I am glad to hear that both subject matters were immediately identified.
Concerning the Sebring disintegration::
Most Ercoupes spent their lifetimes out of doors, due to the low value in
previous lifetimes, and the controls were locked with a seatbelt through the
control wheel, allowing the moveable controls to rattle back and forth between
limited stops for years wearing down bolts, and inserts. this allows
accumulated wear to occur, and it will seriously affect the reliability of the
performance of the craft. Do like Ed sez, and measure the control slop, and
immediately do something about it.
Cross wind landing:: Most high time Ercoupe pilots have accumulated in the
vicinity of 200 to 300 hours in the aircraft and consider themselves quite
skilled. That may well be, if everytime you went out with your Ercoupe for a
hamburger you really practiced some skill and studied up on it preflight, If
not you may have succumbed to the Magical Aura of the Ercoupe, and have allowed
your skill levels to deteriorate. High time Ercoupe pilots like Joe Brooks,
Sandy Belewitch, and Dan Hall, just to name a few, with hours in the thousands
will tell you straight out, that the Ercoupe "can" be a forgiving machine, but
all flight begins with good maintenance, and high and current skill levels.
Wayne Woollard
----- Original Message -----
From: heavensounds
To: [email protected] ; Ed Burkhead
Sent: Saturday, December 27, 2008 9:54 AM
Subject: Re: [ercoupe-tech] Sebring crash, NTSB preliminary report
Ed
High altitude and a few mph short of Vne?
Probably you were exceeding Vne!
Remember that altitude will make TAS higher than IAS.
Perhaps you could recall altitude and temperature that day and estimate what
was your TAS?
Eliacim
----- Original Message -----
From: Ed Burkhead
To: [email protected]
Sent: Saturday, December 27, 2008 10:42 AM
Subject: RE: [ercoupe-tech] Sebring crash, NTSB preliminary report
> NTSB Identification: ERA09FA087
> 14 CFR Part 91: General Aviation
> Accident occurred Saturday, December 13, 2008 in Sebring, FL
> Aircraft: ERCOUPE 415-D, registration: N99154
> Injuries: 2 Fatal.
> . . . Another witness, who was also a certificated airline transport
> pilot, stated that while outside working on his house he
> observed the accident airplane flying overhead. . . . He
> additionally noted that while the airplane was banking,
> both ailerons were "fluttering" at a high frequency. . . .
The mention of aileron flutter in the accident report brings me to recount
my encounter with aileron flutter in a Coupe.
At high altitude, in perfectly smooth cool air, I needed to descend to go
under clouds far ahead. Rather than do a cruise descent, I decided to do a
gentle dive to touch the Vne of the Coupe.
I was still a few mph short of Vne when I felt a vibration very much like
hitting the washboarding on a gravel road.
For some strange reason, I deduced the cause in a very short time - between
1-3 seconds - and correctly figured out I needed to load the aileron to
dampen the flutter. A sudden turn of the yoke instantly dampened the
flutter and I slowed the plane gently, doing S-turns to keep the aileron
loaded till I was down to normal cruise speed.
The plane checked out, there in the air, so I continued on to home base.
Testing on the ground showed that the aileron system had excess play.
It's already part of the Coupe instructions how to check the aileron control
system play. My recommendation to everyone is to DO IT! Check that aileron
system play. Soon! Please!
I'd also recommend a thorough inspection of the components of the control
system. Perform the integrity test on the aileron push rods (is the ice
pick actually the correct method?) and make sure all the parts of the
control system are corrosion free and in good condition.
And, consider that it's not necessarily a good idea to approach Vne in a 60+
year old airplane.
Ed
Ed Burkhead
http://edburkhead.com/Ercoupe/index.htm
ed -at- edbur???khead.XXX change -at- to @, remove ??? and change XXX
to com
