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

"Bertie the Bunyip" wrote

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.

It's still teaching me as I continue to work on perfecting my technique.
After a couple thousand hours in tricycle gear airplanes, I'm finding that
just going around the pattern chasing that painted-on 3-pointer is more fun
than I could have imagined. Who would have thought that this little 1940's
vintage 85HP airplane with no electrical system could be so challenging and
so much fun?!

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!

I have to smile reading this. I'm flying from a grass strip that's less
than smooth in spots and I was getting lazy holding the stick all the way
back on the stop during the rollout. Finally, my instructor turns around
and laughingly says to me "You're gonna lose it one of these times if you
keep letting the stick bounce like that." That cured me of that little bad
habit right then and there.

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'm no longer just surviving but I also know I haven't quite mastered it
yet.

I still haven't flown a better training airplane.

The best part is that my wife absolutely loves flying in the thing,
especially with the door and window open. What a blast!

BDS

"BDS" wrote in
:

"Bertie the Bunyip" wrote

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.

It's still teaching me as I continue to work on perfecting my
technique. After a couple thousand hours in tricycle gear airplanes,
I'm finding that just going around the pattern chasing that painted-on
3-pointer is more fun than I could have imagined. Who would have
thought that this little 1940's vintage 85HP airplane with no
electrical system could be so challenging and so much fun?!


Yep. Best thing is it never really grows old. It's still one of the most
satisfying things to do in an airplane as far as I'm concerned.
Heaven is slipping over the fence in a biplane and settling onto freshly
cut grass...



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!

I have to smile reading this. I'm flying from a grass strip that's
less than smooth in spots and I was getting lazy holding the stick all
the way back on the stop during the rollout. Finally, my instructor
turns around and laughingly says to me "You're gonna lose it one of
these times if you keep letting the stick bounce like that." That
cured me of that little bad habit right then and there.

Yeah, you have to do that it petty much al talidraggers after they're
down.

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'm no longer just surviving but I also know I haven't quite mastered
it yet.

Well, it takes time is all. Once you're off and sort of wobbling along
on your own the real learning begins, eh?

I still haven't flown a better training airplane.

The best part is that my wife absolutely loves flying in the thing,
especially with the door and window open. What a blast!



Excellent. Enjoy yourself.

One piece of advice I can give that's useful to new talidragger pilots,
or at least I've found it so, is to get religious about aving the
controls in the right position when taxiing in wind. Any wind at all.
Even three knots. For one thing, having the ailerons in particualr,
plcaed correctly, you increase your control of the airplane
dramatically. Being in the habit of doing this wil give you the edge you
need it during crosswind landings. It's habits that come to the
forefront when your brain degenerates to it's primevel state when things
start happening quickly.
BTW, when taxiing with a tailwind you need to reverse, as yo know. Don't
forget to consider the taxi speed of your airplane in relation to the
wind. Elevators are tricky in this situation. If you got a roaring
tailwind, you need to have them forward (Careful with the power here or
you could have an instant headwind as far as your elevators are
concerned) It can be hard to tell if you need the elevators up or down
when you're taxing downwind, but th erule I use is if you can feel the
stick "click" as the wind passes ovr the elavotrs as you move them up
and down you should have them down. Make sense?

Bertie

"Bertie the Bunyip" wrote

One piece of advice I can give that's useful to new talidragger pilots,
or at least I've found it so, is to get religious about aving the
controls in the right position when taxiing in wind. Any wind at all.
Even three knots. For one thing, having the ailerons in particualr,
plcaed correctly, you increase your control of the airplane
dramatically. Being in the habit of doing this wil give you the edge you
need it during crosswind landings. It's habits that come to the
forefront when your brain degenerates to it's primevel state when things
start happening quickly.

Good advice. It's easy to get complacent about control positioning while
taxiing, and I know what you mean about the difference in control when
they're in the right position. You can definitely feel the difference.

BTW, when taxiing with a tailwind you need to reverse, as yo know. Don't
forget to consider the taxi speed of your airplane in relation to the
wind. Elevators are tricky in this situation. If you got a roaring
tailwind, you need to have them forward (Careful with the power here or
you could have an instant headwind as far as your elevators are
concerned) It can be hard to tell if you need the elevators up or down
when you're taxing downwind, but th erule I use is if you can feel the
stick "click" as the wind passes ovr the elavotrs as you move them up
and down you should have them down. Make sense?

I'll have to try that rule of thumb next time but it sounds like what you're
saying is that if you can feel the wind pushing on the elevator as it moves
through neutral then it should be down. I've been taxiing with the elevator
full forward in all tailwind conditions up to this point, and that's
probably not a good habit to get into, especially when moving into something
with more power.

BDS

On 25 Sep, 19:03, "BDS" wrote:
"Bertie the Bunyip" wrote

One piece of advice I can give that's useful to new talidragger pilots,
or at least I've found it so, is to get religious about aving the
controls in the right position when taxiing in wind. Any wind at all.
Even three knots. For one thing, having the ailerons in particualr,
plcaed correctly, you increase your control of the airplane
dramatically. Being in the habit of doing this wil give you the edge you
need it during crosswind landings. It's habits that come to the
forefront when your brain degenerates to it's primevel state when things
start happening quickly.

Good advice. It's easy to get complacent about control positioning while
taxiing, and I know what you mean about the difference in control when
they're in the right position. You can definitely feel the difference.

BTW, when taxiing with a tailwind you need to reverse, as yo know. Don't
forget to consider the taxi speed of your airplane in relation to the
wind. Elevators are tricky in this situation. If you got a roaring
tailwind, you need to have them forward (Careful with the power here or
you could have an instant headwind as far as your elevators are
concerned) It can be hard to tell if you need the elevators up or down
when you're taxing downwind, but th erule I use is if you can feel the
stick "click" as the wind passes ovr the elavotrs as you move them up
and down you should have them down. Make sense?

I'll have to try that rule of thumb next time but it sounds like what you're
saying is that if you can feel the wind pushing on the elevator as it moves
through neutral then it should be down. I've been taxiing with the elevator
full forward in all tailwind conditions up to this point, and that's
probably not a good habit to get into, especially when moving into something
with more power.

BDS

Yes, sounds like you got the idea. An awful lot of airplanes end up on
their nose (particularly Supercubs for some reason) because the pilot
turns downwind quickley using a bit of brake at the same time.

Bertie

On Sep 25, 3:11 pm, Bertie the Bunyip
wrote:

Yes, sounds like you got the idea. An awful lot of airplanes end up on
their nose (particularly Supercubs for some reason) because the pilot
turns downwind quickley using a bit of brake at the same time.

Bertie

Some quick ways to get a taildragger up on its nose:
-Using lots of brake in the rollout without using elevator to maintain
attitude. And holding the brakes on hard even when the speed is gone.
-Taxiing too fast downwind and either losing control (no airflow over
the surfaces; got to fly a taildragger all the time, remember?) and
initiating a groundloop, or turning too quickly out of a tailwind. The
wind against the side of the fuselage, under the upwind wing and under
the stab combines with centrifugal force to lift a wheel, whereupon
the downwind wing drags on the surface, and now that more wind can get
at the wing and stab, there's more lift, the tail comes up, and
inertia through the CG and against the dragging wing does the rest.
-With CG forward (nobody in the back), doing a runup without holding
the elevator back will lift the tail of many taildraggers. As the tail
comes up, the angle between the CG and the locked mains decreases so
that the tail gets even lighter, and over she goes. Happens if the
pilot has his head in the cockpit and isn't paying attention to what's
going on outside. Can happen, too, if the pilot is trying to taxi
through deep snow or gooey mud.

Dan