Tight patterns?

EDR wrote:

Dave, did you ever fly with Red at Waynesville?

For the uninitiated, at Waynesville, it is not uncommon to
simultaneously share the airspace with:
- skydivers
- student pilots
- gliders
- radio controlled aircraft
- transient traffic
- based aircraft

Never had the privilege; by the time I got there, he was in pretty bad
shape. His son, Emerson Jr. (Cub), owns the field, and I worked for
them for a while to pay for my training. I started my training with
Dale Byrom (who now lives in the Indianapolis area), and finished with
Emerson III (Cub's son). And are there many gliders there now? Last
time I was there, there was a 2-33 on the field, but I never saw it fly
much; most of the soaring was over at the Caesar Creek Soaring Club.
Ahh, good days; many of my fondest memories are of flying there. And
you forgot to mention that a significant portion of the students and
based aircraft were NORDO Cubs and Champs. :-)

--Dave Buckles

http://www.flight-instruction.com

EDR wrote:
Dave, did you ever fly with Red at Waynesville?
For the uninitiated, at Waynesville, it is not uncommon to
simultaneously share the airspace with:
- skydivers
- student pilots
- gliders
- radio controlled aircraft
- transient traffic
- based aircraft

Dave Buckles wrote:
Never had the privilege; by the time I got there, he was in pretty bad
shape. His son, Emerson Jr. (Cub), owns the field, and I worked for
them for a while to pay for my training. I started my training with
Dale Byrom (who now lives in the Indianapolis area), and finished with
Emerson III (Cub's son). And are there many gliders there now? Last
time I was there, there was a 2-33 on the field, but I never saw it fly
much; most of the soaring was over at the Caesar Creek Soaring Club.
Ahh, good days; many of my fondest memories are of flying there. And
you forgot to mention that a significant portion of the students and
based aircraft were NORDO Cubs and Champs. :-)

Red's philosophy was to start primary students in the Cub's (3) and
Champ (1) for the first ten hours. If you stayed with it that long, you
moved up to the C150 to learn how to use the radios. (This was back in
the late 70's/early 80's). In the winter, they would put one of the
Cub's on skis for rent. This lasted until one of the skis delaminated,
then it cost too much to replace, so that was the end of that. You can
get checked out in a Stearman and solo it if you provide your own hull
coverage.

john smith wrote:

Red's philosophy was to start primary students in the Cub's (3) and
Champ (1) for the first ten hours. If you stayed with it that long, you
moved up to the C150 to learn how to use the radios. (This was back in
the late 70's/early 80's). In the winter, they would put one of the
Cub's on skis for rent. This lasted until one of the skis delaminated,
then it cost too much to replace, so that was the end of that. You can
get checked out in a Stearman and solo it if you provide your own hull
coverage.

This was still true when I left in '99. When I was there, they had
skis, too, so they must've repaired them/bought a new pair. And all of
their airplanes require you to bring your own insurance (which makes
their fabulous rental prices a little less fabulous; I used to fly the
Champ for $34/hr, and the 150 for $41/hr).

Now, as an instructor myself, I wish *I* had a Champ to use as a primary
trainer. 'Course, the insurance company would never sign off on the
deal. Those guys are ruining aviation, and I'll stop there before I
start ranting. Politics and insurance....

--Dave Buckles

http://www.flight-instruction.com

Dave Buckles wrote
Now, as an instructor myself, I wish *I* had a Champ to use as a primary
trainer.

It is a lovely trainer, isn't it? Doesn't really do much of anything
else well, but it does make the student fly the airplane all the way
down the runway without the idiosyncracies and terrible visibility of
a Cub.

'Course, the insurance company would never sign off on the
deal.

Nonsense. When I got my tailwheel checkout, the rental Champ was
available for primary training. You could solo it with 5 hours
tailwheel time, no minimum time in make and model. It was used that
way until about a year ago, when it was grounded for maintenance
reasons (and no, not because it was crashed). Insurance company had
no problem with it.

Of course I don't believe they had a single CFI on the insurace with
less than 500 hours of tailwheel time. That's what it takes to get
insurers to sign off on primary training in taildraggers - the right
instructors. I can think of half a dozen light taildraggers available
for primary training within 50 miles of where I live (in Houston) but
none of them are use 300 hour CFI's with 15 hours of tailwheel time.
The absolute minimum to instruct in tailwheel at any of them is 100
hours tailwheel time, and most want more. Not unreasonable, IMO.

Remember that in the halcyon days when 300 hour CFI's routinely
instructed in taildraggers, they all had 200+ hours of tailwheel time
and learned in taildraggers themselves.

Don't blame insurance companies for the sad state of CFI training. If
it were up to me, you would need to make 10 solo takeoffs and landings
in a taildragger to be a CFI (even tri-gear). That would thin the
ranks and eliminate the land-at-15-knots-over-stall types in a
heartbeat. If you really want some quality control, require 10
takeoffs and landings in a single seat taildragger.

Michael