I had a student back in 1971 who purchased an old Ercoupe. His gas gauge was a rod attached to a cork. Once the rod started bobbing and going down you knew that you were on your last 6 gallons if fuel. One day we had been flying for about 3 hours but I knew that the fuel gauge rod should have been starting down. Curious, I slid the canopy sides down, took over the flying and told my student to give that rod sticking out of the gas cap a tap. He sat up a bit, reached forward and tapped the rod. The rod dropped all the way down to the bottom of the gas cap. Agggg! Almost had a heart attack when I saw that. We landed immediately and refueled. Turns out that there was only 1 1/2 gallons of gas remaining in the header tank, and the wing tanks weren't full before takeoff as I had been told. The gas cap rod had some corrosion pits on it which caused it to stick when air pressure blew against it. After that I never took anybody's word about the fuel tanks being full. It was a learning experience for a young CFI at the time.
I just recently had the privilege of flying one of these, belonging to my first flight instructor...in my limited time at the controls, I found it to be incredibly docile, even in the windy, somewhat less-than-ideal flying conditions we had that day. His has the interlinked controls; steep turns were a breeze, and we even did a few "wing-overs" and a hammerhead! What fun!! Gave me new appreciation for these classic designs; I got my Sport Pilot ticket, flying a CTLS, also a fun plane to fly! Thanks for posting!
You should offer a course in video production. It was so nice to watch a video that's interesting , informative, no filler and all this in little more than 5 minutes. And I especially appreciate the absence of a musical sound track, well done.
I owned a Forney F1A for about 45 years. This model was built with factory installed rudder pedals and was the last Forney ercoupe built at Carlsbad, Californian 3060GOLF., before the line was shipped to Kansas. Subsequent names were Alon and Mooney. The plane was a classic, it’s designer Fred Weik was a genius, the plane was so far ahead of the private plane industry that it was rejected by the majority of then private pilots because you didn’t have any balls if you could not spin your plane. I once knew a airframe and engine mechanic who was also a FAA inspector , who won $100 from one of these ballsy pilots who bragged there was not a plane built that he could not spin. The Ercoupe/-Aircoupe was a plane before its time and a joy to fly!
Back in 1966 I developed an interest in flying and joined a flying club flying; Captain Midnight's Associates flying out of Hyde Field in Clinton, Maryland that owned an Ercoupe. I only managed to get in 6 hours of lessons when life stepped in and things changed. I never did get back to flying. Too much time bobbing around the world's oceans and other things. I have very fond memories of my time in the Ercoupe. It was summer and on at least one occasion we flew it with the canopy open. It was like flying a convertible and doing some slow speed flying about 80 it seemed to just float through the sky. Whatever turbulence was like floating on a pillow. I thought someday I would get back to flying but it never happened. I have very fond memories of my brief time in the coupe.
Thank you for this wonderful tutorial . This was my first ride in an airplane as a youth. I’m guessing that it was around 1947. I fell in love with the Ercoupe. So sad that the company failed. It was such a great idea.
Other kids rode bikes, I flew N2078H. The last Coupe built in '46 or so my dad said. I can still smell the sweat of 1970's St. Louis summers in a '46 Coupe. Perfume to my pre-adolescent nose.
I have about 70 hours in CF-SNJ. it had no rudder peddles and crosswind gear, which took some getting used to. My late friend Jim owned her. I think he got her in Texas. I loved this aircraft, I really prefer it to the PA-140 I learned on. Regrettably Jim bent the nose wheel on a particularly hard landing. I don't know what happened to her after that. Watching your video brought back many good memories.
The Ercoupe was a brilliant design in 1939. There was a whole lot of clever engineering involved in it; it wasn't just an airplane without rudder pedals. I remember hanging out at the local grass field when I was a kid (60 years ago) and marveling at how advanced and modern Ercoupes looked next to all the contemporary Cubs and Champs and Taylorcrafts parked next to them. I wish I had gotten a chance to fly one.
I flew this very same aircraft several times from Frederick to York, for the hundred dollar hamburger, back in 2006, when it was on-line at Frederick Flight Center. A fun plan, especially with the side panels lowered while in flight.
Thanks for the information on the take off and landing speeds. I have a 1961 Forney F1A and have not gotten to fly it as yet. It is one of the heavy ones ~1400 lbs and unfortunately does not qualify for LSA yet. I look forward to flying mine and I do have to steer with my feet on the pedals so it will be closer to flying a Cherokee.
These planes were nicknamed "scarecoupes" back in the day because the rudder and ailerons were cross connected, making it impossible to slip. Even a slight crosswind landing was very dangerous.
I always liked this airplane :) In our airport at Moline, Ill, we have an original Moncoupe built by the original owner. I got an email from Sweden and sent him pics and plans - I found a postcard sized card with the name of the artist Nice
I am willing to bet that this will be the aircraft that'll allow me to pursue my LSA Certification since my feet tend to get stuck under rudder pedals given the fact that my ankles turn due to my permanent physical disability of Cerebral Palsy!
Ok Tom. Here goes. 'Coupes are a really great gun platform for hunting coyotes. A good number of years ago, two guys were hunting coyotes with a 30-30 carbine. While yanking and banking, the shooter cranked off a round.... into the steel prop. They flew for another and landed at sunset... where they saw a light flashing at mid chord and mid span of the prop. After shutdown they discovered the source of the 'light.' They pukked the prop, and since they had a friend that was a welder... Anyway, these guys flew the coupe to AK., where it remains to this day .
Original type I remember seeing had a single pedal on the floorboard, again like a car as intended in the design. Good looking plane IMHO, but designed to be as boring a ride as possible. Take off, steer to destination & land. Steering yoke, throttle & brake pedal - only part not like a car is the hand throttle! Elevator control by yoke would throw off a car driver a bit, but it's use was limited. Full back on the yoke it would just mush along, no stall possible with the limited travel.
Some pilots are just "cowboys." I went flying with a guy two weeks ago in his '74 Saratoga. It is surely not a stunt plane. His wife got calls that he was "hot dogging" just above the treetops over a family farm. They asked who he was showing off for. The wife replied that it was me. I am not an airsick kind of guy, but when asked "Are you going to throw up?" my answer was, "Yes, if you keep this $h!t up!" He was definitely outside the envelope. Grabbing the controls would have made it worse.
