Ive often been interested in buying a monowheel as it seems quite good value for money for a decent LAA touring aircraft that isnt going to break the bank on purchase costs and fuel costs.

I have read many examples and opinions on the fact that the mono has to land and take off with full flaps so that the stablisers and landing gear are lowered for the ground run. Most people point out that taking off with full flap is quite dangerous.

Is this the case? and if it is
Why hasnt anyone come up with a mod to seperate the controls for the flaps and the landing gear / stabilisers? By having a seperate lever for the undercarriage this would solve this problem.

I understand that some Mods need lots of work to be accepted by LAA but surely this must be something that is not too complicated if they are controlled by flap levers?

In the Europa monowheel, the gear, flaps and outrigger wheels are all controlled with one handle.

Maybe you could apply the Europa trigear setup for the flaps (makes them electric) but then you'd still have the problem that the outrigger wheels are connected to the flap mechanism. Meaning that in a flapless landing or take-off you don't have the benefit of the outrigger wheels. Which is rather wearing on the wingtips...

To connect the outrigger wheels to the gear lever without using the flap mechanism would require quite some engineering and maybe some structural modifications to the wing ribs, as there are no holes for, for instance, pushrods. Or you would simply bolt the outriggers in place but that will likely carry a huge aerodynamic penalty.

But taking off with full flaps is what the monowheel is designed for. Don't worry about it. When I flew one with Ivan Shaw it positively leaped off the ground with no adverse handling that I could detect. (But then I didn't have a PPL yet at the time, so what did I know... )

Anyway, there is a very active Europa-specific mailinglist (or rather, it was rather active a few years ago) here: The Matronics Homepage If you have detailed technical questions about Europa mods etc. that may be a better place to ask.

I think that it depends on how much the flaps are lowered when at full flap. I've a feeling that on the Europa its only about 25 degrees, which isn't excessive. IIRC the shortfield technique for the PA28-180 I used to fly was to use 25 degrees of flap.

Brooklands