Much of his design innovations have become standard in all planes (an
electric starter, all-metal construction, etc.) and were quite modern for
the time -- but much of them did NOT become standard, meaning that
learning
to fly in an Ercoupe is pretty much a developmental dead-end. You'll
never
know how to fly a plane with rudder pedals if you train in one that only
has
a brake pedal on the floor!


That is what I thought at first as well, but then I got to thinking: I
learned to drive in an automatic, and later learned to drive a stick.

True, but IMHO the choice of rudder pedals (versus none) are a bit more
important to an airplane than the choice of stick shift (versus none) is to
a car. Learning to use a primary flight control properly could one day be
the difference between life and death, whereas manual shifting versus an
automatic transmission is more of a personal performance choice.

On the other hand, if all you want to do is fly, and you have no intention
of buying up the performance ladder, who really cares if you know how to fly
anything beyond an Ercoupe? It's all about your personal choice, and if I
were at a different point in my life right now, I might be very happy to
only fly the Ercoupe.

In any event, I do not have the guts to buy a plane right now; I am
notoriously cheap (which makes me a REAL genius for taking up flying).

Well, "cheap" and "flying" don't usually go together -- but the Ercoupe is
about as economical as it gets. I figure I can fly the 'Coupe about four
hours for about the same cost as flying my Pathfinder (with its 6-cylinder
0-540) for one hour. That's a HUGE difference, and is why I've been flying
the 'Coupe almost every day after work.

Well, that, and it's just so damned fun to fly! There's nothing like
"driving around the sky" with your arm on the window-sill, like an old '48
Buick...

;-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
Ercoupe N94856
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"