Hi Jim,
What one sees is not always easy to actually comprehend. I did what
you did
back in 1985-86. Took me years of research to make sense of all of it.
Book(s)
"in process", not out yet.
ERCO factory-converted over a hundred unsold 415-C models in dealer
hands
to 415-CD Specification before original sale. Upon sale, these were
(quite
properly) registered as 415-CD models, and the date on their 415-CD ERCO
data plates is NOT their date of manufacture, but their date of
conversion.
Jan Dyer didn't know this, and neither did Lou Buffardi. I have
researched
actual ERCO records in Washington D.C. and at Univair to discover it.
The FAA section that handles aircraft registration is NOT the same
section that
does 337s, etc. Registration is a few supervisors and a bunch of poorly
supervised clerks, so accuracy and continuity is absent from their
records.
For reasons unknown, upon transfer of ownership of the type
certificates, FAA
records in some instances would thereafter indicate some of the various
airframes originally manufactured by ERCO as "Forney". Calling a steer
a bull
doesn't make him one ;<)
You are not the first to speculate on the origin of the CD designation,
but FAA
Type Certificates 718 and 787 clearly show the evolution of each
separate
designation even if they, too are "officially" unaware of the 415-Cs
that ERCO
converted in the field and that their Registration section duly
recognized.
Regards,
William R. Bayne
.____|-(o)-|____.
(Copyright 2009)
--
On Aug 20, 2009, at 21:16, jh wrote:
Speaking of FAA record errors, I downloaded the FAA registration
database and set it up so I could run some queries/filters. There are
56
Ercoupes registered as 415-CD that have serial numbers outside the
range
given in "Ercoupe" by Louis N. Buffardi, January 1980, Chapter XIII,
pages 81-82, from the table prepared by J. Dyer, July 27, 1976, namely
4501 to 4868. Five of them are even registered as being made by Forney,
with serial nmbrs. as high as 5649.
If I were to hazard a guess, having argued this point several times
recently, all but the Forney's are probably model C converted to D.
Jim Hart
