UPDATES CONTINUED

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Flight testing completed

26 January 2008

We dealt with a few minor modifications including repairing the rudder which we damaged in the trailer and found a very lucky break in the English winter weather.

Pete Jeffers came to Blackbushe and completed all the remaining flight testing on the same day. First was a timed climb at maximum all up weight (MAUW) and to make matters simple we stuck Peter in the passenger seat and had no trouble reaching MAUW.

This flight was fine and all the temperatures and pressures were normal. Pete then departed with almost full tanks plus Goff to carry out a two hour endurance flight. We were worried that Goff's bladder wouldn't last for two hours, especially as he had been drinking tea all morning. Goff had also, after relentless abuse from Peter, shaved off his beard this morning so his face was extra cold. He couldn't even cross his legs in the Europa cockpit. But he managed. The flight was actually rather hard work for Goff and he came back with reams of notes listing all the test results.

Pete Jeffers then spent a couple of hours completing all the paperwork. Thankfully everything was comfortably within limits and G-CHOX was passed! Next step is to submit all the paperwork to the LAA and wait for our lovely Permit to Fly to be issued.

Here are some pictures taken on the day:

	Peter and Comrade Goff

And here is a short movie clip of Goff taxiing past before the two hour endurance flight:

March/April 2008

We received our permit in February and then spent time doing some general tidying up. We also arranged for our upholstery to fitted by Matt. Here are some pictures. We needed to take out the panel for the upholstery and took the opportunity to refine the wiring and upgrade the flight instrument software.

When we removed the panel Peter was shocked to find that a wire connecting the stall warner buzzer had burnt out and was blackened. After much deliberation about the cause and the possible ways to fix it, Ian spotted that the black stuff on the wire was nothing to do with burning out - it was paint residue from when we sprayed the instrument panel! Peter's face went as red as the colour the wire should have been.

The painted wire	Careful surgery on the gps feed

Peter had a golfing trip to Portugal in March. I have promised not to put anything on this web site about his passport being out of date and his two day delay and general humiliation so I won't. You will have to ask him for the full story.

Our efforts to arrange some training for the three of us were set back when Pete Jeffers injured his leg while he was in New Zealand and he's been grounded for several weeks. We have managed to re-arrange this with Andy Draper (ex Europa) from the LAA and we hope to be flying proficiently very soon.