Ercoupe Takeoffs Are Optional

OK, flying the Ercoupe on a windy day is easy but getting the video “right” was not. But this is a first attempt and I used a cheap Flip Video Camera. Actually the camera does a nice job, but it did not like imaging the propeller. I actually shot 20 minutes of video of the Susquehanna River Valley, Perryville and Havre de Grace before returning to the traffic pattern. However, with the propeller at cruise speed the video was streaked with propeller “smear.” So for this trip I am only sharing the landing portion – from when I pulled on the carb heat and chopped the power to 1500 RPM before turning onto the base leg for a landing on Runway 28.

The wind was about 10-12 knots with gusts to 18 or 20 and from a direction of 300 degrees. That created only a slight crosswind component for Runway 28, which can be seen in the angle of crab during the later part of final approach. However, the x-wind died out at ground level and the Ercoupe straightened out just before contacting the tarmac. You can even hear the tires “chirp” on the soft touchdown. Usually I make greaser landings only when I am alone – but today I have a video to share.

Harford County Airport has one paved runway, two turf runways, and an awesome FBO, Harford Air Services, that takes care of the place. The paved runway 10-28 is 2000 feet long and 40 feet wide. It also has a parallel turf section that is popular with the local glider school. The longer of the turf runways, 01-19, is also 2000 feet long but stretches out to 75 feet wide. I have not yet used the shorter, diagonal turf runway, 14-32, which is only 1600 feet long and 75 feet wide.

The wind was bothering some people today (keeping them grounded) and my flight was definitely bumpy. Those fair-weather cumulus floating at 4500 feet were formed by some strong convective currents; meaning today provided good reason for ALWAYS wearing a seat belt in a small airplane. However, those updrafts sure put smiles on the faces of the glider pilots, who were having a ball this afternoon. The wind certainly blew out the humidity, making the air so clear and you could see for miles and miles. I could even see the skyline of Wilmington, Delaware, nearly 40 miles to the northeast. And at 1800 feet above the ground I could see small details below me. In fact, my eyes kept wandering to the altimeter because the ground looked so clear it was hard to believe I was nearly a third of a mile above it.

Today was one of those wonderful days when it felt good just to get up in the sky. We had just ended a week of fairly miserable weather that an overnight cold front pushed on out to sea. That set up a day perfect for pictures, so I though I would give the video a try.

The video was uploaded at a “smaller size” to make it more efficient for downloading, but I am not happy with the quality. I’ll try to re-build it and upload again at high quality and see if YouTube tailors the streaming to the appropriate connection speed for our viewers (you).