All,
I'd like to acknowledge an unintended inaccuracy in what I said
earlier. I said the Ercoupe DOES NOT STALL, and that is not true in
the absolute sense stated. I stand corrected. There are different
ways to approach a stalled condition in a coupe and I, for unknown
reason, fixated on the traditional "full stall" landing and the word
"landing" was not in Kevin's question at all. My bad.
Kevin, Lee and Ed are all 100% right in their stall discussions, so
what I said was not what I meant. ;<)
A properly rigged 415-C or CD absolutely and categorically can not
stall "power off" (at idle or near). In level flight, cutting power
and SLOWLY moving the wheel back to the stop will cause the plane to
gradually increase vertical descent with the nose nearly level to a
VERY high rate and minimum forward speed. Push the nose down to build
forward speed again to 60 or 70 mph and the rate of descent returns to
"normal.
Coupes can and will stall "power on". It is possible to get the nose
high enough to feel the "burble" that Ed Burkhead describes with two in
the plane; and one coupe I flew would actually break rather nastily to
the left under such circumstance. I don't think it was properly
rigged.
A coupe will also "whip stall" with forward speed over 55 mph if the
yoke is moved back to the stop fast enough that the plane's nose rises
beyond "normal flight attitude before the "break".
Most probably put the trim in the "Land" position (nose high) and
control descent rate with power while landing. If forward speed is
maintained between 60-70 MPH, all is fine.
At lower forward speeds, only power holds the plane out of a stall.
Should the engine quit from 100' or so until touchdown a hard landing
can result. If the same person is in the habit of aiming to touch down
"on the numbers", there can be insufficient forward momentum and
insufficient height to trade for such momentum to make the pavement or
clear a runway fence. The drop resulting from such transition (from
powered to unpowered descent) is a "whip stall" too close to the ground
for recovery...a very dangerous situation not worth the visit.
Best regards,
William R. Bayne
.____|-(o)-|____.
(Copyright 2009)
--
On Jan 14, 2009, at 16:02, [email protected] wrote:
THis is Kevin's original post.
Kevin asked:
Has anyone heard that the belly of the Ercoupe was purposely designed
to flutter and make noise as a stall warning device? And that people
over the years have put stiffeners in this area to make it stop in
the believe that it was a design and in doing so disabled the stall
warning? How could the "belly" of the plane flutter? I’d think that
formed aluminum like that would be quite rigid.
Don't think there is anything about spinning in the post. I know that
Ercoupes can and do stall, they just don't spin or come right out of
it. Many planes have a stall warning. Now that is a warning not
telling the pilot he is in a stall or spin, just a warning. I have
not heard that the belly functioned as a stall warning, if it does
"Great", if it doesn't "GREAT" either way Kevin doesn't deserve to
have his post demeaned or criticized.
And doctor, over to you! Post should be read totally and not
interperted as one wishes, but as written. This forum is here to
assist, not bolster one's self esteem by demeaning someone else's
innocent question that was asked hoping to get some revelent
information. I have been in a coupe that stalled and due to incorrect
rigging (my opinion ) it fell off to the right in a dive. If the
belly does vibrate as a warning when one is nearing a stall, that is
wonderful even if it was not specifically designed to do so. It would
alert a distracted pilot that he was a bit too slow.
So fellows lets read posts thoroughly and only then answer them with
the desire to help the person asking the question and not to criticize
them or to demonstrate how much more we we know than someone else.
Lee Browning
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