Any of you guys have any experience with an Ercoupe 415C? I have a guy that will give me cash and an Ercoupe for the 175. I wouldn't usually consider it but I could use the cash and at least I'd still be able to stay flying for a while. It is a LSA with the 1320 GW increase. C-85 engine, climb prop and the trim kit. oversized baggage area (65lbs) Has Rudder pedals but it has the kit which the yoke steers it like a car while on the ground. That just sounds so weird!

They must be tough little birds because the ones without pedals have a 25K crosswind component. I guess you just land in a crab and it just straightens out after you land. Rudders would just add to that. The wings have negative lift on the ground so as soon as you land they push down on the runway.

Anyone?

Ercoupe with c8 is a good light sports. don't try to take off with the windows open. Gear, and fuel tanks are the big problems. can be fixed and will give no problems if done right. C85 is a good 5 gph engine. parts getting harder to find. Autogas work great. have only flown the stall/spin proof one. easy off and on. low speed elevator runs out quick and will make go around a little interesting. If it fits your mission then a good trade. I am looking to go to a 2 place light sport just to make flying cheaper and have more time in the air. you might send him my way if you don't do the deal.
Meacham Lake C 175B 360 constantspeed.

There is a flight instructor at the Blackfoot Idaho airport who uses an Ercoupe, I got my last BFR in it. I believe it may be the model you reference, and that he would be a good source of info on all things related to the type, he's into them. PM if interested and I'll hook you two up.

You mean "scare coupe " ?

If you decide to look into the deal, pay real close attention to the center section AD on the fuselage..... Have one on the field that you can take chunks of aluminum out of with your bare hands....Real expensive to have fixed..

Brian.

Jaerl, On thing I always wanted to do with one is "hinge" the wings. I had to haul one 50 miles on a truck once. I wanted to drive the plane but the owner would not let me. It is 8.5 feet wide with the wings off (legal width) and the fuel tanks are in the wing stubs that stay. So with a slow moving vehicle sign on the back, one could drive it like a tractor.

I could get you a number to a guy that has one in St. Anthony that could tell you everything there is to know about them. His seems to perform well and they're dirt simple. I just saw a "mini-coop" at Tillemook. It was about half as big.

Just put some bushwheels on it and you'll be good to go!

182 STOL driver wrote:You mean "scare coupe " ?

Or "Eurp Cup" ???

Or "Redneck Bonanza" ???

Don't get me wrong, fun little birds...

Corrosion in the center section of the wing where water and dirt collects. I believe there are places on that center section that you cannot see into after the airplane was built. Hopefully I'm wrong. But you gotta check. Even if you have to drill a couple of 1/2 inch holes for a video scope, then plug the holes with "Wilkie Buttons". If he won't let you do a FULL, lengthy, detailed inspection, or if he starts to rush you through it when you get near the center section, there may be bad news hiding in there. If there is no bad news, then the little Ercoupe could be a fun and inexpensive sport airplane.

Have an Air Coupe expert do the pre-buy.....make that YOUR Air Coupe expert-or at least a completely neutral one. Used major parts are getting scarce, and new are pretty 'rich'.....

Fun if you get a winner.....
lc

I know, Ercoupe, or something like that.....

EZFlap wrote:Corrosion in the center section of the wing where water and dirt collects. I believe there are places on that center section that you cannot see into after the airplane was built. Hopefully I'm wrong. But you gotta check. Even if you have to drill a couple of 1/2 inch holes for a video scope, then plug the holes with "Wilkie Buttons". If he won't let you do a FULL, lengthy, detailed inspection, or if he starts to rush you through it when you get near the center section, there may be bad news hiding in there. If there is no bad news, then the little Ercoupe could be a fun and inexpensive sport airplane.

Yea, on just some, but not all i don't think. I kinda wonder if it has something to do with mouse pp kinda getting trapped in there and causing the corrosion. But I think you can check it out with the seat removed. Mine didn't have any corrosion or rudder pedals, and it was fun to land with your legs crossed. It would handle crosswinds great. Ours was also an 85, and it was pretty underpowered here in Nevada, but fun and cheap flying. Really comfortable seat. We put 500-600 hours on it all over Nevada and Utah, mostly with two aboard.

Thanks for all the input. They did come out with an AD the requires adding 32 inspection plates in the wings and I think in the fuselage too. I didn't know that some had pedals but I guess they made them both ways They sold more without pedals even though it was an option. I was reading about them and to drop altitude fast it said you drop one wing and then the other. Guess with the rudder pedals you can crab this one. I have an old book here and it lists different types of accidents. The Ercoupe was number one in landing short accidents. Sounds like you need to come in pretty fast.

This one has a lot of good modifications and is only 805 lbs. It has a climb prop so I might be able to get it off the ground here in the summer. I was surprised that it has more useable weight than my 150 did. Sounds like the guy takes pretty good care of it but it sat 20 years and there are logs missing from right before it went in storage. Just wondering if it was damaged. It's had a lot of work done to it lately and sounds like it might last a while.

I hope to get down and see it this week. It is being annualed right now so it's apart. My friend know a guy here with one so I might head down talk to him and see if he knows a mechanic that's familiar with them around here. I always thought they looked fun but I'm having a hard time convincing myself to have it as an only plane.

Jaerl wrote:Thanks for all the input. They did come out with an AD the requires adding 32 inspection plates in the wings and I think in the fuselage too. I didn't know that some had pedals but I guess they made them both ways They sold more without pedals even though it was an option. I was reading about them and to drop altitude fast it said you drop one wing and then the other. Guess with the rudder pedals you can crab this one. I have an old book here and it lists different types of accidents. The Ercoupe was number one in landing short accidents. Sounds like you need to come in pretty fast.

