If I remember correctly the difference between a C and D model is the skin over the center fuel tank is stainless in a D, that gives you the extra strength to go from 75 hp to 85 hp and the increase in gross weight.

Jerry, I know you have a possible trade deal on the Ercoupe... but I also know you live up in high density altitude country when it gets warm. Lots of people on this forum will predict this response from me, but there is a method to my madness.

If your Ercoupe deal does not happen, and if you have to sell the 175, look into an 85 HP Taylorcraft for a relatively cheap back country STOL airplane that will perform well at higher DA. The T-cart has a high aspect wing, lots of area, and with 85HP it will be a decent performer at altitude. Some other older 2 seat aircraft will be slugs or even dangerous up at 7 or 8 thousand feet DA. With the T-cart you will get in and out of a short strip without too much effort. Cheap flying, cheap maintenance, good STOL, safe investment, and should still leave a lot of money over from your 175 sale. You lose some comfort (both interior room and turbulence penetration) but the capability and safety is there.

Thanks Bill, I think I've talked myself out of it and that is one of the main reasons. Also, with the climb prop I will be looking at flyable speeds of between 55 - 90. Lot of difference from the 175. Just doesn't seem to suited for what I want.

Looks like with a little help the Ercoupe is a great backcountry plane

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nasacommons/4857945683/

Jaerl wrote:Looks like with a little help the Ercoupe is a great backcountry plane

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nasacommons/4857945683/

WOW that is awesome!

Jaerl wrote:Looks like with a little help the Ercoupe is a great backcountry plane

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nasacommons/4857945683/

WOW what a ride

And if you think that was a wild ride, in 1946 the CAA came up with a bizarre idea for round runways with a pole in the center to get around the problem of no place in town to build a large airport and long runways. The test plan was to use an Ercoupe with a winch in the right front seat and a steel cable out the left wing tip hooked to the center pole, and take off by going in a circle until they got up speed and lifted off, them release the cable from the pole and fly away. Landing would be to fly past the pole, catch it with a hook to pull the plane into a circle over the runway, then land and slowdown while the cable held them in place. If it worked on the Ercoupe they would try next with a DC-3. The test takeoffs all worked like a charm, when they decided to try the first landing by flying past the pole and catching it in flight with a grappling hook, the pilot quit on the spot. The CAA couldn't find another pilot to take his place, so the program was dropped. This may have been done with the same Ercoupe that was used for the JATO tests.

60 years after the CAA or Dep't of Commerce thought there might someday be no room inside a city for an airport, most US cities still have one or two smaller airports within or very near the city limits. So none of the Popular Mechanics type ideas that were bandied about (arrestor hooks, civil VTOL Ospreys, rocket launch pads, and thousands of electric heavy lift helicopters) really needed to be implemented.

A 3000 foot runway with an airport industrial park housing the local dog pound, bus maintenance depot, DWP, DMV, cable company, warehouse district, and other non-family-housing infrastructure is absolutely viable and works just perfectly in most cases. Any of you high-time and transport-category pilots correct me if I'm off base here, but I believe 3000 feet is easily enough to operate the King Air, DC-3, Skyvan, and several other medium size aircraft from.

Unless I'm woefully missing something, this means that all of those thousands of equilateral- and right- triangle military airports from 60 years ago would be completely usable with the cracks repaired and a fresh coat of asphalt. All the airplane parking can be in the center, and the industrial park can surround the outside of the runways for noise and real estate purposes.

Who hold the jato stc.

Tim

qmdv wrote:Who hold the jato stc.

Tim

Lopez, Sanchez, Gonzalez, Ramirez, & Martinez Refried Bean Co. of Los Angeles, CA, in partership with Home Boys Jalapeno Supply of East L. A.

EZ Flap Corp. is the OEM providing the PMA "exhaust tube/seat/gasket ass'y" portion of the STC.

The pre-flight "pilot-exhaust tube" assembly lubricant is furnished by the West Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, at no charge.

