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30 MAY 2003
Both returned from our respective holidays, Peter went golfing in Spain, Ian went to Sicily to meet the mafia. Spent ages trying to get the flap to fit properly. It was a very fiddly job and involved about ten pairs of mole grips and as many swear words. But it was a lovely feeling when it all worked. Here is the wing (upside down) with the flap and aileron attached.


The port wing, now almost complete

The calendar girl for May and June...shame June is a short month.

1 - 9 JUNE 2003
Lots of preparation and lay ups in the starboard wing. It seems much easier second time round. We are both also preparing for London to Brighton Bike Ride next Sunday. We are doing this in aid of the British Heart Foundation and the Europa Plane Builders Thigh Muscle Development Fund.

15 JUNE 2003
We completed the London to Brighton Bike Ride. Decided that we will install additional pedals so if the Rotax engine quits, we'll just pedal away to the nearest airfield.

17 JUNE 2003
Broke the 500 hours barrier. This is the legal minimum for a UK home built aircraft. Strangely enough it is also the time quoted in the Europa promotional video as the estimated total for the build. Just as well we weren't planning to fly it tomorrow...we still have no cockpit, tail plane, rudder, canopy, engine, instruments, undercarriage, lights, seats, electrical system, fuel system, paint, or propeller.

25 JUNE 2003
We've had enough of the wings for the time being so started working on the tailplanes for a change. We have to fix hinges on the trim tabs. Peter had a tooth ache, so in order to distract his attention from the pain Ian messed up the cutting of the hinge wire. This gave Peter something to do......i.e. thinking up some new names to call Ian.

3 JULY 2003
Our PFA inspector, Barry called to check our progress. There were a couple of minor fixes we need to do (small air bubbles) and he gave us several helpful hints particularly about accessing components when the plane is completed.

11 JULY 2003
We flew in our Piper Archer to the PFA rally at Kemble. A glorious day even if the arrival procedure was very manic. We examined the build quality of 30 or so Europas and found huge variations. Picked up lots of hints and Peter even forgot about his toothache.


Enjoying the sunshine at the PFA rally

A nice line of Europas

10 August 2003
A rather sporadic few weeks in which the building rate suffered due to holidays, high humidity and Ian's bout of tennis elbow. According to peter this injury was not caused by repetitive arm movements sanding parts of the Europa, but by the repetitive arm movement needed by hitting the golf club so many times during the course of a round! Anyway, we managed to complete the wings, and now turn our attention to the fuselage. We borrowed a very nifty stand to enable us to rotate the fuselage when we work on the underside - this was given to us courtesy of Mike Clews and John Cliff ( picture here).

We also decided to store the top of the fuselage outside for a few weeks to give us space to work on our bottom, so to speak. Here it is all wrapped in cling film ready for the oven:

 

Later