Greyson, I have a 1966 Alon Aircoupe with a C-90 (90 HP) engine in it. It will get off the ground in 650 feet with just me in the plane, half tanks, no wind, on a grass strip. I would guess it would take twice that distance (or 1300 feet) to clear a 50 foot obstacle. The field that I fly off of is a 3200 foot grass strip with trees at both ends. In the summer, on a hot day at gross weight, it doesn't clear the trees by a whole lot. Personally, I wouldn't operate a Coupe in and out of a 1500 foot strip. There are a lot of other airplanes that would be safer on a strip like that. A friend that I fly around with quite a bit has an Ercoupe 415C with a C-85 in it, and my plane climbs out a lot better than his does. When we take off one after the other with him leading, I have to throttle back in the climb to keep from running him over. In cruise flight, we are pretty closely matched, but in climb, there is no comparison. All that is to say that the typical 415 Ercoupe probably won't do as well as what I described above. Hopefully you'll get lots of other responses so you can get more data points. And of course, don't believe any performance numbers that you read in an owners manual without proving them yourself first. About the only numbers in my handbook that are realistic are the fuel burn numbers. Best Regards,
Wayne DelRossi Alon N5618F Hours logged since restoration: 335.5 "Nobody has ever scientifically proven that life is supposed to be serious." ************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com
