Hi Chip, and Welcome! I am replying because I may be the only one on this list who does *none* of the mechanical work on my Ercoupe myself...not even oil changes. So you'll get an impression from my end of the bell curve, lol, after ~18 months of 'Coupe ownership.
I don't think anyone has yet mentioned how difficult it can be to find a mechanic who knows Ercoupes...in part precisely because so many of the Ercoupe owners do their own work! I didn't understand that until after I had bought mine, and was amazed at what a struggle it was to find *anyone* local who had *any* experience with them. (Especially when everyone I asked at my home field tried to say that it didn't take any specialist because "they're such simple little planes." Sigh...) I know it cost me extra downtime (as well as $) from the necessity of dealing with 3 serial sets of A&Ps at first, who were all figuring it out as they went along. They all said they "wouldn't charge for learning time," but I think only 1 *actually* didn't. I did have a good A&P with some Ercoupe experience for the pre-buy. My then-CFI advised me to ask him how much extra it would be to then turn it into an annual. The A&P (and I) resisted that at the time, because it would have meant him going back again to the 3-hr distant airport where the plane was, and because it had 10 months to go on its current annual. Also, I'm not sure whether the advice given to you -- to pay for the annual & then expect the seller to pay for remediation -- is practical in today's market, at least if you plan to buy an LSA-legal Ercoupe (C or CD models), which have so much demand that they sell in hours if not minutes of being posted. I don't think most sellers would give you the contract on those terms, but I might be wrong. One strong piece of advice about the pre-buy inspection: be sure that the mechanic who does it has read -- really *read* -- the essay on pre-buy inspection of Ercoupes on Ed B's website. Pay for the time to make him/her sit & read it, if necessary; it's that important. About costs: my then-CFI, well-respected & experienced, said he advises his students to expect that in the first 12 months you will spend 50% over the purchase price of an old plane in total costs (insurance, sales tax, tie-down or hangar fees, modifications, upgrades, repairs, etc.). I thought that was unrealistically high at the time... but it wasn't. Your question about maintenance downtime suggests to me that you may resent the downtime even more than the cost of the repairs, as I did. Although already licensed, I was still taking instruction to re-learn to fly after many years away, and I hated it when lessons had to be canceled because the plane was down because a mechanic didn't have time to get to it (for 3 weeks, more than once!). I knew from the pre- buy that it needed lots of work, and what the major things were, but a lot of lost time went to trying to find mechanics who had the knowledge and time to do the work. IIRC, it was about 6-8 weeks to get it initially flyable. Ed Burkhead wrote: "...or pay a good mechanic to fix up the accumulated sniffles." There were also "second waves," after I began flying it, as we found out what other (relatively minor) things needed fixing by seeing what broke, and as I somewhat exuberantly figured out what modifications/ improvements I wanted to make. (If I'd known about the former, I'd have tabled the latter, as it just over-complicated things until the repairs were mostly made.) Plus mine had a 4-month nightmare of trying to troubleshoot radio problems (see "My Radio Saga" in our Tech Archives, for how much can go wrong with even a new avionics installation.) Our EOC Calif. Wing Director thought mine was an unusual case of "Stuff" coming up over the course of the first year...but then Frank Nelson, who is also on this Tech list, brought his "new" 'Coupe to the same field last Spring, and -- although his had been lovingly maintained and flown, while mine had been a recent partial restoration of one that had sat idle too long -- Frank's stuck valve, annual, and back-to-back problem-solving experiences have still delayed his checkride for months (and Frank is doing at least some of the work himself, I believe). So, unless you are so fortunate as to *find* the very rare "cherry" Ercoupe that Ed mentioned, I'd prepare as a rule of thumb to have much more downtime than you want or expect for the first 12 months. Unfortunately, that's just when you'll probably also be the most eager to fly it, but I don't see any way around that with your average 60-yr-old plane; just prepare for it, and if you get away without it, count yourself very lucky. After about the first year, rather than frequent interruptions, I've now become able to mostly schedule work to be done when I'm going to be flying it over to the A&P for its 25-hr checkups & service anyway. So that's the view from the Not My Own Mechanic edge of the envelope. I hope it helped to see this extreme case, and to know that if you start out understanding some mechanics (I didn't), that puts you far enough ahead already that it shouldn't be as tough a first year as mine was. And maybe the best bottom line I can offer is: if I had it to do over again, would I still have bought my 'Coupe? You bet!! :D Linda 3437H (Sky Sprite) '46 415-C L.A.
