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November 2005

Barry came and inspected the wings. Only nine little snags including a dodgy rivet on the torque tube which we would never have spotted. We fixed all these and the wings are now ready for closing up forever (we hope).

We were very lucky to have Ian and Irene over to help and an extra bonus was Terry (builder of G-IRON) which had its maiden flight this month. As an ex panel-beater Terry gave us lots of hints about how to minimise the filling. He also brought round some cream cakes.

A potential Europa Builder (Goff Moore) also came round. See his web site here. We spent three hours trying to put him off, but he still seems quite keen.

Flaps all nicely wrapped in parcel tape
Terry tests out our super glue
Irene gets to work with her icing bag
Terry gets in some practice for his folk singing
All covered in Araldite 420
This is Goff (in the middle) . He was thinking of building a Europa until he met us.
"Don't be embarrassed - I used to be a nurse"
Weighted down with reams of very expensive accountant's paper (That means very expensive accountant and cheap paper)
Ian Rickard takes a short break for his daily meditation
Both wings all finished

JANUARY 2006

Text from Peter:

As Ian has been away on holiday yet again (for a month this time!) I have insisted that he use my own text for the write up of projects undertaken in his absence.
He left virtually the day after we glued the wing skins on.

I spent the next couple of weeks filling and sanding, filling and sanding and then a bit more filling and sanding. The tennis elbow returned but I fought through the pain!
After a bit more filling and sanding I decided a change was needed and I completed the cut outs in the underside of the wing that house the aileron mass balance arms.
I also spent some time thereafter trying to make them look a bit more symmetrical.

I also did the final lay-ups on the wing roots that used our last remaining supply of uni. I think that is a good sign meaning we are nearing the possibility of finishing the build!

I thought the next good job to tackle was the windows for the doors. The instructions seemed pretty clear but I could see all sorts of problems. I needed six pairs of hands and had to keep the glue only in the places I wanted it. I made a spare hand (see pictures), which worked perfectly. Thank heaven we had the engine hoist to use as a prop for the hand! The first door I tackled was the passenger side (good job, as if I cocked it up it wouldn’t spoil the pilots view). I was quite mean with the glue because I didn’t want it spewing out over the join and messing up the window. I have now had to inject some glue into the voids. A particularly difficult and messy job!
The pilot’s window went in much better and I used much more glue. I made a special tool to wipe off the excess and it worked very well. Shouldn’t need to do any more injecting on this one.

So a new year begins and it is the 3rd new year for our Europa. I very much hope it will take to the skies this year.

Instrument panel to build next - I bet that will be fun!

 

 

We've now bought most of our instruments and made a mock up the panel. Picture below. When we are flying, of course, we'll find a more elegant way of securing the panel than just taking it in turns to hold it in place!

 

later