![]() Others prefer those with hikes in engine power. For one, the 415-C is light enough to be flown under Light Sport aircraft (LSA) rules. To many, the 1946 415-C is the most desirable Ercoupe. Then Mooney sold the type certificate to Univair Aircraft Corporation of Aurora, Colorado, where it remains today. When production ended in 1970, Mooney Aircraft was making Ercoupes the company rebranded as Mooney M10 Cadets, complete with Mooney’s signature forward-swept vertical stabilizer. After 1950, a succession of owners turned out ever-fewer Ercoupes. Thus ended the golden age of Ercoupe production. For a few heady months it seemed that predictions of wartime pilots wanting to continue flying in civilian life were coming true. Macy’s department stores even had them on display. These were the model 415-C, which had a max takeoff weight of 1,260 pounds and 75-horsepower Continental C-75 engines. But the blockbuster sales came when production resumed after the war in 1946 that’s the year ERCO delivered 4,311 Ercoupes. ![]() The Engineering and Research Corporation (ERCO) of Riverdale, Maryland, built 112 original Ercoupes in 19, delivering them from the company’s own airport. Since it first went into production in 1940, records show that 5,600 Ercoupes of various varieties were sold. Early model Ercoupes didn’t come with rudder pedals-don’t need ’em! (elevator and rudders are interconnected)-but they were available as an option. Want to brake? Step on the single, floor-mounted brake pedal. And in a nod to automobile design, the Ercoupe has a control yoke that does triple duty, controlling pitch, roll-and nosewheel steering. And the tricycle-gear arrangement-revolutionary in 1939-promised an end to the ground loops and botched crosswind takeoffs and landings that are the curse of taildraggers. The trailing-link main landing gear mean smoother landings. ![]() The Constellation-style twin vertical stabilizers fly in air undisturbed by propeller slipstream, so there is minimal p-factor. The wings’ large dihedral means good roll stability. ![]() The Ercoupe has other admirable features. The airplane can, however, mush earthwards in a sprightly manner, which helps to explain why it has no flaps. This, together with the limited elevator travel, means that there would be insufficient elevator authority to maintain the airplane in even an aggravated stall. You could do a hammerhead or whip stall, but the turbulent airflow from the stalled wing roots would disrupt the air moving over the elevator. Well, at least not held in a stall in which the wings are entirely stalled. Back in 1939 a young designer named Fred Weick came up with the Ercoupe as a way to win a safety prize, which he did.īack then, stalls and spins claimed many more lives than today, so Weick’s Ercoupe was given limited elevator travel (13 degrees up, in the early models) and a wing design that makes it incapable of stalling or spinning. This stands to reason, because the Ercoupe was designed to have good manners. It’s a friendly looking airplane that would seem right at home with a smiley face painted on its cowl. With its round, roly-poly lines diminutive size and slide-down canopy the Ercoupe is a crowd magnet for young and old alike.
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