Ercoupe Opinions

Doofus P. Leadbottom wrote:

I've got somewhat of a liking for Ercoupes and its derivitives. They seem
to be inexpensive to purchase, and somewhat cheap to fly and maintain. For
a fairly new pilot, who just want to fly for the fun of it, are they a good
bet?

I had been fascinated with these for a long time and eventually I found
a kind owner who took let me fly in his, with him in the right seat. It
was a 415CD with the 90HP engine installed. No rudder pedals. It was a
blast for buzzing around the pattern but it did have its drawbacks. The
rudderless design meant a few quirks. For example taking off and landing
with a left crosswind was, ummm, interesting. The plane wants to
weathervane into the wind, plus despite a design that was supposed to
eliminate it, it has a left turning tendency so you have to steer right
when the crosswind is left, which raises the upwind wing which can be
disconcerting on takeoff and landing roll though I think you would get
used to it. Right after liftoff or right before touchdown you can find
yourself banking pretty steeply right to stay straight down the runway
in a left crosswind. Yikes. In a right crosswind the left-turning
tendency seemed to counteract the weathervaning tendency so it was much
more comfortable.

Also flying in the bumps was kind of sloppy because if you raise a wing
that turbulence has lowered, you also yaw that way, so you do a lot of
wallowing. I've heard flying in turbulence in one of these described as
"shepherding it in the correct general direction".

On the plus side, the plane is uber cool, you never worry about spins,
and there's nothing like flying around on a warm day with the top open.
For me at 6'2" with a headset it would not be comfortable at all with
the top closed, but the one I flew had a 152 seat installed that the
owner said was taller than normal (he is a shorter guy). 'coupes have
limited capability, but an honest look at my logbook shows that it's
plenty of plane for probably 80% of the flying I actually do that isn't
instrument training. I'm working on my instrument now so I'm getting
used to planes with more capability but if I had the money I would
consider buying one for use as a nice-day knockabout.