Welcome rurlndum, (If you would, a name is nice to use for friendliness - a first name, anyway.)
(I'll let other discuss corrosion detection. I _will_ strongly recommend you get a knowledgeable Coupe mechanic who is working for YOU to do a pre-purchase inspection (preferably an annual inspection) with no skimping on the corrosion inspection.) Your experience should serve you well in flying a Coupe. My PP lessons were in a 152 and mostly in a 172. When I got my license and bought my Coupe, the instructor told me to just go fly it. I could and did but I DID study hard, everything written about Coupes and that stood me in good stead. We recommend you find a Coupe skilled CFI or a very experienced (or smart) Coupe owner and get transition time. There ARE differences in how you approach certain things. For example, you ask about the Coupe's famous piano-like glide. Yeah, if you glide at a speed near the stall, the sink rate is in the same ballpark as the other short and thick winged aircraft, notably the Short Wing Pipers. With the low aspect ratio, thick wings, the optimum glide speed is notably higher. I did some extensive glide testing in my plane. My results were confounded by a faulty ASI but I can draw these conclusions I think are valid: 1. Glide ratio at a low airspeed is low. The sink rate is quite high. 2. The glide ratio at higher airspeeds is in the ballpark of other aircraft, perhaps in the 10:1 range. 3. The glide ratio to airspeed curve has a broad top with not much glide ratio change with airspeed changes on either side of the optimum speed. 4. A Coupe that has a minimum airspeed (a stall in any other plane) of 50-55 mph will have its best glide ratio in the 75-85 mph range. Gliding at 90 won't be much less than at the peak ratio. Gliding at lower speeds, like 65 or 60 is something else. 5. I recommend you do some careful glide testing of your Coupe and find out what its best glide airspeed IS. 6. Even at the minimum airspeed with the greatest sink, the plane is very controllable with full aileron authority and no chance of falling off into a spin. 7. If you were to glide down final at minimum airspeed, yoke against the rear stop, you'd have no energy for a flare. In that case, you'd better drop the nose at a couple of hundred feet to gain airspeed/energy for the flare or you will very likely fold under the nose gear and maybe something worse. This is psychologically hard to do as you are already coming down fairly fast - dropping the nose is counter intuitive - but it is still a very good idea (as long as you have __enough__ altitude left). Summary: If you fly a zero power final approach at 75-85 mph, you are in the good glide ratio range and the approach is not excessively steep and is fully controllable. This was my normal approach for many years. We've got some much more extended discussions on the Ercoupe Owners Club's website. Here's a link to the FAQ: http://ercoupe.org/ercoupers_faq.htm Here's a link to my Coupe web page: http://edburkhead.com/Ercoupe/index.htm Please feel free to ask lots of questions. Welcome, again. Ed Ed Burkhead http://edburkhead.com/Ercoupe/index.htm ed -at- edbur???khead.XXX change -at- to @, remove ??? and change XXX to com
