Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: RedTeck on February 23, 2009, 11:57:24 AM
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Spying on Hitech! Saw the tail number on his RV-8 and did some research (google'd it). :)
Last time he flew:
Wednesday, Oct 29, 2008
Valley Intl (KHRL) to Fort Worth Mecham Intl (KFTW)
A 3 Hour 32 Min Flight
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N346AK
http://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/N346AK.html
Spotted at the New Braunfels EAA Fly -in in May 2003
(http://futurshox.net/stamp/planes7/nb-rv8-n346ak.jpg)
Landing at the Texas Fly-in in 2004
(http://www.swrfi.org/aircraft_photos/2004/SWRFI1/images/N346AK.jpg)
No I'm not intending anything malicious. Was thinking about making an RV-8 skin, and saw the 'N' number on the default.
*edited* Bad image url
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Nice,
But look at the Moony behind it! Some did not even have rudder pedals.
What a great plane.
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Last time he flew:
Wednesday, Oct 29, 2008
Valley Intl (KHRL) to Fort Worth Mecham Intl (KFTW)
A 3 Hour 32 Min Flight
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N346AK
That is just his last IFR flight which was 116 days ago. I'm sure hes flow VFR since then.
But look at the Mooney behind it!
That's a Ercoupe not a Mooney! How dare you! :furious
They do have rudders just not rudder pedals. Its all tied into the yoke for easy flying back in the day.
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Thats a Ercoupe not a Moony! How dare you! :furious
They do have rudders just not rudder peddals. Its all tied into the yoke for easy flying back in the day.
[/quote]
Ercoupe...poodoo
Add your links below. Still a classic!
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Nice,
But look at the Moony behind it! Some did not even have rudder pedals.
What a great plane.
THAT'S not a moony, it's an ercoupe.
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THAT'S not a moony, it's an ercoupe.
OMG been to long away from the flight line, a moony has a V tail...Sorry :cry
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a moony has a V tail...Sorry :cry
No, thats a Bonanza V35 with the V tail. ;)
Mooney Acclaim
(http://www.airtouring.com/MooneyAircraft/Acclaim.jpg)
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Well, There you have it. I'm going back to cell. Been out to long.
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Well, There you have it. I'm going back to cell. Been out to long.
don't sweat it dude!!
i wasn't trying to be mean or anything.
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You really were not that far off, Phaser. Mooney bought the rights to Ercoupe and built a model (Mooney M10 Cadet) that was pretty much a classic Ercoupe design, but it had a Mooney-style single tail. Fuselages looked identical. :aok
(http://images.traderonline.com//img/2/plcnad/5042002/85358514_1thumb_550x410.jpg)
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No, thats a Bonanza V35 with the V tail. ;)
Mooney Acclaim
(http://www.airtouring.com/MooneyAircraft/Acclaim.jpg)
i forget what model......but one of the guys in our flying club just last year got a 65 moony.......for 22k.
he was doing some of the speed mods to it the last time i was up there.
beautiful airplane.
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You really were not that far off, Phaser. Mooney bought the rights to Ercoupe and built a model (Mooney M10 Cadet) that was pretty much a classic Ercoupe design, but it had a Mooney-style single tail. Fuselages looked identical. :aok
(http://images.traderonline.com//img/2/plcnad/5042002/85358514_1thumb_550x410.jpg)
now THAT'S pretty cool. i never knew that. did they do the same as ercoupe, and couple the rudder to the ailerons?
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now THAT'S pretty cool. i never knew that. did they do the same as ercoupe, and couple the rudder to the ailerons?
No. In fact the Ercoupe models themselves dropped the tie-in and used rudder pedals starting in the mid 1960's.
From what I was told, that whole tie-in thing was a marketing strategy trying to make it more like driving a car. Kinda like "If you can drive a car, you can fly one of these". I was also told that if you got a Pilot's license in a no-rudder-pedal Ercoupe, your license had a restriction to "Ercoupe Only". Further training was required to transition to a "regular" airplane. (makes sense).
There are conversion kits available for the older Ercoupes to install rudder pedals and many flight schools do this to avoid restricting their students.
Love em or hate em, you gotta give them respect. The design is over 70 years old and similar models were produced by many manufacturers (Piper Tomahawk, Beech Skipper, etc.)
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In the general aviation industry, at least in the past, Ercoupes have been looked down on because of the rudder link issue. While you think it would make things easier, in some cases it makes things much more difficult. For example a cross wind takeoff or landing.
I was reading that Boing actually used the Ercoupe to train some of the big jet pilots to do cross wind landings. Because the Ercoup didn't have direct rudder control, cross controlling was impossible. To make up for this it had a natural caster to its landing gear design. Even the nose wheel was hinged to allow it to rotate independent of the control. This allows the Ercoupe to make a "wings flat" crabbed in landing approach, and then when the mains touch it naturally align itself with the runway. This "wings flat crab" approach was the same approach needed to land a 707 in a strong crosswind without ripping off the outboard engine.
Nowadays in the GA world Ercoupes are classics in their own right, most of them have rudder pedals and they are fun planes to putt around and sight see in (great visibility). I also believe they qualify for the new LSA (light sport aircraft) rating meaning you can fly them with only a sports pilots license (much easier to get than a private). The LSA rating also reduces maintenance costs, so owning and flying one of these probably won't cost much more than a decent car.
The Mooney on the other hand, now that has always been one of the sexiest general aviation planes. The performance to price ratio is not bad either.