Scare Coupe - Part 1

on this episode we explore the flight characteristics of the famed Air coupe I've never done this before I definitely don't like it oh my God I can feel that moment what do I do now what is it like to fly an airplane without Rudder pedals we've assembled a cracked team of experienced professionals to answer that very question five Pilots with varying experience levels take to the skies in the Air coupe or is it the scarecoup [Music] this airplane is an a-line al2 with 100 horsepower o200 on it at one point one of those claims of claims to fame is I think it's the only airplane that was actually sold in the Sears and Roebucks catalog particular airplane is the last one that was built at the Alon Factory without rotor control unique thing about a Air coupe is the aileron and rotor are interconnected and you drive it around on your taxi like you drive a car rolling the ailerons elevator still works the same way that an elevator work on any other airplane it's got one pedal on the floor and it's a big brake bar it's going to be a little challenging for me because I'm used to using my feet and having an airplane with no Rudder control I know as I taxi out I'm going to be very aware of okay if I turn to the left yeah ailerons is going to be on the left the down aileron is going to be on the right it is outside of my comfort zone I'm used to flying airplanes that are relatively challenging and I think this one's kind of making me nervous because it's no known for not being challenging so I'm pretty sure I'm going to find new and inventive ways to screw it up the poh is very similar to most early General Aviation airplanes that they relied on you to be pilots and fly the airplane like a pilot maximum crosswind component this airplane has been demonstrated to be safe for takeoff and Landing is 20 knots the shortest takeoff is ordinarily obtained by holding the control wheel pull aft awesome the aircraft under most conditions will not fully stall that's helpful there is no warning to the approach to stall apart from gradually less effective aileron control this is going to be interesting I guess it's time to go do this I can't put it off anymore right or can I can I you want to do this instead maybe I'll decide after YouTube ah I see how it is all right let's go fly and with that Daniel was first up to fly Daniel watching has thousands of hours of flight time in some of the most coveted and challenging aircraft he often flies warbirds and he teaches tail wheel and formation flying picture's coming Rich walk myself around the cockpit here for a second he's very experienced but his accolades don't get in the way of his judgment whenever you strap yourself into an unfamiliar airplane it requires all of your attention and all of your respect here we go play front handmade are still showing a discharge but this airplane's with a generator system so that should be normal tablets are coming on it gives us our ads everything's looking good well there's no Rudder pedals time to drive for any pilot who has experienced the Air Coupe for the first time this is the really funny part that's so freaking funny all right be serious I mean all righty how do you fly this without having a good time this is freaking hilarious I love it it drives like a little Italian sports car on the ground it Corners well and has a tight turn radius as much as we do love cars at air speed and altitude this channel is about airplanes so let's go fly our report takeoff checklist is complete also balled up with regular mnemonics I'll just double check our flight controls are pretty correct and I'm gonna Uber it around a little bit before I do so dust oh I can see everything all right looks good yeah we'll try a big uh Air coupe 63 Fox Trotters departing Runway 2-4 will be uh North 270 departure Cable in the interest of time we've skipped past a very thorough run up and pre-flight Jack just take our time I have a pretty decent fast one coming from the right right now there we go just driving it down the runway I'm going through there's people I've gone through about 45 miles per hour I can feel the gusts for those ones yawn and it takes a little bit of a counter input to work against it off and Away here we go this is pretty peppy it actually accelerated fairly quickly through those guts and stuff but right now I'm heading about 90 miles per hour [Music] I got good oil pressure good RPM good ammeter airplane looks happy [Music] [Music] it's just kind of comical again I I don't know what to do with my feet about the visibility the weird thing for me right now is I can feel the airplane kind of yawing and hunting around watch it but you know every time I hit a little bit of bump you just get a ball sliding around you can really see it off the nose I think it would be a just a pure joy to fly on a uh calm wind day it's not bad in rough air yeah we're parting North climbing through 2500 feet I really want to play this again when it's smooth but I think it's just going to be a joy to fly this is This falls into a lot of the the quirky airplanes that I ended up getting around to either love it or you don't and I think all airplanes are fun they've all got their place this could be a a great airplane to have if it's your only airplane if you just want to go out and go fly low costs and stuff like that I'll tell you a lot more after I landed in the Gusty winds uh takeoff was uncomfortable because I wasn't able to do the things that I'm used to doing I've also got a lot of table time um so I'm just gonna I don't let the airplane do anything other than the point that no straight let's go ahead give a little bit of nose down Trail [Music] this particular airplane with the Hunter horsepower engine it wants 600 about you about to 110 miles an hour [Music] oh this is great let's make everybody sick at home it's pretty responsive I'm kind of surprised how responsive it is I do a really crappy lazy Aid here [Music] let's see how the energy kind of works on it foreign [Music] I can hear it settling in to the right I wish I had a little bit more right rudder it's fighting me right now as I come across the top of the lazy egg and you can see the balls slid out to the right pretty good for what it is I can see why that would happen the way the airplane's rigged and such back at Cable Airport her friend Chris couldn't let Daniel have all that fun by himself [Music] gosh I wish I had Rudder pedals right about here but it's only because I'm getting kind of into the fine tune ways that I usually cheat my flying around my friends dude you can't wait till you fly it Chris will in fact fly the Air coupe in the next episode now it's just me being kind of resistant to it it's just every time you bring up the hill on it's just kind of goofy so as I'm getting closer to you I'm a little bit slower to react so I think the airspeed indicators have some air in it because it's saying we're doing 100 miles an hour um yeah I know that Starman we're not okay crossing over your right do you mind uh just getting in the back of the frame I'm gonna take the lead for a second all right boss I want to go in and uh scare myself on Landing actually I'm a stolen first or attempt that and then I'm gonna