Bob,
The fairing attached to the nutcracker is a designed part of the aircraft. The reason it's missing from many Coupes is that sometime in the history of the aircraft, someone installed a "snubber cable" on the nose gear to keep it from descending all the way in flight. This snubber cable was, IIRC, original to the M-10 Mooney Cadet which has the single tail, three controls and behaved differently on landing. As far as I know, the snubber cable does not belong on any other Ercoupe, Forney or Alon. As Bill Bayne said, "Only the M10 benefits from having a snubber cable, and only the M10 has a part number for it (to my knowledge)." With no snubber cable, the nose gear strut extends down about a foot, placing the wheel and fork outside the slipstream for lowered drag AND for the correct amount of shock absorption. Thus, with the nose gear all the way down, that fairing should come up flush with the strut and make it more aerodynamic. In a discussion I had with Fred Weick, the designer, about 18 years ago, he told me the fairing improved speed almost exactly one (1) mile per hour. So, I'd suggest you make sure your nose gear has no snubber cable and that the rubber bumper is in place so the nutcracker can't quite go straight and that the fairing is properly mounted. Make sure that your main landing gear is properly maintained and that the window sills are level when the plane sets on level ground. That's the way the plane was designed. Ed
