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Old 16th Aug 2010, 20:36
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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.
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