Okay, here goes…
Has anybody here experience with building (and flying, and keeping flyable) a Europa ?
http://www.europa-aircraft.co.uk Especially the motorglider version? How much time does it realistically take to get one airborne? And how much money?
In a nutshell: I’m trying to talk my soaring club into building one. The club has built a number of sailplanes in the past (since 1922), but is on the verge of losing this ability. In fact I think it has lost the ability of designing and building an aircraft from scratch. And so I came up with the (admittedly half-baked) idea of building one of these modern “Glue part 19 to part 25” homebuild kits… Well, you get the idea…
(Rest assured, I’m well aware of number if issues, like needing full support from the whole club (or at least a major part of it), ignoring the nay-sayers, ---- and the Europa’s prop strike issue…)
And while we’re at it… Just in case: Does anybody know a serious alternative to the Europe? On the wish list: Must be composite, reasonable easy to build, have some pilot appeal, kit should be easily available, reasonably priced, etc etc.
[edited to improve the Europa -- or at least the url.]