Howdy everyone. I just joined, but have been lurking for over a year. I'm the proud owner of a beautiful 1946 Ercoupe 415D. I've had the plane for about a year and a half and have flown it for about 70 hours thus far. I love the plane. It's my third plane since I got my ticket and by far my most favorite plane, not only owned but overall compared to all the planes I've flown so far.
Recently, my wife and I adopted an adorable puppy, who will become a rather large dog, way too big for the 65 lbs baggage compartment allowance. Right now, he's still small enough for another month or two, so he's riding in the back on our weekend flights (we usually try to go on a trip with the plane every weekend, weather permitting).
We would love to keep doing this in the future, but that would mean our dog would have to stay in boarding or with friends on our short trips, although we'd prefer him coming along with us. For our longer trips, usually once a month or so, we would have to rent a larger plane, which is super expensive where we live.
I'm now mulling over three possible solutions.
1. Keep the Ercoupe, leave the dog in boarding or with friends during short trips and rent a larger plane for longer trips, pretty much flushing $$$ down the toilet when renting.
2. Keep the Ercoupe and possibly get a second, larger plane for longer cross countries. I'm afraid if we do that, we'll opt for the bigger plane even for shorter trips to keep the dog with us, pretty much making the Ercoupe a hangar queen eventually, which would be sad to see. Also, this solution leaves me with the cost of two insurance premiums, two hangar spaces, two annuals, etc. But, we'd get to keep our Ercoupe which we really like.
3. On paper, this is the most appropriate option. We sell the Ercoupe and buy a larger plane that allows us to travel with the full family (two and four legged ones). But, we'd lose our lovely Ercoupe which we've had such a great time with and spend lots of money and work on. To be honest, we actually had if up for sale since this is the most appropriate option, but I pretty much shut down every offer I received, one was just below asking price but I couldn't do it, so I took down the ad again.
Turning to the Ercoupe community here. Has anyone been in a similar situation? If so, what did you end up doing? Even if you have not been in this situation, based on the above, what would you do? Just trying to hear/read some opinions from fellow Ercoupe enthusiasts.
