Of course, some folks thought the airplane was a bit unusual. It didn't have rudder pedals, only a wheel for controlling flight. It's combined aileron and rudder system was unique. It also had a limiting collar on the elevator control travel of the wheel to preclude excessive nose up, potentially leading to stalls. The only foot controls were the wheel brakes. You drove the plane through the air or on the ground like an automobile. Very different.
That Ercoupe, a small under-powered two-seater, was hardly a high performer. It's little 75 horsepower Continental engine, fitted with a longer-than-standard, shallow-pitch, cruisepropeller made it pretty sluggish on climb-out. In fact, Istruggled one day for two hours to get it over 8,500 feet.That's all she'd do and fast she wasn't, either. Top speed was at best 120 knots.
But, she was an economical bird to fly. She sipped barely five gallons of gasoline per hour, except during climb-out. Then she'd slurp down petrol at seven to eight gallons per hour. That was not much of a problem, because she didn't climb very high.
The plane actually belonged to a friend, also stationed at Bunker
Hill Air Force Base, Indiana. I got to use it almost as much as
he did, though, in exchange for helping him buy insurance and getting
the bird onto the base. It nested snugly in the big heated hangar
where Aero Club birds were kept. That was terrific, especially in the
cold and snow of those mid-western winters.
My friend and I took turns flying it. Fortunately, our duty schedules precluded interferences. He was on alert when I was not, and visa versa. So it was almost like having my own airplane, without the headaches. Such a deal.
We each contributed two dollars per hour of flight to a kitty dedicated to annual inspection and repair costs. And with twenty-five cent per gallon fuel, she was very economical to operate. That was, I must add, in the 1960's.
Flying her from that Air Force base presented some interesting experiences. That tiny little airplane was dwarfed amongst the B-58 bombers and KC-135 tankers. We had to be really careful not to get in their way or caught in the jet wash of their huge engines.
Since the plane had no separate rudder control, taking off and landing under cross-wind conditions could be challenging, or at least quite different from conventional airplanes. Having a 200-foot wide runway made cross-winds less of a problem, because we could take off and land on a diagonal, whilst remaining on the pavement. Only on very narrow airfields were the winds difficult.
On take-off we'd typically roar down the runway until speed exceeded that needed for lift-off, and then quickly lift her off to avoid scrubbing the tires in cross-winds. For landing we'd establish a crab to compensate for the winds and firmly set her down, while letting go of the control wheel. She'd straighten out, like an arrow, and track down the runway pretty much on her own.
One day, a cold but sunny winter day, I got to practice some
radar directed approaches. Traffic was especially light at the
airfield and the GCA(ground controlled approach) operators
were willing to practice their skills on me. They guided me to
along straight-in approach to the runway, taking me eight miles
or more off to the northeast of the base and then directing me
back for landing. My airspeeds were around 90 knots, making me a
barely moving target on their radar scopes.
After two or three practice approaches, they suddenly asked me to expedite my landing. There was a B-58 coming in behind me at its usual 220 knots approach speed. I was becoming a hindrance.
"Okay, GCA. I'll expedite," I responded. Soon I was just a mile from the end of the runway, screaming along at 120 knots. That was as fast as I could go. Still it wasn't enough, so GCA told me to turn left and clear the traffic pattern. Within seconds that big jet roared past me for landing. I wasn't meant to mix it up with the big boys.
An unusual fuel problem, on another flight, highlighted one more unique feature of the little Ercoupe. On a short hop to Fort Wayne, just 60 miles northeast of Bunker Hill, I noticed that the float gauge indicator of the reserve tank looked low. Sure enough, I was burning fuel out of that little tank forward ofthe instrument panel, and not from the wing tanks. The float was dropping down, indicating that the reserve tank was no longer full. Normally, fuel is pumped from the wing tanks up to keep the reserve tank full.
I wondered if it was really a dropping of the reserve tank fuel or, perhaps, a bad float. A small metal rod, protruding up through the reserve tank gas cap, provided a simple and direct indication of how much fuel the tank held. A full tank pushed the float to its topmost position and a lot of rod indicated that. But, now the rod was shorter, by half, indicating a low fuel condition. The fuel gravity fed into the engine carburetor,so long as the reserve tank held fuel. I feared that soon it wouldn't.
Upon landing at Fort Wayne, I taxied over to the repair shop in a big wooden hangar. The mechanic confirmed my suspicions that my fuel pump was not filling the reserve tank. A replacement pump solved the problem. I was on my way, seventy-five dollars poorer, within a hour. Luckily, we had enough money in the maintenance kitty to cover that expense.
In the two or three years that I enjoyed the luxury of access to that little airplane, we repaired very little. A new battery and a replacement windshield were the only fixes. Most of the routine servicing and minor repairs we did ourselves. Ercoupes are very simple airplanes.
Though I loved flying that delightful, if tiny, plane, my first choice was one of its hangar-mates. Navion 2995C, belonging to the Aero Club, was a much better cross-country bird. I flew it and others quite often too.
What I really miss, in addition to the choices of available planes, is the low cost of flying which no longer exists. Heck, I can't afford to fly anymore at all. Too bad.