Ercoupe/Aircoupe
TWIN-FUSELAGE AIRPLANES
Berliner and Aviation (ERCOUPE)
TWIN-FUSELAGE AIRPLANES (moved from the main Aviation page on 09 Jul
2002)
P-38 Lockheed Lightning
F-82 Twin Mustang
Twin Ercoupe:
You might visit my other pages which are replete with aviation-related
historical information, such as railroads, Emile Berliner and his son Henry A.
Berliner*), Chrysler and SS and Jaguar, the ordnance page, and the Fairchild
Aerial Survey page..
Berliner and Aviation (ERCOUPE)
I write extensively elsewhere about Emile Berliner and his son Henry
A(dler). Berliner, of gramophone fame, and their extensive contributions to
aviation.
A kind gentleman formerly in the employ of Henry Berliner's Engineering and
Research Corporation (ERCO) in the early 50's e-mailed me 08 Feb 00 with
the following (edited only very slightly):
"When the light airplane market folded in the early 50's, Henry had the
foresight to get into the flight simulation business which proved to be very
sucessful. He sold the business (ERCO) to ACF Industries {formerly American
Car & Foundry}. It later was sold to General Precision Inc. and later to The
Singer Corporation. The ERCOUPE business was sold prior to that to a
company which later produced the design as the AIRCOUPE."
[For more on this venture, see also the Hebrew History Federation, Ltd.
Website
where there are two pages devoted to "Emil{sic} Berliner; An Unheralded
Genius",
"Part I - The Early Years", and and "Part II - The Later Years", by Samuel
Kurinsky
(links below). The two pages noted here represent a highly-detailed and
slightly different
and most interesting take on the life of this most inspired and inspiring
man, with
lots of new material on his various inventions (gramophone, helicopter,
Ercoupe, etc.);
I strongly recommend that you look at them, but do come back.
"Henry was very visible at his ERCO plant and knew most of the employees
on a first-name basis. We had about 2,000 when I first started working
there. He was a very gregarious type of person and treated his employees with
great respect.
He continued to experiment with all manner of gadgets -- a propeller driven
car, an aluminum hull cabin cruiser, one of the first hovercraft, a
twin-engined version of the ERCOUPE airplane, and many other interesting
projects.
You can find a photo of him flying his father's helicopter at College Park
Airport on the Web at Aerofiles* {formerly Aero Data Files}. The museum at
College Park Airport now has the helicopter on display. {I requested
permission to reproduce the photo here and received it 11 Feb 00.}
SEE PHOTO (Researched) coming
Henry Berliner flying the "Berliner 1921 single-wing, rotary-powered,
helicopter with deflector vanes at the wingtips (Aviation)" - text from
Aerofiles
(by permission); described as "the first helicopter to achieve controlled
horizontal flight -- a war-surplus Nieuport biplane fighter with tilting tail
rotor, and a short-span upper wing with 14'0" helicopter blades at the
tips." Clearly, there was no upper wing or tail rotor at the time this photo
was taken.
As I've noted elsewhere, one of the nicest things about this Website is
the wonderful people who contact me; on 05 Dec 02, I heard from Richard
Sanders, a grandson of Emile Berliner and nephew of Henry A. Berliner, and he
confirms that the Berliner helicopter is, indeed, at the College Park museum,
writing {slightly edited}:
"The Berliner Helicopter was developed at College Park Airport, which you
may know is the oldest operating airport in the world {I did NOT know}. It
was here that the Wright Brothers taught the army officers to fly.
Currently there is a small museum located just off the remaining east-west
runway. In this museum is the helicopter that Henry Berliner built for the
military. Unlike the first machine, this model has wings to be used in case
of engine failure.
My brother and I took over Ercoupe sales and service and had Erco produce
just over 200 aircraft. We developed the Model 'G'; with the 'kiddy' seat
which my daughter occupied on a delivery trip to California."
[Living history sure beats apocrypha, hands down!
Photos at my Emil Berliner continuation page.]
The Berliner-Joyce Aircraft Corporation produced some of the most advanced
aircraft designs of the day and should not be forgotten as one of the
pioneering aircraft corporations."
Henry Berliner went to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in 1927 as a spokesman and
partner of a group who operated Hoover Field in Washington and opened and
operated The Gettysburg Flying Service, Inc., in Gettysburg. By 1929, Henry
had apparently sold out and went back to manufacturing airplanes.
* - This Aerofiles site has some of the most amazing aircraft information I
have ever seen; I heartily recommend it to you. Their page on Berliner,
alone, is worth every moment.
01 Oct 00 - A gentleman whose late father-in-law, Slim Mayfield, was a
barnstormer and pilot of every kind in the late 20's until he retired from
American Airlines in 1969 writes that his father-in-law owned a Berliner-Joyce
CM-4 with the OX-5 motor from 1930 to 1936 and flew this aircraft in eastern
Pennsylvania as a barnstormer for almost all of those years. Mayfield
mentioned to him once that a man named Emile Berliner had developed the first
aircraft radio and successfully used it around Long Island for a short period
but there was no interest in it and he quit trying to promote it. I don't
recall ever hearing of or reading of any such in EB's biography, which is
packed away, so I can't readily check on this. I seem to remember the facts
are
right but not the inventor. Does anyone know better?
(Incidentally, George Dade's NYS license plate was "OX-5".)
Another bit of Berliner aviation apocrypha involves me, NOT Emile or
Henry. When I worked at Servomechanisms in 1955-56 in their offices at the
south-east corner of Stewart Avenue and Clinton Road in Garden City, I was
quite
aware that the buildings were the former plant and offices of the Glenn L.
Curtiss experimental aircraft facility. They are still standing there and
contain an unremarkèd historical wonder. The "T"-shaped main building,
fronting on Clinton Road, was the engineering office and it connected, at the
second floor rear, with a balcony running across the west wall of the factory
(from which many of the famous plant photos were taken). In the south wall of
that connector, one could plainly see the side of the throat of the famed
Curtiss wind tunnel, once (ca. WWI) the longest wind tunnel in the world.
The last time I was allowed access (ca. 1980), it had been covered over with
dry-wall, but I'd bet it is still in there and it should be removed,
restored, and put on display at the Cradle of Aviation Museum at nearby Mitchel
Field
