If I remember right, (and that would be a minor miracle :-)the Cruiser
came with a free castoring tailwheel I think, but it's been a long time
:-)) Do you have a Scott or a Maule on the airplane, or the original
tailwheel?

If it's the original, with your experience and the wind you are
describing, it sounds very much like a hung up tailwheel spring that
kinked out on you then released as the full weight of the airplane
centered in the "new direction". It's really hard to tell, and the
answer would be in your memory on how the pedals felt at the exact
instant the airplane swerved to the right. If you think back, did the
pedal LEAD your foot, and did the airplane swerve at the exact instant
the tail contacted the runway? This would be a clue if you could
remember that!
Dudley Henriques
International Fighter Pilots Fellowship
for email; take out the trash




wrote in message
...
I am a long term lurker and have a question regarding landing tailwheel
airplanes in a crosswind. I have about 250 hours in a Piper PA-12
Super
Cruiser. The other day during a very routine crosswind landing I
started heading for the weeds faster than I new what to do.

I had a fairly gentle cross wind from the left. I had cancelled out
all
sideways drift by lowering my left wing and aligned the plane with the
runway with right rudder. At touchdown, everything seemed perfect.
That
is when all hell broke loose. As soon as I touched down, I started a
very fast turn to the right. At one point I was headed right between
two runway light. As I was deciding that "between" was not a bad
place
to be, I finally managed to straighten everything out and managed to
stay on the runway.

In talking to my mechanic as soon as I touched down (I was sure there
was a mechanical problem), he figured that with all of the right
rudder
needed to keep things straight, that my tailwheel just sent me to the
right once it touched down.

My question is, what was really going on here? Should my tailwheel
have released (castored) when I touched down? Your thoughts are
greatly
appreciated.

Thanks.

Tom