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!

Back in '75, I heard so much about how hard it is to converse from
tricicle to tailwheel that I decided to do the remainder of my PPL
training on tailwheel aircraft and "learn to land properly" from
the first. It must be a lot harder if you have a lot of experience
to unlearn.

Congratulations on your purchase! The Helio Courier is a remarkable
aircraft. You're right that it is a champion STOL machine and slow
flyer; those huge double-slotted Fowler flaps bring it right down to
twenty knots or so, and with a little wind you can easily fly backwards,
so beware of making any rash downwind turns.

I don't agree with you that everything is compromised to get the STOL
performance. The Helio has a huge envelope and it flies well at any
speed. It is sleek and glides very well. It's versatile. The big
engine (the Helio that I flew had 260hp and was a 5-6 seater) has quite
some torque and it's true that you almost need a ladder to climb into
the front, and taxiing is a bit of a drag for a small person like me,
and the coffee grinder takes a lot of turns before those flaps are
where you want them (does yours have a different flap operating system?),
but those are minor inconveniences IMO to get so much in return.
You're going to love this plane!

BTW, the one that I flew had a curious gadget called "crosswind landing
gear", with which the wheels could be turned up to 20 degrees to either
side off the centerline of the plane. It's simple in theory but it
always scared me -- what if the mechanism fails on one of the wheels
and you were stuck with converging or diverging wheels! -- but the
owner liked it. Once I flew with him into Ostend (Belgium) and we
were offered the use of the large empty platform instead of the runway
because of the strong crosswind, and he replied "Negative, we have
crosswind landing gear". I'm sure that they had never heard about it
or didn't understand what he meant. He continued on final for the
runway and landed. It's quite strange when you're in the plane and it
starts rolling sideways, but to ATC it must have appeared like a crash.
When the plane continued for the runway they had already dispatched the
fire trucks and when we rolled out they were driving along with us and
firemen were jumping out to grab a hold of the wings (which is rather
difficult because they are high and the plane has no struts). It was
like a scene out of a Keystone Cops movie. It took a while to convince
them there was nothing wrong with the plane.
I then discovered the big disadvantage of the crosswind landing system:
once the aircraft's weight is on the wheels, they won't rotate back to
the neutral position without the help of a lot of people to lift the
plane.

X-wind systems seems to be an anomaly; I've never seen any used before
or since. It would make the Helio's extremely short landing roll even
shorter, but it's so short already that you can land almost anywhere
at a pinch -- a short taxiway intersection, for example. My friend
said that he could land on a postage stamp and I believe he could manage
very well with a garden. He used the plane for aerial photography and
said it was ideal because it could fly slowly and had no struts to get
in the way of a good picture.
Helio Couriers are very rare in Europe and it was difficult for him to
find spare parts. Perhaps parts and planes are more plentiful in the USA,
but it's still an unusual aircraft.

No matter what your mission is, you're sure to find that the Helio can
do even more than you thought, and far from any reasons to buy it you'll
have more reasons to keep it. Have fun!!

Effie.