Ercoupe Takeoffs Are Optional

Landing a new (new to me) airplane requires a slightly new skill set, or a period of transition from another airplane to the new one. In my case, the new plane is an Ercoupe, which is a “fun” aircraft and a joy to fly.

The other day I was perusing a thread entitled, “Biggest Landing Challenge??” on the Purple Board for Pilots. The Purple Board for Pilots, for those not familiar with it, is an online community for pilots to share experiences and commeradarie. Questions are asked and answered, ideas are presented and commented upon, and a good time is had by all. One member expressed his Biggest Landing Challenge as not always landing on the centerline of a runway. Well, I can relate to that, so I joined in the discussion.

I stated: Don’t want to get into the “changes” and challenges of going from the C-172 in which I was re-learning how to fly – to doing my BFR “stuff” in my newly purchased Ercoupe. Going from the 172 to a plane with the wing in the right place (change in perspective), no rudder pedals (no problem with that), but no flaps and a Hershey Bar shaped wing with a sink rate similar to a sack of potatoes – all belongs in a thread (and/or blog post) of its own.

Another pilot stated that he, “…consistently lands left of centreline on wider runways. Not a lot, but always.” He went on to say that on narrow runways he always lands dead-center.

I jumped in addressing “my” centerline idiosyncrasy: “Sooooo…I seem to have developed an opposite “syndrome” at the home-drome. I am using a paved runway of 2000 x 40 feet; and I am consistently left of centerline. Not far left, nearly always just a little bit left. However, fly over to Martin State (MTN) with it’s 7000 x 180 foot runway – and I easily straddle the center paint. Go figure…”

Another pilot mentioned that he read somewhere, “…that people who do this are often trying to put the center of the plane on the center line. What I read was written by some instructor who suggested the solution to this particular problem was telling the pilot to put themselves on the center line rather than the center of the plane.”

That was posted on Thanksgiving Day. And I had about 5 hours of CAVU weather before we were scheduled to be at our Daughter’s home for Thanksgiving Dinner. I figured I would head to the airport and give that advice a try. It wasn’t a radical change – just slightly different perspective on lining up for touchdown.

Here’s the result of that .9 in the air…

OK, so I did a few TOLs yesterday – working up an appetite for that Thanksgiving Dinner. It really did seem to help a bit with putting the centerline in front of “me” – rather than where I perceived the center of the airplane to be. Here is a short video of one of those landings…

It was a beautiful day – cool, crisp and clear. The wind was not strong but it was variable. I flew for nearly an hour and the wind was mostly a crosswind from the west, so in the video I was setting up for a slight drift to the right on final. Turn the camera on and the wind swings around – go figure. We always get a bit of turbulence on final for 28 because of the mixture of trees, fields and buildings. (You should see the “bouncing” on a gusty day.

For perspective on the camera angle…the camera is wedged in next to the compass and is about 3 inches to the right-center of the windshield. The fuel indicator (you can see the shadow move) is about 4 inches to left of center. For reference to that mumbo-jumbo, just look at the head-on shot in the head of this page (at the top).