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Fellow 'Coupers, There's a column in the June '01 issue of Flying by Richard L. Collins in which he states the following: "The Ercoupe was both stall and spin proof, but the airplane didn't enjoy a good safety record. In fact, it had the worst safety record of any of the two-seaters of the day. Part of this was likely because pilots would fly it too slowly, unafraid because the airplane wouldn't stall and it wouldn't spin. It would, however, pitch nose down when flying into a decreasing headwind, and if that happened low to the ground, it would hit nose down with disastrous results." This kind of crap really gets my goat. See, I'm a 'Couper who's married to a journalist, so the combination of slandering my aircraft with plain old bad journalism just makes me nuts. First of all, he doesn't say WHICH two-seaters he's comparing it to, so it's pretty much impossible to know if the statement regarding safety is accurate or not. It's just his ill-informed opinion stated as fact. Also, it's my understanding that the 'Coupe is no better or worse than any older light plane with a tank in the fuselage -- land it hard, rupture the tank, and we all know the rest of the story. Also, I have not seen the nose pitch down in my 200 hours in a 'Coupe. I've seen the sink rate get higher than I like when I haven't managed power properly, but the nose didn't just drop as the column suggests. To me, it's more a case of when she's done flying, she's just done, and if you let it get behind the power curve, you don't have a huge amount of horsepower to get the fat out of the fire. So, before I fire off my angry letter to Flying, I'd like to get my facts right. What's your take on the nose pitching down thing? Does anybody have some hard numbers on safety stats? Should we draft a letter as a club with lots of names attached to it? Excuse my language, folks, but I just don't think we should let the ignorant bastard talk 'Coupes down. Leslie Holbrook Alon A2 N161LH Chester, CT 06412 _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com ==^================================================================ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?aVxiLm.aVzvvT Or send an email To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This email was sent to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
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