JS: This is an ambitious & wonderful thing..how long have you planned it?
AR: I thought of it first in January and by the end of January made a decision that I would really investigate it in detail and by mid-February, I was deep into the planning and preparation.

JS: Why an Ercoupe?
AR: It just seems to me that it's a wonderful way to be flying in open air. You can fly with the top down and it's basically a very simple airplane. I wanted to do just VFR. I've flown IFR all over the country in more complex airplanes and this one I really thought is as close to flying with one of the old machines like a Stearman as I could get. The second reason is it's available and the third reason is that it's not expensive. It's probably the least expensive way to take a trip like this.

JS: Tell me about the trip.
AR: I'll leave from here (Gaithersburg/Montgomery Airpark) on the morning of the 15th of May. Everything VFR, of course. And I'll go from here down to North Carolina* and then stop in St. Augustine to see an old flying buddy and then spend the night on Pompano Beach with my sister and then go on down to Key West, which is the first of the compass points--that's the southern-most airport.
From Key West, back up the west coast of Florida and through Louisiana, maybe Alabama, I'm not sure, and into Texas and across Texas and NM out to San Diego. And I've gotten permission .. 90 percent sure now .. that I'll be able to land at the Imperial Beach Naval Air Station outlying field, which should be great fun because it's right on the Pacific Ocean, just about a mile north of Mexico. And another one of our Ercoupe guys is out there, Tim Briggs. Tim's making the arrangements and we're planning to do kind of a loose formation flight around San Diego for sight seeing and photos and stuff like that, so I'm really excited about doing that. That's one of the highlights.

JS: From there..?
AR: Santa Monica, because I want to see my son. And then on up the coast to see some other Ercoupers in the middle of California and up to Washington to a little airport, Quillayute, that's right on the point of land that's furthest west and furthest NW in the country. And from there, I'm going up to Point Roberts. Point Roberts is this strange little place. It's a little piece of land that's completely surrounded by Canada and water. It just sticks out into the bay and I just wanted to see it. And would you believe there's somebody who owns an Ercoupe that lives on Point Roberts? So that's gonna be next.
From there, I'll follow roads around to get up to Whetstone International. Whetstone International is right on the Canadian border in Montana. (Whetstone International Airport, in the Port of Del Bonita, is exactly on the 49th parallel of latitude, the US-Canadian border.) It's the northernmost airport. Whetstone International is about a 3-thousand foot turf runway, unattended, and according to the FAA's guide for airports..there's gopher holes in runway.
The Ercoupe guys, by the way, are giving me advice about flying over the mountains up there. I sent out a note to them and I got such wonderful responses; one of them said "As a flatlander, you should know," because I told them I thought I'd follow the rivers or railroads, "you can do that in flatlands but in the mountains you shouldn't follow rivers because they don't go over the top and you shouldn't follow railroads because you can't land on railroads and, besides, they go into tunnels." He said follow highways, so that's what I'm gonna do.

I've flown across (the country) in my Commanche and once in a Cougar, Grumman Cougar, but never in such a small airplane and never where I felt that I really couldn't go over the top. The others, I could go over the top. These, I really have to be much more careful.

JS: You're going down to Kansas from there?
AR: I'm going down to Smith Center, KS, which is the geographic center of the United States. If you put a fulcrum under the United States, it would balance under Smith Center. The actual center is about 5 or 6 miles east of the airport and the state of KS has put historical markers out there. So after I land at Smith Center, I'll see about getting a ride over there and getting a picture of one of those markers.

From there, I'll go up to Oshkosh. I wanta just land at Oshkosh, it's sort of a pilgrimage. And then from Oshkosh up to Sioux Ste Marie, which is also right on the Canadian border and then follow the border down to the Detroit area and meet some other Ercoupers there and then around the Great Lakes and through NY and NE up to Eastport, ME which is the NE and the easterly point. And then from there to Portland to visit my Grandson and from there down to Bader Field in Atlantic City, which is the SE-most airport. And then from Bader, back to Gaithersburg.

JS: To celebrate your 75th birthday?
AR: With any luck at all, I'll get back here on June 13th. .. bands playing, flags flying..

JS: How have you prepared?
AR: Well, I've kinda broken my preparation down into separate factors. One is myself..physically. I've tried to get in good physical shape. I take good care of myself. But this, I've done even more..exercised half hour every day on a treadmill, bicycle kind of thing..get my weight down, had all kinds of medical checks to make sure that I'm OK..eyes, ears, everything.
The airplane, I've been flying it and checking for anything that can go wrong on that and put the airplane into an annual inspection before it's due just to make sure everything is gone through. The mechanics here have been very good about helping and finding stuff.
JS: They seem to be excited about it.
AR: They are. They are. They really are all excited and they're with me.
And I've modified the airplane just a little bit. All that it had before was an old compass, an old magnetic whiskey compass, an altimeter, VSI that didn't work..just bounced..and a comm. radio and transponder. So what I've done is taken out the old whiskey compass and put in a more modern compass and a vertical card compass and I've added a Garmin GPS to the panel for the navigation.
I've also bought some cushions from Oregon Arrow so that I'll have a little comfort. Put new batteries in the ELT and generally made sure that the plane is in good shape, and I'm training myself with the airplane. I was not very familiar with the airplane, so I've taken a number of relatively short trips, down to Carolina, out to the beaches, and that kind of stuff. I learned to use the GPS by flying to a lot of different little airports..and by trying the airplane itself at different speeds, different settings, learned how it handles under different conditions..and training myself. Went with an instructor a couple of times to get some refresher training in short field landings and soft field landings.

JS: How'd you like your first cross wind landing in that airplane? (For the unitiated, the Ercoupe has no rudder pedals; all control is through the yoke.)
AR: I'll tellya, I couldn't get used to it. It took me awhile. Once I got used to it I loved it..but the idea of coming onto a runway when the nose of your airplane is pointed someplace else..it's a little disconcerting. I have almost close to 2500 hours and when you wanted to land, you pointed the nose of the airplane at the end of the runway. You did all kinds other things with the controls but essentially you pointed the nose. And in this thing, you point wherever you have to. In this little airport, where we had 24 (knot) straight cross winds, according to the AWOS..and I almost had the wing pointing down the runway, that kinda thing. But once you get used to it it really is a piece of cake. You just maintain the speeds and once it goes on, it stays on. It's a wonderful little airplane.

JS: Well, you're gonna have fun.
AR: Oh, I certainly am.

*Editor's note: Allen plans to make his first stop at the Mid-Atlantic Fly-In and Sport Aviation Convention at Lumberton, NC. Look for him and "Little Deuce Coupe" if you attend. See Calendar for details of the event.

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