This one has a lot of good modifications and is only 805 lbs. It has a climb prop so I might be able to get it off the ground here in the summer. I was surprised that it has more useable weight than my 150 did. Sounds like the guy takes pretty good care of it but it sat 20 years and there are logs missing from right before it went in storage. Just wondering if it was damaged. It's had a lot of work done to it lately and sounds like it might last a while.

I hope to get down and see it this week. It is being annualed right now so it's apart. My friend know a guy here with one so I might head down talk to him and see if he knows a mechanic that's familiar with them around here. I always thought they looked fun but I'm having a hard time convincing myself to have it as an only plane.

They're a kinda funky cool airplane. Hope it works out well and, at the very least, you're flying. Love to see it at JC next year. Now you just need to get them bushwheels, stol kit, and 180hp upgrade and you'll be smokin'

If I got all that stuff on it I would need to lose 50 lbs, wait, I need to loose 50 lbs anyway

I owned an Ercoupe for 8 years and have about 500 hours in them, so I'll add my 2 cents worth here. The 2 main AD's to worry about are corrosion on the wing spars, and corrosion under the seat in the fusalage belly. The wing spars corrode because they condense moisture in them, and with ceconite covering they can sit and corrode for 25+ years with out being inspected. If it was sprayed with zink cromate before it was covered it should have no problems, but look carefully at the bottom of the spar, you will find a small "channel" full lenth of the spar, front and rear, that will collect moisture. The fusalage corrosion is under the seat where water drains in from the sliding canopy and should go out thru some drain holes in the bottom, if they are plugged it collects and corrodes and an Ercoupe broke into 3 pieces in flight near Oakdale California about 10 years ago.
Other things to look for are the upper elevater limit adjustment. The concept of "stall proof" is to limit up elevator travel, if the elevator goes up to far, it will stall. If it goes into a spin, it is NOT recoverable because the rudders are to far out of the prop blast area. Also any Ercoupe can be stalled by diving to about 130-140 IAS and pulling full back on the elevator and holding it. If you really want to try, my dad watched someone do 2 loops in an Ercoupe back in the 1950's, then crashed on landing because he was drunk.
All Ercoups steer on the ground with the control wheel, even with rudder peddals. It takes some getting used to. They also only have one brake, with or without rudder peddals.
On pavement I used 30 pounds of tire presure to get off the ground shorter, on grass I let it down to 12 pounds to help smooth out the bumps.
If it doesn't fly straight and wings level hands off in cruise, adjust the elevator and rudder linkages under the baggage compartment floor untill it does, otherwise on a long flight one wing tank will drain first and start sucking air into the fuel pump, and whatever fuel is in the other wing becomes unusable, sometimes up to about 3 gallons.
In hot weather I usually flew mine with the top of the canopy open about 1-2 inches for ventilation, you can fly, including takeoff and landing, with it open all the way, but it will suck up all the dirt off the floor into your face when you open it.
If you're not in big hurry to get somewhere they are a lot fo fun to fly. Also for some reason women think they look "cute".

Thanks Dale

I liked this "my dad watched someone do 2 loops in an Ercoupe back in the 1950's, then crashed on landing because he was drunk". At least he did it doing two things he enjoyed!

This book I was talking about, The ,[u]Illistrated buyers guide to Used Aircaft. 1992[/u], list these Ercoupe stats too for Small plane accidents:

Accidents caused by:

Engine Failure #3
Airframe Failure #3
Hard Landings #3
Ground loop #16 ? How do you ground loop a trike?
Stalls #20 Another mystery, why so many stalls for a stall proof plane?
Undershot Landings #1
Overshot Landings #24

Doesn't look like the safest plane out there. One plane that did continually worst was the Globe Swift. I always liked them too. Looks like a little fighter to me.

The hard landings, stalls, and undershot landings are probabally all the same thing. The most common accident in an Ercoupe is to get to slow on final, and the plane gets into a nose level desent at about 50 IAS and 500-1000 or more FPS desent, the only way out is full throttle and nose down to bring the speed back up and stop the desent, not easy on short final at 100 ft. AGL. Think of the classic "approach to landing stall", but it doesn't stall, it just sinks, and it's in a high-drag attitude so full throttle has very little effect. It's very easy to avoid, watch your airspeed on final, stay at 60 IAS, and adjust desent rate with power. Overshooting the runway was easy, the original goodyear brakes sucked, and if it had rudder peddals the brake peddal was removed and you only had the parking brake handle to pull on. Ground looping an Ercoupe is a mystery to me, and i've never heard of one flipping on landing either.

Yea Dale from what I have read they are a completely different animal as far as landing goes. I have always tried to land as slow as possible and that seems the only way to get in trouble in these. They seem to be pretty expensive too from what I see. Especially the LSA ones. Seems like 5-10K more for LSA. My book lists the WG as 1400 but this one is 1320 because It is Light Sport.

Can I fly it in the standard category with the 1400 GW or do I need to stay at 1320 and LSA? Is it just a paperwork thing where I can use the higher weight if I fly with a PPL? I know my old 172 had a sticker that I needed to use a lighter GW when it was flown in the Agricultural Category.

A good 150 will outdo one in almost every respect and they are a dime a dozen right now. The guy has cash to go with it and I sure haven't found anyone else willing to part with any. It really isn't the plane I want but might be fun and would sure help out right now. If I do it, I'm buying the plans tor a Zenith 750 just to make me feel better.