Some tailwheel questions/comments

"BDS" wrote in
:

"Bertie the Bunyip" wrote

Not really, and I'd be surprised if you could taxi a Citabria with
the tailwheel raised anyway. Easy in a cub, though.

The problem with the Citabria is it's a bit too easy for tailwheel
conversion. You'll get the basics, but if you try a cub afterwards
you'll find it significantly more difficult, wheras the other way
around would be a piece of cake. Citabria is a good airplane, but
it's not the best tailwheel trainer for that reason. However, it will
certainly do in a pinch!

That's an interesting comment - I just got my tailwheel endorsement in
a Cub and have flown it another 4 hrs and dozens of landings since.

I plan to transition to a Husky (180 HP CS prop), any comments about
what to expect, relative difficulty, etc?

Never flown a Husky, but what you learned in the cub will get you into
anyting else with relative ease if you've absorbed what the cub taught
you.
You've learned to get the stick back to the stop during rollout ,
hopefully.(actualy, in a cub you have to have it there as you touch down
or you end up porpoising down the runway, eh? ) If you weren't attentive
to the rudder you ended up going backwards. What else do you need to
know? It teaches you what your feet are for and makes you look like an
idiot if you don't!

Whatever else you get into, you'll have to adapt to, obviously, but it
should be relatively simple now.
If you went from a Cub to a Citabria, for instance, you'd find the full
aft stick touchdown you'd used in the cub would land you tailwheel first
followed by the mains, so you land a little flatter in the Citabria, but
just a little. You'd be amazed at how easily the Citabria was tracking
for you down the runway with little or no need to pedal the rudder
around like you had in the cub, aside from that, the rest of the
checkout would be mostly about the aicraft systems.. Some of the faster
homebuilt bipes also touch down like this. Starduster, for instance.
If you got into a T-Craft after acub you'd have an even easier time, the
biggest difference being the float (take these with a pinch of salt as
the last time I flew a T-Craft was in the 70s) the Luscombe, no problem
either. Again, it;'s clean so it won't just come to a halt in mid-air
like th ecub will when you pull the power off, but once you get used to
that, you're in. The main things about the Luscombe are that it spins
relatively easily compared to a lot of airplanes, but it's not a problem
if you're paying attention to it and the fact that though it's no harder
on the ground than a cub, it will happily roll itsefl into a small wad
of aluminum if you **** up and groundloop it, wheras the cub will only
provide the peanut gallery at the airport with a few laughs.
Even a Pitts isn't such a big step up if you have mastered a cub (as
opposed to having jus survived a few hours in a Cub)

I still haven't flown a better training airplane.


Bertie