jackwhickman wrote: > I am new to the group and looking at Ercoupe's to buy. I want an LSA. I have > two questions about mods. (1) Do metal wings on a 415C, indicate it is no > longer an LSA, or another way to ask the question, can you metalize the wings > without driving a 415C out of the LSA category? yes, you can metalize the wings, but watch out for the extra weight, which reduces the net carrying capacity of the plane. I think the Weight and Balance will have to be redone as well. > (2) Can you modify a 415C to get a 90 or 100 HP engine and still qualify as > an LSA? I am obviously new to Ercoupe's, any help is greatly appreciated. > This is more a question of whether it's allowed for the plane by what's called an STC, than whether it qualifies as LSA. The Ercoupe is certified in the "normal" class. Installing an engine that isn't certified for that plane makes it an "experimental". I don't know the ramifications of that.
If I may offer some candid advice, I've been searching for a reliable, reasonably priced 415 C or CD for months, and have perused the complete records of several. There's a lot more going on with regard to the quality and reliability of Ercoupes than I naively thought when starting out. After all, the FAA is taking care of us, aren't they? Take a look at the Web page; http://www.ercoupe.org/Prepurchase_inspection.html for an eye opener of all the potential issues. And, go through the archive of this discussion list searching for the words "crash" and "failure". Furthermore, 3 Ercoupe 415s crashed between April and June, I think it was. 2 of them were fatal. Pilot error, mechanical failure, both? I don't know. The other thing is, in this market, where so many are looking for inexpensive LSA airplanes, the Ercoupe 415Cs are in high demand. Prices are $10-$15K higher than comparable non-LSA Ercoupes. What's worse, many of the 415Cs were converted to 415Ds, which is a legal change. But, the 415D isn't LSA compliant. It has a MTOW ("gross weight") of 1400 lbs. And, the FAA won't allow them to be converted back, even though it's easy to do. I hope this is helpful. It's certainly caveat emptor out there. So, be careful and be safe. Regards, Jim Hart > >
