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I must be in the middle of some sort of metamorphosis! I suddenly find my self in agreement with Greg! I was priveledeged, prior to Desert Storm, to prang the Earth with great impact in an Ercoupe, and in so doing, attempted to rearrange the instrument panel configuration with the captive element of my limited brain. This probably explains a lot of things over the last few years. Any way, Dave Smoler is one of the most thorough individuals I have ever met. When he gets a bone in his teeth he follows through to the very end with great dispatch. During his years as an Ercouper Dave came up with many discoveries to his credit, among them, a neat flush mounting system for the wing inspection covers. Greg and Dave are correct, the skin construction, while strong enough to keep the tail from wrenching off in flight, is insufficient to keep a 200 pounder, from continuing his direction of travel upon impact. Coupes are notorious for ending up on their back, because the nose gear and engine mount collapse. this action will absorb a great deal of the forward energy of the impact, but it won't keep your dome out of the dash. Draw a straight line from the top of the cowl to the tips of the rudders, and another shuddering fact will come into view. The cockpit is above the line, which means, that for all practical purposes, the pilots head will be above the crush line! The Ercoupes have more structural material above this line than the Alons do, so I hope I never duplicate my previous performance! Some thoughts to ponder! Wayne Woollard N6596Q ----- Original Message ----- From: "Greg Bullough" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, March 21, 2003 5:08 AM Subject: Re: [COUPERS-FLYIN] Shoulder Harness > ----[Please read http://ercoupers.com/disclaimer.htm before following any advice in this forum.]---- > > > To what Lynn is saying, I'll add this: > > There is little point in having an installation that depends upon > the shear strength of the fuselage skin, or the pull strength of a > single light bulkhead to absorb the impact of a crash. We've > seen these 'simple' installations of which the FAA will no longer > approve (much of the consternation of some). > > This is one of the rare cases where the FAA is probably correct; > many of these installations will do little more than slow you down > on your way to impacting the glareshield with your frontal lobes. > Better than nothing, but not enough. > > Similarly useless are attempts to secure the harnesses to the seat-back > tube: in the event of a hard hit, this is going to come away. > > You want something that's not going to go *pop* when the plane > goes *thunk*. The installation which Lynn mentions, developed > in California, meets that requirement and goes aft through > two bulkheads, relatively deep into the fuselage cone. > > Greg > > > > > At 07:41 PM 3/20/2003 -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >----[Please read http://ercoupers.com/disclaimer.htm before following any > >advice in this forum.]---- > > > > > > > >Hi Nick; I have put shoulder harness in a couple of Ercoupes, and gotten > >approval to do another one. > > > ========================================================================== == == > To leave this forum go to: http://ercoupers.com/lists.htm > Search the archives on http://escribe.com/aviation/coupers/ > > > > > ========================================================================== ==== To leave this forum go to: http://ercoupers.com/lists.htm Search the archives on http://escribe.com/aviation/coupers/
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