I've read everybody's postings here on technique and the difficulties of landing the Coupe and have to put my 2 cents in again. First there is no substitute for skill and second you will never develop skill until you know how the aircraft will behave throughout the speed envelope. Even when flying an approach in formation I (make that we) do not fly the standard stabilized approach. Especially when flying solo I never fly a stabilized approach. In most cases I will constantly bleed off speed all the way down final and will normally turn base to final about 1/4 mile from the touch down point. At my home field this means turning base at the numbers if no one is ahead of me in the pattern. I also may fly a reverse speed pattern, one in which I my speed is just above a stall (I have a Forney which will stall) for a steep approach. I can fly as steep or steeper approach as any Cessna you just have to be ready to dump the nose as the ground is rushing up at you. Don't count on being able to give it a shot of power to arrest the sink rate, if it coughs you are in deep shit. To show how controllable a coupe is Bill and I landed in formation (as is our custom) one day during a spot landing contest. Bill being in the lead controls where we will land, My mains are roughly 25 feet back from his. He chose to make me look good by placing me within 3 feet of the spot. Had we paid the entry fee we would have won. We probably would have won even if he had bracketed us on the spot. Low time or high time learn the whole envelope or whatever aircraft you are flying some day you may not have the luxury of thousands of feet of unobstructed concrete to land on.
Dave 41 Charlie Dave's Ercoupe Page http://www.flash.net/~dmprosvc/dave
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