Humbled and Learning (Slowly)

Recently I bought a 1974 Helio Courier H295, which is a six place STOL
taildragger. Prior to last week I had never flown a tailwheel airplane.
Wow, this it hard! The Helio is designed for one purpose: to take off and
land very short. Everything is compromised to accomplish this. The main
gear is at the firewall so that you can land with the brakes on hard and not
nose over. The cg is much farther behind the mains than normal on a
taildragger. Because it is a six place, the tail is waaaay back there and
the wind has a lot of leverage to weathervane the airplane. It also has
295hp so the left turning tendancy under power is pretty strong. Today I
was doing great with several good (though not great) landings and takeoffs
where I was maintaining the centerline with a 7kt crosswind from the right.
Then we did power-off approaches landing the opposite direction (crosswind
from left). What a difference on takeoff! Even with full left rudder I
took the airplane off-roading into the weeds! There is a huge difference
between a left and right crosswind on takeoff. Then off to a small airpark
where we landed on a grass runway and came to a stop in under 300'. The
last landing was back at the airport and wasn't very good.

The airplane has tremendous performance, but it is going to take quite a
while before I can effectively use it.

Mike
MU-2
Helio Courier