The Monocoupe

It's been a while and it's time once again for an adventure. 

Where to begin?

This may seem utterly vacuous, and in fact, it is. I like airplanes, well every type of vehicle, really, but airplanes in particular. Dad always had one when I was growing up and I'm still proud to say that I'm the only one of his four children that never puked in one of his planes. 

On my return from the gulf war in 1991, I asked my dad why he never taught me to fly, and he said: "You never asked."  So I asked, and in 1992 he taught me to fly in a 1967 Citabria, which we then rebuilt: (http://teambluemonkey.com/bzmite/Citabria/Citabria.htm). 

I flew that plane for a few years (ah, I remember my first plane like everyone else remembers their first car, only more so). I've since owned a succession of planes: a 1960 TriPacer (flying milk stool that glides like a brick), a 1950 Mooney Mite, which I bought as a basket case and only recently is it nearing completion (http://bzmite.blogspot.com/), and I am currently flying a 1946 Cessna 140:

It's ugly. It's not much fun to fly, either. My motorcycle has more horsepower, and I think it climbs better too, even without wings. 

Notice that my planes keep getting older. 

But more than just flying, I am a student of what is known as "The Lore of Flight". My first job was at Boeing, where I took advantage of the excellent extended library to read every manufacturer's history that I could lay my hands on. I know what a Lockheed Cloudster is. I have seen a Douglas World Cruiser in person. I know where the only existing Boeing Model 40 is (Spokane). I have read extensively on the history of long distance record flights, and am particularly tickled by the 1939 record flight of Clyde Pangborn (a local flyboy who grew up in St Maries, ID) from Japan to Seattle, that actually ended in Wenatchee in a skid landing to a nearly endless nose-stand. I can look at an infinitesimally small piece of a picture of an airplane and usually tell the make, model and history of the type, and often of the particular plane, if it has any fame at all. I not only have been to Old Rhinebeck, I have a thorough knowledge of every aircraft there. 

It's a sickness. 

So when my dream plane came up for sale on barnstormers.com, I had to work pretty hard to avoid calling the owner for a week. What's my dream plane?  It's a 1937 Monocoupe. What is a Monocoupe?  I'm glad you asked. 

The Monocoupe is a plane that was one of the first of its kind during the age of biplanes. At the time, the only way to make a plane's wings strong enough to withstand the rigors of inept pilots was to make two of then in parallel and brace them heavily with struts and wires between. Hence, biplanes. The Monocoupe was one of the first monoplanes. And most early pilots relished the wind on their face to be more in concert with what was going on. But it's very cold out there in the wind, especially out of season, so when the first few planes were enclosed, they were a novelty. So this plane was novel in its time, and it's name is its description -- an enclosed monoplane, or a Mono-coupe. 

It was the brainchild of Don Luscombe, who in aviation history has gone down as one of the most lovable schiesters imaginable. But his planes always had a mystique about them that none others had, and always an extra 15mph of speed and they always seemed to weigh 100 lbs less than other planes in their class. 

The earliest model came out in the early days of the depression and was powered with a motor manufactured by a car company owned by Don Luscomb's father in law (what did I tell you? Schiester!). It was known as the Velie Monocoupe and was not completely uninspiring:

But for its day it was revolutionary. 

It took a few years of evolutionary modifications until it began to resemble something that could fire the imaginations of flyboys across the country:

It was in something like this that Jonathon Livingston -- yes the pilot who's name was the inspiration for Richard Bach's "Jonathon Liviston Seagull" -- won the stock class of the 1932 National Air Races. Yes, it was the fastest stock aircraft in the country. Livingston then proceeded to make it faster by shortening the wings from 32 to 22 feet and upping the horsepower from 90 to 110. The result was the  110 special. Further refinements eventually turned the type into a 185 hp beast that won the 1947 U.S. national Aerobatics championship. That plane, known as "Little Butch" resides in the Smithsonian http://airandspace.si.edu/collections/artifact.cfm?object=nasm_A19810858000

You can probably see why I like this type. It's the cutest, toughest, fastest pug-nosed bulldog of an airplane in U.S. aviation History. 

Eventually, the efficiency, reliability and simplicity of flat aero engines won out and the Monocoupe type finished its manufacturing run of 300 planes looking like this:

Welł, they're not quite as cute as the pugnacious round-engined Monocoupes of old, but still mighty cute, and much more practical. 

Here's the one I found:

Honestly, I waited a week to call the guy in hopes that it would sell, then I bought a one way airline ticket to Richmond Virginia to go test fly it -- 3 weeks from the phone call, just to give somebody else time to buy it out from under me. Nope. It's still for sale, and I'm going out there two days from now to see it.