An Ercoupe for my wife?

saddletramp

saddletramp

Line Up and Wait
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saddletramp
I've given my wife a few hours of dual in our 182. She did fairly well in the plane but had foot surgery last winter & says the toe brakes are just to hard to push. I know, not the best trainer.

Fast forward. A friend of ours has a pristine Ercoupe that he'd sell us at a reasonable price. He's owned it forever. It only has 200 hours on the 85HP engine & is as clean as a whistle.

I flew an Ercoupe quite a bit when I was a student pilot in the early 70s. I hate to admit to it but I rented it for $ 8.00 per hour wet. It also was a friend's airplane. It was a lot of fun & I got used to all of it's quirks.

My friend has been teasing my wife about buying his Ercoupe. I figured we could get her soloed in the thing & then transition her into a 150 for a check ride. It would be much easier on her healing foot too since there is no rudder pedals, only a foot brake. When and if she gets tired of it we'd sell it. I doubt we'd lose much of our investment.

We plan to go sit in it this weekend I'll advise as this story unfolds.
 
Sweet plane!

when they have the rudder pedals mod
 
James331 said:
Sweet plane!

when they have the rudder pedals mod
Click to expand...
Actually, I’ve flown both. Delivered an ALON A2 and an original Ercoupe to new owners this year.

The only thing the rudder pedals do is make it easier for non Ercoupe pilots to taxi the airplane and make x-wind takeoffs a little easier.

That is really it. The rudder pedals really don’t do much. If you ever see one, the rudder travel is really minimal. Not very effective in a x-wind.

If you MUST have rudder pedals in an Ercoupe, go find a Mooney M10 Cadet.
 
There are plenty of airplanes that don't have toe brakes that she could fly besides the Ercoupe.
 
Ercoupes are actually a lot more fun than something like an early model Cherokee.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
flyingron said:
There are plenty of airplanes that don't have toe brakes that she could fly besides the Ercoupe.
Click to expand...

This is true. We've also looked at Cherokees. The advantage to this Ercoupe is I know the owner & the airplane & that makes this particular airplane very appealing.
 
I got my sport pilot certificate in an no-pedals Ercoupe, and am now "upgrading" to PPL. It was a big leap for me going to rudder pedals. In my opinion, if your ever going to fly anything else, start in an aircraft with pedals. The Ercoupe instills some bad habits that are hard to break when that's all you know.
 
saddletramp said:
This is true. We've also looked at Cherokees. The advantage to this Ercoupe is I know the owner & the airplane & that makes this particular airplane very appealing.
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Make sure pushing the rudder pedals in the Cherokee isn't going to cause the same discomfort as the 182 brakes...they take quite a bit of rudder pressure for a small aircraft
 
I started out in a 162 skycatcher and got my sport cert. Bought my Ercoupe and have put 46 hours on her since I took possession of her in August this year. You really can't beat an Ercoupe for fun and open cockpit flying in the summer; for that matter winter flying isn't bad either. A 20+ crosswind without rudder pedals is kind of nice as well. I may go for my PPL at some point, but I doubt I will ever get rid of my Coupe. And yes I have landed in 16 gusting to 22 without issue.
 
I've owned a couple Ercoupes in my 50 years of flying and they offered some of the most fun I ever had. Being able to fly with the windows down is especially nice. Flew one coast to coast. Radio was a "NovaStar" with whistle stop tuning and 10 crystals. Navigation was sectionals and roadmaps.
 
I've owned an Ercoupe (no rudder pedals) for 3 years and have about 250 hours in it. It has some drawbacks,(lack of rudder pedals is not one of them), but it is a pretty benign aircraft to fly. The biggest downside is high maintenance costs. My coupe is a CD model mfg'ed in 1947 and a 70 year old airplane needs parts that are expensive as there is not a lot of demand for them and only a couple of sources. Another is it is a 100 mph airplane on good days and not very comfortable if flying for more than an hour or two. Coupes have their share of ADs and there are many A&Es who haven't worked on them.

Despite their drawbacks, I like my coupe. It only took a few hours to get used to no rudder pedals and it is the easiest airplane to land that I have flown. While the going can be slow, I do get good mileage with the 75 hp engine (most coupes have an 85 - 100 hp engines). Visibility is great. I would recommend one. I think your wife would like it. You may too!!
 
saddletramp said:
I've given my wife a few hours of dual in our 182. She did fairly well in the plane but had foot surgery last winter & says the toe brakes are just to hard to push. I know, not the best trainer.

Fast forward. A friend of ours has a pristine Ercoupe that he'd sell us at a reasonable price. He's owned it forever. It only has 200 hours on the 85HP engine & is as clean as a whistle.

I flew an Ercoupe quite a bit when I was a student pilot in the early 70s. I hate to admit to it but I rented it for $ 8.00 per hour wet. It also was a friend's airplane. It was a lot of fun & I got used to all of it's quirks.

My friend has been teasing my wife about buying his Ercoupe. I figured we could get her soloed in the thing & then transition her into a 150 for a check ride. It would be much easier on her healing foot too since there is no rudder pedals, only a foot brake. When and if she gets tired of it we'd sell it. I doubt we'd lose much of our investment.

We plan to go sit in it this weekend I'll advise as this story unfolds.
Click to expand...


How do the brakes look? Only reason I ask is because I HAVE NO TOES and have flown aircraft with good brakes and bad brakes.


I flew the 177 a while with horribly bad braking authority till I discovered the disks were trashed. Two new disks and new pads all the way around and was night & day difference.
 
I'd also look at champs and Chiefs, same open window type flying

Though the coupes do look really cool
 
flyingron said:
There are plenty of airplanes that don't have toe brakes that she could fly besides the Ercoupe.
Click to expand...

Leaving heel brake airplanes aside, because she'd still need to put a load on her toes with those, what, specifically do you have in mind?

I only know of 3 or 4 types:
- Ancient Cherokee from 1968 or earlier
- Yak - has pneumatic brakes with the actuator on the stick
- Plastic-fantastic LSAs: both CT and GX are set up this way (and their brake levers go in the opposite directions: in GX you push to brake, in CT you pull to brake (the newest version combines throttle and brakes, which is beyond retarded))
- Sky Arrow with hand controls

Of these, if budget was unlimited, I'd look at CTLSi before the combined controls, and Cherokee for the money-conscious pilot.

I only knew one Ercoupe pilot. Another guy was selling a nice Alon that I wanted to buy, and I asked that pilot what he thought of it. His answer was: "I only fly Ercoupe because I cannot afford anything else" (he flew it for free using some kind of private arrangement). On the other hand, a wife of a friend of my landlord flies an Ercoupe, an A model, and seems to like it well enough. Maybe the field elevation makes all the difference. She weighs somewhere around 170 lbs, I reckon.
 
Standard Navion configuration only has a hand brake. Really, other than freeing up your hand, the toe brakes don't get you much. The aircraft is perfectly capable of making a minimum allowable radius turn by stomping full rudder. Differential braking just allows you to drag the nose gear around the turn (not optimal).
 
We plan to sit in the Ercoupe this weekend & give it a good inspection. If we feel comfortable in it & weather is cooperative maybe we'll take it up for a spin..no we can't do that they're spin-proof...a flight anyway. It that all goes well I'll spend some time in the logbooks.

Like I implied before. Looking at a local airplane & knowing the owner has some definite advantages.
 
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