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Well Coupers, a day both sad and happy. My freshly-restored Coupe has been sold, to a member of these lists, but I'm not gonna out him publicly, and will let him announce his joy to the group on his own time. I had a number of inquiries over the last couple weeks, this gentleman came down, viewed the plane, talked to the mechanics, flew it and wrote me a check on the spot. No real need to negotiate, he's not ready to fly it home yet so I am storing it in my hanger up in the north Ga mtns until he is ready, sometime in the spring. To all those who doubt the viability of the $29k Ercoupe, let me say, you sometimes get what you pay for - and in a few years, this will be a $35k Ercoupe, mark my words. I am replacing him with a 73 Cherokee 140, full IFR, used as an instrument trainer. It's kinda like going from driving a Triumph TR4 to a Chevy, not the same cachet, there's a lot of Chevy's out there, but I will feel more comfortable going out of that field with twice the horsepower and only 300 lbs more empty weight. New airplane is not here yet, sometime next week. I've owned a Cherokee 180, Arrow, and Turbo Arrow in the past, so this will be pretty familiar. A kinda scary aside - and the purchaser knows about this ... A week or so ago, I was planning to take the Coupe in to the shop for a compression check and look over before actually selling it, went out, preflighted, everything seemed normal. Got in, cranked up, went charging down the runway, and something just didn't feel 'right'. I chalked it up the the 25 knot direct crosswind and the 35 degree chill, aborted the takeoff, did another runup, everything again seemed fine. Went charging down the runway again, lifted off, and found to my horror that I couldn't climb - no power at all!!. Not enough runway left to land and stop without running across the road. As I crossed the end of the runway, at about 100 feet, the tower called and asked if I wanted the crash trucks! I briefly debated putting it down on the highway or into a field, decided that I was still airborne, engine still making some power, airspeed wobbling between about 55-70. I nursed it around in a VERY GENTLE turn, came back around just over the treeline and back onto the runway in the opposite direction. As I pulled off the runway, at idle the engine died! Got it cranked again, went to the shop where we discovered one cylinder COMPLETELY DEAD - no compression at all! Did not show on the mag check, no unusual vibration - just no power!! I had been running on only three. And this with only about 110 hours since major! So Coupe now has a new cylinder, and everything is fine again. LESSONS LEARNED - 1) LISTEN to that little voice inside, if something doesn't feel 'right' stop and check it out. There's an interesting article in this month's AOPA Pilot that addresses this same situation. After 5000+ hours and almost 50 yrs, this is the FIRST actual emergency I've had. The last 5000 hours don't count - just the next five minutes! 2) When you find yourself in deep doo-doo, above all FLY THE AIRPLANE! Don't give up!! I didn't really have time to be scared, but I was able to resist the impulse to get back as quickly as possible, or to abandon all hope and put it down wherever. I was constantly evaluating where I would be in the next ten seconds, and realized that if I asked ANYTHING of the airplane other than a really gentle turn, I would be in bigger trouble. Watch the airspeed, gentle turns, and pucker up! I plan to remain a member of the lists, who knows, another Coupe may be in my future. HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL, and to all a GOOD NIGHT!! ============================================================================== To leave this forum go to: http://ercoupers.com/lists.htm Search the archives on http://escribe.com/aviation/coupers/