go see it myself yeah the airplane's not supposed to stall that's his big claim to fame it's supposed to be a safe airplane for everybody because they can't get the results in trouble pretty sure you can get yourself in trouble every time an engineer says yeah we're going to make this airplane so it's pilot proof Pilots figure out new and inventive ways to screw things up hey car Pete's on coming back on the throttle it's goopy right here just feels odd that was a nice little burble I just relax the yolk um at the verbal and I got the nose drop only because I didn't want to horse it in there but straight ahead it did its job didn't drop an aileron or anything pretty much is advertised I can see where somebody might be able to try to get themselves into like a whip stall in it or something but yeah pretty straight ahead well oh why don't we go do some powder work with it and scarecoup uh 63 launch truck is let's face two four cable that's right I said scarecoup because I'm starting to get scared right now airplane looks good all engine gauges are in parameters on the approach initially hit 90 only because I don't necessarily trust the airspeed hitter on this the owner said yeah try all right 90. the manual is uh I'd say it's big but that's overstating or that's uh that's giving it a little bit of uh credit I don't have eight feet on anything and so I'll clear the brakes obviously not wind up the runway I got about 15 degrees off the nose Carpenter heat is off on approach say 85 this is where it gets kind of dicey for me ours all the way back this is where it's really weird like I just want to drive the aileron down and kick the nose straight with my feet and I just don't know what to do here Jesus there we go let's go try that again that wasn't scary enough let's do it again weird and a half I'm sweating not because I'm nervous it's actually this is probably like a billion and a half degrees in here um try to get some airflow going but I'll tell you what that last little bit to say it's uncomfortable for me is an understatement uh I'm just not used to and I think it just comes down to you got to get comfortable with it I'm not used to driving it on the ground in a crap and you can feel every gust and 16 bucks shot is turning left across one for Q4 cable it's really not bad until you get down where you want fine-tuning and that's what it gets weird I watched you on your last touchdown there's nothing you can do that's what I was saying too shut up and die like a man right yep the spearmint or something like that I'd be freaking out I'm steering the airplane down the runway weird here we go I just want to push right rudder I mean you know because you gotta so yeah I think I might be holding the nose on the ground a little bit too long because it's somewhat stable and then it gets uh where you should be unsticking the airplane from the ground and it just gets wonky and it's really easy to want to walk your airlonds and you can see as I walk the airlines out here the airplane gets uncoordinated gets ugly gets rough it just isn't happy and scarecoup six three foxtrot is left to cross one two four cable and Air coupe 6-3 box strut is turning final for 2-4 attempting full stop G4 cable I say attempting only because really if I don't feel comfortable and I am going around now the winds are straightening out the airplane works is a great wind sock wow wow that was weird wow the cross was coming from the right side why am I putting a left Handler on well the airplane wants the weather's name to the right it's against everything that I know to be steering to the left with a crossword a strong Gusty cross onto the right this is where it becomes uncomfortable kind of makes me nervous makes me want to laugh but it's just weird I'm gonna go do that one more time it's funny to watch that ball slide side to side just like you got a brand new pilot in here certainly has been flying for you know 60 years or better I haven't figured how to keep them all centered yet I'm sorry everybody been doing awesome okay we'll try Air coupe is downwind for 2-4 will be uh option on this capacity uh little approach only for uh that's good hey getting ourselves lined up for the runway this is where we're going to start seeing how the wind has an effect on our airplane right now the nose is pointed about five degrees to the right maybe a little bit more 1172 with this dude I would be terribly nervous of this level 170 I'd be constantly correcting them let's just drive it down the runway here [Music] thank you so the wind's going straight down the runway that you can take it's a little change [Music] but it's kind of straightening out a little bit better than it was on the previous approach [Music] oh at least the winds are starting to go far down the runway I can't keep traffic uh air 263 foxtrot turning left face two four cable full stop try not to get too crazy here wow that burn your problem kinda wow look at that power gets better wind wow it's absolutely freaking hilarious hey again I gotta apply this thing when the winds are smooth or when the winds are calm it's just so freaking hilarious man that's absolutely hilarious this unique it's I don't know how best to describe it it's weird it's weird in some fun ways I think if it was a win-com day it'd feel like flying a Piper Cherokee around uh that you can see everywhere you know the visibility is Awesome on a bumpy day every time that I'm getting uh I'd get a little wing lift excited by a bump um the nose would want to start swinging Landing you can see where the winds are gusting you know it's predominantly out of the out of the right on landing and so the nose would would go and then we'd kind of move over a little bit oh yeah it it just had to channel in your brain like no I just got to let the airplane you all at once and then let it touch down then on rollout that was the weirdest thing because I could feel I had a lot of crosswind rolling out on one of them and I had to drive the ailer on the opposite way that my brain tells me to like I'm rolling out and I know in every other airplane I've ever flown in my life I better drive that that ride aileron into the ground um and keep the nose tracking with the rudder this I'm having to drive the left the other one only so I can get nose wheel steering to keep the airplane going straight down the runway or it wanted to pull over to the right again a unique experience I don't know another airplane that you could go fly this and do this and get this experience out of it absolutely hilarious go get your Sears and Robuck magazine or catalog and go order one today because you need to do this and this concludes part one have you ever flown an Air coupe tell us about it in the comments if you like what you see so far subscribe give us a like and click that little notification Bell in the corner see you in part two of the scarecoup on AirSpeed and altitude

Channel: Airspeed & Altitude

Views: 85,375

Keywords: aircoupe, erco, ercoupe, general aviation, cessna, piper, grumman, small planes, pilots, pilot life, classic airplane, rudder, stick and rudder, langwiesche

Id: 1gUc54yoph4

Length: 20min 49sec (1249 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 01 2023