"Jay Honeck" wrote in
newseqqk.249170$TT4.12809@attbi_s22:

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.

This from a cherokee pilot who doesn't know what his feet are for anyway.


Bertie