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A bunch of what you say may be true but you must look at the facts they are very old A/C And do you know every person that flew yours before you purchased it and how many hard landings it has had or how many times it has done a roll or a loop. Whenever those rivets are loosened by any means be it turbulence or any other stress you have opened up a spot for corrosion to form. Better to be safe than sorry. I personally would not pay top dollar for a coupe knowing what I have learned in the past week or so without the inspection being accomplished. To me the price just dropped about 2 grand with out the test. Just my 2 pennies worth. DICK NANCY & SOPHIE -------Original Message------- From: Ed Burkhead Date: 02/09/06 18:16:53 To: Ctech Subject: Re: [COUPERS-TECH] coupes loosing wings This message was automatically forwarded on behalf of Bob Branch. Please address any responses to the mail list or directly to Bob at: [EMAIL PROTECTED] net From: Bob Branch [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2006 7:18 PM To: Ed Burkhead Subject: re: tech: coupes loosing wings Ed I hate to impose but could you post this on tech in response to Harmut's post of this title? I cannot seem to post. I've tried deleting and readding myself to the list. I get it fine, just cannot post for some reason. thanks, bob branch 415C N99891 Hartmut I beg to differ. We are not at nine in anything except absolute stupidity and total disregard for the aircraft and the aircraft limititaions that the plane was designed under. I for one am getting a bit tired of people trying to say that flying an aircraft outside its design limitations is in some way reflective on the design of the aircraft. Aerobatic certification requires that an aircraft be able to sustain certain amounts of stress and loading. Most aerobatic aircraft still have limitations to g loadings that are permitted in maneuvers. Go look at unlimited aerobatic aircraft and count how many have g meters to assure that even these aircraft are not over stressed. A previous statement infered that any aircraft should be able to pull out of a dive was written as if it is the requirement of any safe aircraft. ANY aircraft can be overstressed pulling out of a dive of sufficient speed with sufficiently sudden and extensive enough control movement. An Ercoupe never was, not new and is not now and aerobatic aircraft. Every person on this group should know that. The record absolutely speaks for itsself. Ercoupes absolutely do not fall out of the sky on their own due to corrosion. The Ercoupes that have suffered structurarl airframe failure did so because of people perfoming aerobatic flight. They did so at their own perril and out of their own ignorance and or stupidity. They would do it just as surely if they did it in 1946 as they will if they do it do it today. If you exceed the design stresses and safety margins build into an airplane it will fail, any airplane, whether it is an F-15, a Pitts, a Bonaza, or an Ercoupe. I think a more constructive approach would be to contact Univair in a calm and cooperative mannor and inquire as to the evidence that led them to issue SB #32 and also to contact EAA and AOPA and inquire to their recomendations. There has been enough posturing and theorizing and arm chair getting cheesed off. Lets get down to the facts both from Univair and from people who have delt with issues like this in other aircraft and see what can be done to hopefully prevent a knee jerk AD being issued. We have members who have worked within the FAA. How about some feedback from them. Lets wait and see what Jan Zanotto reports on what is involved in this testing and how other options might be developed. He seems to be a very valuable resouce on this issue right here in our midst. I think the group will be much better served proceeding from facts and not emotions. Realize also that someone considering purchase of an Ercoupe is going to look in on this group. On finding some of the post that have been presented I'm not sure I'd want to purchase one with the speculations that have been placed here with absolutely no fact behind them, only opinion. If we need to set up a group of people to formulate an approach to study this then lets do that and decide who would be most qualified to do so. The Bonanza Society, the Cessna Pilots Assn, the Luscombe Assn. have all delt with issues of this type. I'm sure that there was lots of emotion that flowed early on thru those groups as well on the issues they faced. But at some point emotion has to give way to a sane well thought out approach to the problem. Looking at how these other associations successfully delt with their issues could well provide us with a path to take. bob branch 99891 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Hartmut Beil" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Ctech" <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2006 3:19 PM Subject: Re: [COUPERS-TECH] Coupes losing wings. > ----[Please read http://ercoupers.com/disclaimer.htm before following any > advice in this forum.]---- > > > I extended my search to Alons and found 2 more that separated in-flight. > Sad to read all this. > Both were caused by overstressing due to aerobatic maneuvers. We are at 9 > in-flight separations now since 1980. ============================================================================= To leave this forum go to: http://ercoupers.com/lists.htm ============================================================================== To leave this forum go to: http://ercoupers.com/lists.htm
