The fax arrived at work last Thursday, the temp CofA giving us the go ahead for our first 25 hours of flight, so by the time I got to the airstrip after work my partner and his wife were already there, and Jack had done the walk round and and was at the controls warming up the engine. The decision as to who would fly first had been made. Our grass strip 3000' long, no wind but very cold that night, to add to the confusion the the taxiway was partially blocked by farm equiment, three combines taking off the soya bean crop. Jack manouvered past the macinery, taxied to the end of the runway, turn and held for finally checks. At 6 pm sharp he started the take of roll, lifted off and held down in ground effect just in case, then with engine pulling strong he climbed out over us into the evening sky.
It has been 4 years to the week, and in around 1500 hours of work to take the Ercoupe 415D into the Canadian Homebuilt category as our Aerocoupe, probably the second such conversion in Canada, and more than probably the last, as the rules here have been revised, much as they have been in the U.S. Anyway, we both now have a few more hours on the plane, it flies real well, all the system work well, including the ventura driven DI (ebay), the engine has the 0-200 crank, with C-90 cam, original Stromberg carb which may get switched sometime in the future for the Marvel that came with the 0-200 donor engine. All internal surface have been cleaned and/or replaced and zinc chromated, especially the empenage, which showed the most amount of surface corrosion. I just want to add that this forum has provided lots of inspiration, the photo of Syd's polished 'coupe sure helped with the tedious task of stripping the paint, great detail photos from Wayne Delrossi who also suppied the retract seat belts, and Harmuts great web site. Regards to all. John H C-FTSS Ontario, Canada.
