----[Please read http://ercoupers.com/disclaimer.htm before following any advice in this forum.]----
Chris, So you're working on a composite Coupe? GREAT!!! I wish you REALLY GOOD LUCK! Please allow me to mention a couple of things that Fred Weick mentioned during the years he attended EOC fly-ins. 1. The shape of the faring between the fuselage and wing was something they put a lot of design effort into to tweak the aerodynamics they wanted. I think they were wanting to control the start of the stall burble at the wing root to give burbling over the tail and have that contribute to the prevention of excess tail-lowering and angle-of-attach increasing. This keeps the outer 2/3rds of the wing flying cleanly and gives us control at the minimum flying speed. 2. On the plane Fred Weick was doing flaperon testing, he found he needed to have the rudders go inboard and outboard equal distances. As you know, in a standard Coupe, they go out a fair distance (I forget the number of degrees) but only go inboard about 3?. Are you making molds of the standard Coupe to keep the aerodynamics exactly the same? Which canopy are you going with? (I'd like to see slide-down doors on a canopy shaped as (or more) aerodynamically as the Alon.) Keep us posted more often on your progress, please. I'd forgotten you mentioning that you were working on the project. Ed Burkhead http://edburkhead.com/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] (remove the QQQ) -----Original Message----- From: Chris Trent [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, October 13, 2003 3:27 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [COUPERS-FLYIN] New Coupes as "conensus standard" LSA ----[Please read http://ercoupers.com/disclaimer.htm before following any advice in this forum.]---- You guys seem to forget that there is someone out here who has been researching the construction of a composite coupe for some time. I started out planning to recreate the wooden coupes but with modern composite techniques a fiberglass airframe can be made around 20% lighter than aluminum without significant reengineering or changing the design of the aircraft at all, unlike wood. The only real drawback is that the plane won't fare quite as well in a severe impact since composite the parts will break instead of bending like metal. To simplify future repairs I plan on using screws or adhesives in some places instead of rivets so the plane will be much simpler to construct and repair. And for those of you that just love the polished silver birds, yes it is possible to have an aluminum skin. All in all I think Fred would approve. I had envisioned just building a plane for myself, or coordinating with someone else to build a matched set, but it won't be too hard to make kits once I get started so I might do that. I'll keep you informed once I start. As far as engine choices, William Wynne has won me over and I will probably be flying the first SIX cylinder Ercoupe. Smartplugs will probably be added later for multi fuel capability. The instrumentation will likely be a glass cockpit system weighing in at around 8 lbs and will be the most expensive part of the plane at nearly $10K. Between a lighter airframe, engine, and avionics I am shooting for a true 600Lb empty weight. A couple of tweaks to the rigging (an aileron trim system to lower both ailerons about 3 degrees a la "flaperons") and it should meet LSA standards easily. The special category would even let me sell fully built aircraft if I wanted to. (Who knows, I might, anyone interested in a 600lb 110knot coupe for under $50K?) Chris ========================================================================== ==== To leave this forum go to: http://ercoupers.com/lists.htm Search the archives on http://escribe.com/aviation/coupers/
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