We visited that funky little aeronautical museum in College Park too. That's actually where the Ercoupe was first manufactured. I wonder how frequent hail damage was.. the logbook in mine has an entry from 1955 for hail damage suffered, I forget where, in KY. It still bears the dings to this day - but only on the thin aileron skins.
Yes - good eyes.. The lack of clarity may stem from there only being one pedal, but it's not rudder... Mine had no rudder pedals... but yes they could be added... After a brief discussion with my IA, we deemed the conversion senseless.. you hardly got any effect from decoupling the rudders anyway. Fred Wieck designed the ailerons to deflect much further on the down-titling wing, putting a lot of aileron into the airstream greatly reduced the reliance on rudders for turning effect. The longitudinal axis of the engine/prop was also canted slightly to reduce P-effect on takeoff, again reducing reliance on the rudders.. So yoke was the only control ... including a permanent rigid link to the nosewheel for steering... ..on a cross-wind landing, you just crabbed it along, with wings level, above the centerline until the main gear touched. The MLG articulated down in flight to be the first thing to touch the runway on landing. The nose wheel was limited in travel to stay higher - above the level of the MLG. Upon touchdown the MLG articulated backwards, like a bent knee, and the CG being forward rotated the airframe straight before the nose wheel touched... The key here is the nose wheel is kept off the runway to keep it from experiencing lateral forces that might snap it in a hard crab touchdown... But what can you do if a cross-wind gust picks up a wing? No rudders! And if you move the ailerons, you steer the nose wheel and risk an excursion off the runway... Well? - you step on the one pedal that is there: The brake. The brakes slow the lifting wing to a stall ...and it's back on the ground! Simple, once you conceive how it works... Simplicity reigned supreme: The fuel system is three tanks and one mechanical pump. 8 gallons in each wing, and 6 gallons high in the nose. The single over-capacity mechanical fuel pump, pumped equally from each wing tank, via a T fitting in a cross-connected fuel line between the wing tanks. Wing tank fuel is constantly pumped up to the nose tank, and an overflow line lets the excess fuel run back to the wing tanks. The nose tank is thus always full. The carburetor is gravity fed from the full nose tank. The float gauge on the nose tank tells you the important stuff: When it starts moving down, either your wing tanks are empty, or your fuel pump has failed. Either way you have 90 minutes fuel left, gravity fed. I could go on and on, but so could we all, right? Flying is such an amazing hobby and experience. Thank you for sharing *your* stories.. - Art
Just finished reading 'Stick and Rudder,' Wolfgang Langweische's masterpiece. Throughout the book he is pretty damning of what he then perceived as overuse and misunderstanding of the rudder, and alludes several times to the Ercoupe as an example of the future. It's also interesting how for him, Angle of Attack was everything you needed to know about flying, especially since (military aside) if feels like only recently AoA has become hip in GA.
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You have two of them, right? Out of five flying altogether, or something like that? Good on you for keeping them going!
Apparently 3 in the US, and this guy owns all the spares. https://www.aspendailynews.com/news/one-rare-airplane-the-starship-of-aspen/article_0c21b996-b3e9-11e8-8bd0-d7eb705988c1.html (same plane as in post #486)
^^^^^ Thank you for the link to the Aspen News article, jcurry, enjoyed reading it. Mr. Scherer must have a summer place in/near Harbor Springs, Michigan (top of Michigan's lower peninsula, small scenic natural harbor on Lake Michigan near Petoskey). That is where I shot these (amateur) photos on August 10th, 2017. As we were driving by the Harbor Springs Airport to their annual car show we saw this beauty parked there.......returned to view it and slobber Image Unavailable, Please Login
There seems to be some debate about how many. I'm sure Raj could give us the answer. https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2017/march/pilot/turbine-beech-starship
Now that you mention this I recall seeing it at Harbor Springs as well two summers ago (was there for nephews wedding in Petoskey).
Scherer flies into Rocky Mountain Metro Airport BJC fairly often... (Denver suburb), so I hear it flying over my office. Can hear it coming. Distinctive.
I go low and slow myself. 1946 Ercoupe. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login