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Hartmut wrote:
> Pushing the limit in a Coupe is not a good idea, cause we
fly
> close to the limits already in these underpowered machines.
>
> By the way, I always believed that aerobatics are not
allowed
> in a Coupe, cause the lack of rudder force does not give
you
> authority in spins. Maybe not so. structural integrity is
also at
> question I see.
Hartmut,
I’m sure glad I wasn’t there when the accident with Jack happened. It hurt enough to read about it since I
knew him. Same thing when a guy I
had talked to at Leonard Page’s Arkansas Picnic flew home in marginal weather
and lost control in a cloud and crashed.
It hurts.
Personally, I’ll be happy to ride along for aerobatics in an Ercoupe as
long as Bob Hoover is pilot. If
Chuck Yeager offers to pilot, I’ll think about it. I’d even wait for Bob to go practice for a while before I
take that ride with him.
The trouble with aerobatics in the Coupe isn’t the rudder linkage. By its design, the Coupe can’t be held
in a spin even with crossed controls.
The design is such that it’ll fly out of the spin as if you’d made the
corrections intentionally. Heck,
you would probably have to about do a hammer-head stall to get into a
spin. (Or fly outside the rear
CG-limit and then all bets are off!)
The Coupe is a fairly sleek airplane and the Alon is even sleeker with
its bubble canopy. That’s why it
flies so well with so little power.
The downside is that it can also pick up speed very quickly in botched
aerobatics.
It takes very special skill to do aerobatics in a normal category (or
utility category) aircraft because you have to have VERY good control to avoid over
stressing the airframe. And you
have to be SURE you can do it right EVERY time or you might have pieces depart
the aircraft. (I fear that may be what happened to the kids in California but
we’ll have to wait for the reports to know anything, really. That was sure a tragedy – those were
the kind of kids I’d like to know.)
Fred Weick, when he came to fly-ins, kept emphasizing that these
airframes are “almost 50 years old” (and 10 years older, now). He advised us to slow down on thermally
days because the transient g-loads in bumpy air can over stress an aircraft.
Coupes may be tough but they were not designed for aerobatics even when
new. And they sure ain’t new, now.
Ed
Burkhead
http://edburkhead.com/
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (remove the QQQ)
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