Folks, Just a thought: * The Ercoupe is required to display a placard saying it is "characteristically incapable of spinning". This is from the days when we all DID learn spin recovery by actually doing them. It was fair warning for any flight instructor to just forget the "spin training" part of his syllabus. It was not wise to try spins. A long time has passed since then. Like me, the Ercoupe was not aerobatic when it was young. We are both old, now. Accordingly, aerobatics are even less wise, for either one of us. * Since spins in the Ercoupe are an unknown quantity, that makes them test-pilot stuff. Wisdom would seem to dictate that test pilot stuff be left to test pilots, who at least get paid for their cheap thrills.
Grins, Dave Winters -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Syd Cohen Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2008 5:17 PM Cc: [email protected] Subject: Re: [ercoupe-tech] Re: Stalls Frank and all, According to Fred's book and a bunch of magazine articles from the early Ercoupe days, in 1946 ERCO offered a $500 reward (a bunch of money in those days, enough to buy a new car) if they could demonstrate that they could spin an Ercoupe. Many pilots tried, flight instructors, ex-military, etc., but no one could do it. The CAA certified the Ercoupe as "... incapable of spinning." I've flown my Ercoupe over 2000 hours, and have given rides to over 1500 people, and almost always let the passenger fly for a while. Some have tried to spin it, but no one has even come close. In my opinion, if any of you can even come close to spinning your airplane is out of rig. I've seen some Ercoupes that were rigged so when the left aileron went up the right rudder deflected outboard, exactly backwards of what is supposed to happen. Those were airplanes that had passed annual, even. Syd fnelson913 wrote: Jim, Did you cut the throttle because you were worried about approaching Vne (144 mph)? I always thought the idea for spin recovery is to get the inside (stalled) wing flying again. If you are not in a fully developed spin, exceeding Vne should not be a problem. I would almost think that you would want as much throttle as possible. As I remember the discussion with my instructor, I think he said that he could get the Coupe to enter a spin. But he could not get it to stay in the spin. The Ercoupe would immediately fly itself out of a spin condition regardless of what the pilot was doing. I have not heard of anyone on this forum who has been in an Ercoupe that completed even half a rotation of a spin. Are we worried about a spin entry the will develop into a real spin? Has anyone been able to spin an Ercoupe for even one full rotation? Frank Nelson N51DV - 415C TOA --- In ercoupe-tech@ <mailto:ercoupe-tech%40yahoogroups.com> yahoogroups.com, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > Just so the record is complete my airplane is a 415C without rudder pedals and with?standard 13 degrees of up elevator. I was carefully maintaining wings level when the left wing dropped and all of a sudden I was looking at the ground. I immediatly cut the throttle and turned the yoke full right which resulted in?prompt recovery but didn't help the stained underwear. > > Jim Graham >
