Last week there was one perfect evening for a bit of local flying. Some airplanes just love landing on grass runways. On this beautiful September evening three planes and their pilots were having fun (practicing & learning) and were frolicking in the pattern, a Citabria, a C-172 and an Ercoupe. This video shows a greaser landing by an Ercoupe on Runway 19 at Harford County Airport (0W3) in Maryland. September 3, 2009.
Yes, It was “the” Ercoupe – being flown solo by a close friend and student pilot. Does he know how to handle a grass runway landing or what?
Ercoupe 67H had her 63rd birthday celebration today. According to the original log book, she rolled out of the factory in Riverdale, MD and had a one hour test flight on August 16, 1946. I let 67H out of the cage (hangar), gave her a cup of AeroShell 15/50 along with a 12 gallon shot of fresh 100LL and let her stretch her wings for about an hour. I even let her try a runway at our airport that she had not lifted off from before. Slightly downhill – so she wouldn’t have to work so hard to break free of the ground. But then we did strain a bit in the heat (90 degrees and high humidity) to clear some trees on climb-out.
Today was not a day to take a passenger and load up to gross takeoff weight. The ol’ Conti may have been born with 75 horses, but even with proper care (and great compressions at last annual), those horses don’t seem quite as limber as [I'm sure] they did 63 years ago.
I just read this quip on the Ercoupe Tech message board (Yahoo news group/mailing list?) and thought I would share…
“Airplanes are not investments, they are toys. They should be purchased with toy money or left alone. There are much simpler, cheaper toys, but none (to me) are as fulfilling.”
Yup – gotta agree with that thought. Not that “all” airplanes are toys, but the ones in which I am interested and get to fly certainly are. :)
