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Restoring a Europa

IO390 wrote:

It happily cruises at 135kt TAS on approx 18-20l/hr, which is quite amazing really.

Wow. That is bloody amazing, given that you say it only has a 80 hp engine.

The Dynon horizons are quite good. I got a legacy D1 and it works very well indeed as a back up to the standard ones. For a VFR plane like yours, if you don’t need vaccum for other stuff, maybe keep it there. After all, you don’t need a TSO’d horizon really.

IO390 wrote:

In all, a great success. It shows how cheaply one can obtain and operate a touring aeroplane, though I must admit my friend did get a really good deal on the initial purchase. I’ve heard of C172 annuals that cost the same as this whole plane and restoration cost. Of course, one could spend 10k on flashy avionics but it wouldn’t make it go any faster, or improve the capability of this day VFR only aircraft.

Sounds right. The Europa appears to be a really nice tourer with that speed. Looking at the specs, it also has quite a respectable range. What is the fuel capacity, standard or long range?

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Nice plane

It’s about 10 kts slower than a standard Vari-eze on about the same fuel burn (the Eze has a 170 kt max speed on 100 HP) but the Europa has the benefit of side-by-side seating. Both have compromised landing gear designs but the Europa can be flown from soft surfaces, which is another good thing if that’s what you need.

Last Edited by Silvaire at 14 Nov 16:08

Good job, congratulations!

Fantastic that speed. I’m a little puzzled though. At which altitude did you measure that 135 KTAS? If you burn 18-20 ltr/hr with a Rotax 80HP, that may have been at a relatively low altitude of a few thousand feet at full throttle, which is not what you may want to do all the time, but that’s a different matter. So that would compare to a typical 75-80% power setting on a Rotax 100HP. But the latter power setting on aircraft like the Blackshape, TL-stream and probably Shark and Tarragon yields 125-135 KTAS. These are very sleek tandem seaters with fully retractable landing gear. So someone has done a wonder job designing the Europe!

Private field, Mallorca, Spain

aart wrote:

So someone has done a wonder job designing the Europe!

Well, I think the correct for this bird is Europ*a*, as in EuroG*A*
As far as Europe the continent goes…

Still, 135KTAS is good, and using 18l/h is very good. My retiree settings on my O-360 180hp powered bird are 19/2000 = 43% power on a typical day, giving +/- 130KTAS at 4Kft using 20.7l/h. It all kind of makes sense really, no wonders here.

@Silvaire, the 170KT you quote are typical sales figures… the very nicely built VariEze I owned for a while was powered by a 95hp C-90, but barely reached 150KIAS flat out. Weird bird which we could discuss in another thread altogether

Last Edited by Dan at 15 Nov 08:22
Dan
ain't the Destination, but the Journey
LSZF, Switzerland

@Dan, I was once on a cross-country in a friend’s Comanche 180, flying along at 135 kt cruise, or very slightly less. Meanwhile another guy in his Varieze was (literally) flying circles around us to slow down to that speed across the landscape. In the end he got bored and went ahead. It would do 200 mph indicated, or 174 kts flat out on an 0-200.

One of the local airports, in fact the one where my friends Comanche was based, has a gaggle of Ezes in adjacent hangars. Every group needs a slang name so we call them the Eze Nerds They do make them go pretty well.

Last Edited by Silvaire at 15 Nov 14:58

Silvaire wrote:

It would do 200 mph indicated, or 174 kts flat out on an 0-200

yep, and probably Reno style turning 3’300RPM or more. Not really what I call cruise performance

Dan
ain't the Destination, but the Journey
LSZF, Switzerland

Perhaps so, I wasn’t looking at the tach

Looks like you are making good progress IO360. I have a Europa Classic thats been converted to a tri-gear. Mine to is a rolling restoration. Been down the same route with hoses and carb rebuilds. Still plenty I need to do. I notice that your aircraft doesnt have the cold air plenum fitted. Not come across a Europa without one. Reading TADS it was mandatory mod back in 2000.
http://www.lightaircraftassociation.co.uk/engineering/TADs/247%20EUROPA.pdf
http://www.lightaircraftassociation.co.uk/engineering/TADs/247/sb%205.pdf

Near Luton

@146fixer agree I have not seen another Europa without one, though I didn’t know it was actually mandatory. Perhaps the TADS is incorrect on that.

The plane did come with a plenum so the plan is to fit this, as well as moving the oil cooler to its own duct below in the lower cowl. Cabin heat is on the to do list also.

This plane belongs to @jgazzard95 – I’ve just been working on it :)

Last Edited by IO390 at 25 Nov 22:01
United Kingdom

IO390 wrote:

This turned out to be a pain in the backside to bleed

Is that mounted upside down (for bleeding purposes at least) ?

Congratulations with a job well done. Looks super nice

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway
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