Buy one and it will make you a better pilot
Rotorfossil and others - I agree this little aircraft does far better with a VP prop - (after going through a couple of warp drive fixed pitch props and an arplast fixed pitch (worst of the lot) mine had an arplast VP prop fitted and I somehow miraculously managed not to break it!
The increased acceleration during the ground roll combined with lower rpm in cruise was worth the spend for the VP prop.
I also agree that cross wind limits (and into wind limits) needed to be closely observed.
25kt on the nose and you are tossed around like a leaf on the wind. touching down smoothly in these conditions could be challenging to say the least (can be in any light aircraft through)
Basically it is such a light aircraft that it lacks inertia and gets picked up like a leaf in the wind in gusty situations.
I still have a soft spot for the monowheel europa - learning to cope with its handling made me a better pilot (just like learning to fly in an R22 helicopter makes you that bit more sensitive in a helicopter when you upgrade later on) - it was so efficient, I remember the days when I was filling with unleaded gas in the USA for pennies. Once we landed for fuel on a summer's evening at Sandusky Ohio and the fuellers had gone home, so we hitched to a gas station a couple of miles away, filled up some cans and continued across the lake to London Ontario, what fun!
I took mine to Oshkosh and sun' n fun - we landed at Meig's field Chicago (before the mayor bulldozed it) and Toronto Island airfield.
The gear-linked-to-flaps design never fazed me.
The aircraft was underpowered at MTOW and needed more runway but learning this was good discipline for later (mine had the 80hp rotax and cruised at 130kts burning a fractiion of what my (by far the most efficient in its class) Mooney Ovation 2 burns to produce 180kts!
The monowheel seemed more at home on grass - the big swing arm and outriggers seemed to ride the bumps out far better on grass than any other aircraft I have flown off grass before or since.
I was sad to see mine go.
SB