Season 3, Episode 8: Erco Ercoupe 

IMO, the prettiest civil airplane of the era.

My Fathers favorite plane. Easy to fly, reliable, predictable. He preferred the integrated controls model. No rudder pedals.

That's how you work a plane in a gusty cross-wind! Fly it all the way to the pavement. Well done.

Great video flying the Ercoupe. That Ercoupe is a great little plane.My dad owned an Ercoupe back in 1950. I was only a few years old then. That's one of the easiest planes to fly. No rudder pedals. No spin!! Wish they still made them or something like them. I'm paraplegia paralyzed from the waist down. To old to buy an Ercoupe now. If I was a young man and couldn't walk I'd have one. Thanks for sharing. JC

I'M A SENIOR PILOT AND I'VE BEEN FLYING FOR A LONG TIME, EVERYTHING FROM HOME-BUILT BUZZ BOMBS TO HIGH PERFORMANCE BONANZAS. THE ERCOUPE GAVE ME ALL MY FLIGHT REQUIREMENTS. I'VE OWNED EIGHT DIFFERENT AIRCRAFT AND NEXT WEEK I WILL TAKE DELIVERY OF MY FINAL OWNED AIRCRAFT, AN ERCOUPE 415D.

Lovely plane, would have been an experience to see them back in the day !

Not sure why people call the ercoupe curious. It was a plane that wonderfully met its engineering requirements including ease of flying and safety. I think it is curious that we steer with our feet rather than with the yoke. The ercoupe has it correct in that regard. Removing a tail from the prop slipstream also seems a simple idea to deal with the left turning tendency. Actually a plane way ahead of its time.

Wonderful aircraft and great video. Thank you for sharing.

Cross wind landing was spot on mate!

A very beautiful vintage aircraft.

Neat little plane. My dad bought one back in the early 1960's for $2,000. N87119. Traded up to a Trip-Pacer, then an Apache and finally, a Bonanza.

that plane is a beauty. sure is getting bounced around by the wind

Wow...great job in that wind.

I bought my '46 C-model in March of '16 and absolutely love it. Very easy to fly, fairly simple and economical to maintain, and does very well in crosswind situations, as you can see from the video...you just have to get used to touching down in a crab attitude.

I would like to hear the plane not the damn music!!!!

One of my 1970 students bought a 1946 Ercoupe. A few things we discovered was that the elevator trim cable routed under the battery box corrodes. Check that. The second thing we learned was that if you did Dutch Rolls power off, it had a tremendous rate of descent. That's one way to descend fast. The fuel indicator rod on the header tank, if corroded from salt air, will not move freely in flight. We came very close to running out of gas once because of that rod sticking. There are approximately two gallons of fuel remaining in the header tank when the rod is all the way down. Ask me how I know.🙄

The plane that pioneered Tricycle Landing Gear that was quickly adopted by many WWII aircraft and then General Aviation.

Safest single engine, fixed wing design ever produced. Too bad we can't build its equal today.

My dad got his first four hours of dual instruction in an Ercoupe. He told me not to buy one. Sorry Dad, I now own a 1961 Forney F1A Aircoupe.

Question, with standard no rudder pedals/ coupled ailerons and rudders, did both rudders move both left and right ?

What year and model is this? It must be a later one as it doesn't have the float gauge fuel indicator on the cowling...

Does it have a radio compass?LOL. I was trained to work on them!

....I owned CF-RGD for years....curious though, what's the significance of the numbers 24-8004 ?

A little too windy for that small plane I think, and with no rudder pedals. But great job getting it down. Love those Ercoupes!

Looking to buy my first aircraft can you connect me to a source to find an Ercoupe

it's beautiful. . how does it fly? it seems a bit hard to control. is that correct?

I like the music and of course the Ercoupe :)

A bit windy???

The music is very appropriate for the era!

I wish people would use a wind muffler on these cameras. I would like to hear something besides wind noise. Dead Cats or another kind of muffler are not that expensive.

not the most fun day

Who designed the pig's nose on that thing ? Surely a more aerodynamic shape would have been better to my untrained eye ?

Great video, crap music. Heavy metal? 20's music for a 1940s airplane? Seriously? Next time leave out the tunes - please. My dad owned two Ercoupes at different times in the 1950s and early 60s. The designer, Fred Weick, went to work for Piper and co-designed the Cherokee.

What’s with the crappy music, you sure know how to spoil a video