03 AM 01 01 2000

Happy New Century and Millennium to all involved with Europas, EZs and every other homebuilt aeroplane. I hope it goes as well for everyone as it began to go for us this afternoon on a small airfield in the middle of old England. Mark and his friends have been working flat out for the last three weeks to get the diesel engine airborne before Y2K. A week ago Mark was the only one left among the lot of us, (around 10 including various helpers lifters, fetchers etc) who had the confidence and drive to keep on going for it, and that was before both he and I went down with 3 day flu. Nearer 5 in my case but I had the easy job. Sit in the plane and fiddle with the levers. This morning I arrived at the factory to hear the ring of spanners on concrete still going on, not a good sign. "Engine must be female, it won't start now it's back in the plane {!:->"

Well by 1 PM it started beautifully as though nothing was wrong. Little matter of draining out a few corners where fuel or oil had collected during the abuse between lifting the engine from its comfortable test bed and hanging it on the front of a no doubt unconvinced aeroplane. No doubt also of the other sex. ( I for one am glad there are only two.) It took us another 2 hours to get to the stage of an airplane rigged, on a cold misty field, but with an engine happily purring away. Even the aeroplane seemed relaxed. We were not. However. It was felt that having got this far we should get the wheels off the ground to justify all the effort put in by a lot of people, often with little more to gain than thanks from the guys at the sharp end. After some careful fast taxiing the third or fourth run had generated enough confidence in the more nervous members of the team, (me, Mark and no doubt Bill Wynne, who knows about these things,) not many seconds after full power the Europa was very definitely off the ground and letting me know in no uncertain manner that we should land immediately. It was going to be foggy much higher than this, 10 feet or less and there wasn't much runway left. So that was it. Enough excitement, enough euphoria too , let's go home.

A thought, at 1530 GMT or thereabouts were we airborne in both 1999 and 2000? It was 2K on the other side of the planet, after all. Was it worth all the effort? Quite a few people have asked Mark " do we really need to fly before millennium? so soon? can we really get ready in time, Why?" Can't we pack in some more dyno testing and get it right first?" What will a few hops tell us?"

All valid questions. What I would say is that now we've done it we know quite a lot that we couldn't have learnt any other way. Will it work? Emphatically yes. (IMHO) I have never felt a smoother surge of power from a piston engine in an airplane before. Haven't flown a Merlin of course, but only 3 cylinders and smoother than a six? No clatter from gearboxes, torsional dampers, whatever. Wonderful. Watching the engine run for the first time in the aeroplane after the noise in the dyno room was amazing. So quiet. No vibrating brackets exhausts etc around the engine bay. Just an engine sat there purring smoothly to itself. You will know how noisy a Europa cockpit can be at full chat. Not with this engine, the exhaust note is a mellifluous hum, no diesel clatter much to my surprise, and not that much prop noise either. (BTW, a perfectly balanced out of the box MT electric constant speed.) We learnt the most important fact. Is it going to work? Definitely.

For now, it's back to the dyno . A lot of optimisation of ancillary systems to do, weight to trim off and reliability to prove. We now know that its worth doing and possible. Some of us know we can't wait!

So ,a lot of thanks are due. The Wilksch team for the design and concept and guts to do it, Bill Wynne for the airframe support essential to the project, investors prepared to put in a lot of cash to keep 2 or 3 young families eating while Dad develops an engine, Europa for the aeroplane that could do the job. Lots of folks who were there when needed especially my young brother Lennie, well 50 is young isn't it? But not least to one of the best friends European aviation has in these times of bureaucratic and political nightmare, Francis Donaldson of the PFA, who gave us his time, understanding, encouragement and trust.

Had my adrenaline, champagne, Aussie and French, seen the Chinese, Russians, and nearly all the rest share their fun with the world, sorry about the nuts who didn't see that the world just recognised an opportunity to share a numerical coincidence of a two and three noughts .

Happy New Year folks and BTW that engine is definitely female, and gorgeous.

Graham