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Door Modifications
To make the doors work perfectly takes all sorts
of ingenuity.We are still developing more stuff for them as we have not completed ours
yet.Here are some of the mods we have done so far. There are more to come.
Europa pilots have reported that at higher
speeds the centre bottom of the door starts to bulge out and produces a suction on
one’s clothing not to mention a draught. It is important to us that the doors fit
perfectly as we are maintaining a high standard of drag reduction. There have also been
several incidences where the aircraft has taken off with the rear shoot bolt not in its
correct position thereby causing the door to be lost in flight (I actually have a video of
it happening!!) We are also concerned about the method of escape should the aircraft flip
inverted on landing.
We therefore set out to achieve:-
- an additional catch to locate the middle centre
bottom of the door.
- that this catch not be separate but be part of
the existing door mechanism.
- that this catch would be lightweight
- that in no way would this catch compromise the
door operation.
- in an emergency the doors could be jettisoned
- the strength of the door would not be compromised
- there would be some kind of warning that the door
was not properly closed and that all catches were correctly in position.
Our solution comprises three main parts.
- An additional door catch mechanism at the middle
bottom of the door.
- Micro switch telltales on the shoot bolts back
and front with circuit to match.
- A method whereby the hinge pins of the doors
could be removed and the doors jettisoned on landing or, if necessary, in flight.
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