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THE LAST LOOP
Back in the early fiftys My Dad and I use to loop Ercoupe NC99136. There were times I would be looping and Dad viewed from the ground and times he would be looping and I would view from the ground. We both said that they didnt look like loops, but Es. So one day we were together And Dad said lets try to round out the loop. So we entered about 120mph and right at the top Dad pushed a little forward on the yoke hoping to make it more round. Well at that time things began to happen . or more rightly said didnt happen. At the moment he pushed forward it sounded like all H### broke out. Pop asked ,"What happened. We looked up(Down) and we seen where the noise came from. We didnt have the baggage compartment snapped shut and everything that was in it was at the top of the windows., we looked forward and gas was pouring out of the header tank.. A glance at he airspeed showed zero. The Alt. was winding down ever so slowly but surely. Dad asked a silly question,"what do we do" . We did the only thing we could think of and that was to pull the yoke back and hope it would bring us around.( with no airspeed we wondered if enough air would be going over the elevator to make it work, BUT, happily it did work and around we come and were rained on by the stuff from the baggage compartment. As the title says THE LAST LOOP. We never, never tried another loop in a Ercoupe for 50 + years since. And it will stay that way.
Jim Phelps (70) owner of 2749H
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