EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2015 Celebrating 75th Anniversary Of Ercoupe Design

The 75th anniversary of the Ercoupe, which became a popular and innovative post-World War II airplane design, will be celebrated at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2015 with a gathering of these unique airplanes and their owners. The 63rd annual Experimental Aircraft Association fly-in convention is July 20-26 at Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh.

The festivities at Oshkosh welcome all versions of the design, beginning with the original Ercoupe 415 that first became available in 1940. Other iterations of the airframe are also welcome to be at Oshkosh this year, including the Aircoupe, Alon, and Mooney M-10. The innovative airplane became the first widely popular consumer aircraft that had no rudder pedals and allowed the pilot to control the aircraft’s direction in the air and on the ground similar to driving a car.

There are more than 2,000 individuals in the U.S. who own Ercoupe designs, which made a major splash in the post-World War II general aviation era and continued to be built until 1970. The celebration at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh will follow the 2015 National Ercoupe Convention that takes place July 15-18 at the Sheboygan County Airport in Sheboygan Falls, WI.

On Sunday morning, July 19, planes will fly to Oshkosh. Special parking for Ercoupes will be provided in the vintage aircraft area. The Ercoupe Owners Club will hold a banquet on July 21, where the guest speaker will be Jessica Cox, a woman born without arms who learned to fly in an Ercoupe in 2009.

Ercoupe owners who want to participate in the EAA AirVenture Oshkosh activities and National Ercoupe Convention should e-mail sydlois@charter.net or call 715-573-7063 for information and registration forms.

Here’s some Ercoupe trivia: The spelling of the original name of the airplane, Ercoupe, came from the name of the company that produced it which was ERCO, which was a contraction of the actual of the builder….Engineering Research Corporation.

(Image of open cockpit fun in an Ercoupe by Earl Downs)

FMI: www.airventure.org