again I would have retracted the gear on the first flight and spent a good 30 or 40 minutes flying in safe gliding distance of a landing sight.  I would have done a control check out, (nothing too aggressive) and then worked up to clean and dirty stalls, paying particular attention to a sudden wing drop.

Its really a funny feeling when there is nothing left to do.  I mentally ran through my check lists and every thing was good to go.  I chose not to tell anyone, I wanted to be able to taxi the aircraft out,  and feel no pressure about changing my mind.  A day finally came around that was clear over head, winds 10 degrees off the center line at around 5 ~ 8 knots.  I suited up, called ground control and taxied out to runway 28. I ran the engine up to 34"@ 5500 rpm did one final scan of the engine parameters and let it rip. It was going to either fly or I was going to be on the 6 o'clock news  Its amazing how quickly the aircraft accelerates and gets off the ground.   I let it accelerate up to 70 knots and settled into a climb up to pattern altitude.  I did a quick scan of the engine parameters ,and then turned onto a downwind leg. I flew a long, high down wind to get the feel of all of the controls and once I decided that everything was fine I set up my speeds and turned base.  I set final up at 60 knots and bounced my landing.  Rather than mess with it I gave it full power and came around again.  This time I came in at 50 knots and this was too slow,  the rate of sink was way too high for my power setting and I had to really give it a lot of power to retrieve the situation.  I think I did one of my better landings for my first try, I certainly know that  I have subsequently done a lot worse! 

I put the aircraft away, and went down to the store and got a few bottles of Champaign to share with my friends that evening. All in all it was a fine day after 5 years of work

Naturally it doesn't end there. I followed a lot of the ideas outlined in the FAA guide AC90-89a for flying off my 40 hours.  I didn't venture out of gliding distance of an airport for the first 5 hours, and even after that flew over open farm land. After 5 hours I did some flights that joined several airports.

I did my airspeed, climb, Vx and Vy data collections based on methods published in Sport Aviation,  and I found my numbers to be almost identical to what is published by Europa. I was surprised by the amount of error in the ASI and I haven't really debugged that to my satisfaction.

Over the fly off period I slowly got comfortable with the aircraft and I can now manage it comfortably in most conditions. I find the area that requires the most concentration is in the 40 to 25 knot range after landing, if you don't hold the stick back and stay on top of the directional control the aircraft will bite you. With that said don't be intimidated, I learned to handle the monowheel which means that anyone can!