Darick,
If you are saying that your sills have a downward "bow" between the
ends...that would more likely result from some
heavyweight standing or sitting on them than from an "operational"
cause. On page 30 of the Ercoupe Service Manual there is a cautionary
note: "When replacing frame C assembly, to prevent collapse of the
fuselage, Ercoupe must be supported at engine, tail and center
section." If such work were botched the sills might well be
affected in the manner you describe; but that's wild speculation at
best (check your Airframe logs for work done).
"In the beginning" each was straight (fore-aft) with a port-starboard
curve to conform to the exterior curve of the
fuselage. Any distortion is likely NOT going to affect where either
end attaches; therefore, I would suggest you get
a carpenter's level long enough to bear on each end of a given sill
(and believe what you then see).
Of course have your mechanic inspect your sills to see if there is
evidence of some prior amazing event that could
relate to the distortion you describe.
Best regards,
WRB
--
On Apr 6, 2009, at 18:12, [email protected] wrote:
I've looked closely at my sills and they are not level from front to
back. It scares me to think there is a bend resulting from a hard
landing or something else. So, the level (like a 6") will read
differently from the front to sitting it near the back.!
Darick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ed Burkhead" <[email protected]>
To: [email protected], "ercoupe list" <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, April 6, 2009 9:51:48 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: RE: [ercoupe-tech] level sills
Gary,
The window sill is that hard, thick metal bottom of the window channel
where the window itself slides down out of sight. It’s what you sit
on while explaining to airport lurkers how wonderful Coupes are.
The Coupe’s correct on-the-ground attitude is defined by the level
window sill rather than the tail height. (We use the tail height as a
quick-and-dirty [but pretty good] way of eyeballing how close the
plane is to level.)
Ed