A 3000 foot runway with an airport industrial park housing the local dog pound, bus maintenance depot, DWP, DMV, cable company, warehouse district, and other non-family-housing infrastructure is absolutely viable and works just perfectly in most cases. Any of you high-time and transport-category pilots correct me if I'm off base here, but I believe 3000 feet is easily enough to operate the King Air, DC-3, Skyvan, and several other medium size aircraft from.

Don't forget that a lot of airports around here also have the local trap or skeet club right by them!

Here is part of what was left from an Ercuope that went into but not out of Red's Horse Ranch circa 1950's. It guess they do okay, you just have to keep it on the strip. Probably no paperwork on the external load mod for the Stinson. A friends dad flew the parts out, the Ercoupe pilot was okay.
The wings flew again on a homebuilt, but that is another story.

http://www.backcountrypilot.org/gallery ... pos=-13804

Cheers,
Dave

Ercoupe takeoff that I shot the other night at Lenhardt:

I fell into a great deal where I get to fly an Ercoupe 415-C for the price of fuel alone. I was practicing some short field t/o and landings the other day. The soonest I got stopped was near 1040 feet. The DA was 5500 feet. It's an easy plane for sure as long as you keep that airspeed up. Power off landings have the glide slope of a flat rock.

Joshua

As far as C85 parts availability, I don't think it's as bad as some folks let on. The guys who regularly deal with these engines have no trouble getting parts.

I think one of the big shortages is crankshafts. This seems to be routinely dealt with by using an O200 crankshaft and necessary parts for the conversion. In the bargain, the engine picks up a little more torque, thus can swing a little more prop.

I've heard people say bad things about the Ercoupe because of the cross controlled rudders, but I've heard people that have actually FLOWN them regularly speak highly of them. For me, if having an Ercoupe were the alternative to having no plane at all, I would EAGERLY climb in that cockpit.

My $0.02,
Doc

Ercoupe parts are easy to find, Univaire and skyport Ercoupe services can provide anything you need at reasonable prices. As for C-85 engine parts, those are easy to find with the exception of crankshafts whitch are available but EXPENSIVE. The problem with cranks is they can only be reground one time to .010 undersize, any wear beyond that is unusable. If the engine is going into an experimental plane then any competent machine shop can grind the crank to .020 or .030 and make a bearing set to fit it. Otherwise you put in an O-200 crank, cam, rods, and pistons and have a 200 cubic inch/100 horsepower engine. If anyone has some very old copies of "sport aviation" laying around, sometime in the 1960's they printed and article that listed chevy and ford parts that would fit in 4-cylinder continental engines. If i remember correctly they listed valves, bearings, rings, etc, and I think they listed some pistons. these were for experimental use only of course, not in a certified plane

Thread creep, actually there is a STC for .020 undersize cranks on C85's.
I am in that market right now.
Dave

Univaire and skyport Ercoupe services can provide anything you need at reasonable prices.

Reasonable? A lot of factors to consider, but it must be like beauty...... (is all in the eye of the beholder.....)


I must be a skinflint....
lc

Jaerl wrote:A good 150 will outdo one in almost every respect and they are a dime a dozen right now.

One gentleman is selling an Alon Aircoupe for $20k some 70 miles away from me (it's not the one Joshua flies obviously - that one is Ercoupe). I thought to give it a look and my research shows that C-150 is not quite dime a dozen. Their asking prices are all in the ballpark. In theory C-150 should do much better at short field work. In practice I used up 2500 ft when I was in Estancia in it. If Joshua can do 1000 ft in plain 415-C with limited elevator, perhaps lack of flaps is not as bad. Aircoupe is supposed to be much faster than 150. Like way faster - beating a 172 even, while flying on a 90 hp Continental.

I've owned an 85 hp. Ercoupe and a C-150, and flown several others of both models. The Ercoupes are about an exact match for a C-150 on cross country flights, if you don't mind not having any baggage room. I seriously doubt 5 more horsepower would add 15 mph to make it as fast as a C-172.