Tailwheel endorsement

Well, I finally got my tailwheel endorsement this week, and today was my
first solo tailwheel flight. I took the Decathlon, since I need to practice
my landings. With my previous instrcutor I was struggling, in the Citabria,
but my acro instructor took care of me and within three lessons I did ten
good wheel-landings straight off, so I guess he must be doing something
right.

The Decathlon is a real fun plane to fly. It's great for acro, much better
than the Grob I've been flying until recently. Landing is a bit of a
challenge, because the symmetrical wing means that lift drops off very
quickly at lower speeds. It hardly floats at all, in fact if you don't keep
speed up on final it drops in like a brick.

Solo, it has pretty impressive performance. The take off run is over before
you know it. On LVK's 5000' runway, I just about managed to get it to
pattern altitude before the opposite threshold, using a Vx (58 mph) climb.

It's fun. It has been a struggle at times, especially when I was trying to
conquer wheel landings with my first instructor. But in the end it's been
worth it.

John

How much an hour did you pay for the endorsement, John? And how many hours
did it take you to do?

cheers...pix
who is thinking of getting a TW End.
"John Harper" wrote in message
news:1070762767.667218@sj-nntpcache-3...
Well, I finally got my tailwheel endorsement this week, and today was my
first solo tailwheel flight. I took the Decathlon, since I need to
practice
my landings. With my previous instrcutor I was struggling, in the
Citabria,
but my acro instructor took care of me and within three lessons I did ten
good wheel-landings straight off, so I guess he must be doing something
right.

The Decathlon is a real fun plane to fly. It's great for acro, much better
than the Grob I've been flying until recently. Landing is a bit of a
challenge, because the symmetrical wing means that lift drops off very
quickly at lower speeds. It hardly floats at all, in fact if you don't
keep
speed up on final it drops in like a brick.

Solo, it has pretty impressive performance. The take off run is over
before
you know it. On LVK's 5000' runway, I just about managed to get it to
pattern altitude before the opposite threshold, using a Vx (58 mph) climb.

It's fun. It has been a struggle at times, especially when I was trying to
conquer wheel landings with my first instructor. But in the end it's been
worth it.

John

In article , pix
wrote:

How much an hour did you pay for the endorsement, John? And how many hours
did it take you to do?

Pix... the better question is,
"What are the minimum insurance requirements?"

It took me far too long to do it, because I had an instructor who was only
available for one week a month and whose technique, I realised late in
the game, was not really right for me. I'm writing the full story for my web
page. So it took me over 20 hours. A more reasonable time would probably
be about 10 hours. IIRC I was paying about $70/hr wet for the Citabria,
plus the instructor who was about $35 until I started working with my
acro instructor who is rather more expensive (and a lot better).

John

"pix" wrote in message
...
How much an hour did you pay for the endorsement, John? And how many hours
did it take you to do?

cheers...pix
who is thinking of getting a TW End.
"John Harper" wrote in message
news:1070762767.667218@sj-nntpcache-3...
Well, I finally got my tailwheel endorsement this week, and today was my
first solo tailwheel flight. I took the Decathlon, since I need to
practice
my landings. With my previous instrcutor I was struggling, in the
Citabria,
but my acro instructor took care of me and within three lessons I did
ten
good wheel-landings straight off, so I guess he must be doing something
right.

The Decathlon is a real fun plane to fly. It's great for acro, much
better
than the Grob I've been flying until recently. Landing is a bit of a
challenge, because the symmetrical wing means that lift drops off very
quickly at lower speeds. It hardly floats at all, in fact if you don't
keep
speed up on final it drops in like a brick.

Solo, it has pretty impressive performance. The take off run is over
before
you know it. On LVK's 5000' runway, I just about managed to get it to
pattern altitude before the opposite threshold, using a Vx (58 mph)
climb.

It's fun. It has been a struggle at times, especially when I was trying
to
conquer wheel landings with my first instructor. But in the end it's
been
worth it.

John

So it took me over 20 hours. A more reasonable time would probably
be about 10 hours. IIRC I was paying about $70/hr wet for the Citabria,
plus the instructor who was about $35 until I started working with my
acro instructor who is rather more expensive (and a lot better).

From what I've read, ten hours is indeed a reasonable period of time.

Kinda funny when you think about it. In 1946, a Cub dealer in New
Jersey used to travel around New England. He and his partner would
come to a small city with an airstrip of some sort, and they'd grab
hold of a high-school athlete and solo him in an afternoon. Then
they'd say: look how easy it is! And they'd get a half-dozen lawyers,
doctors, and merchants to pool together $2600 for the airplane.

Then they'd take the train home, pick up another Cub, and do it again
somewhere else.

And now we think ten hours is reasonable for an experienced pilot to
transition to the taildragger!

I'm not bragging! It took me 48 hours to solo on the Cub, and 102 to
get my license. But I didn't ca it was the most fun I ever had.

As for costs, the Cub is $65/hr wet and the instructor is $22/hr.
That's Hampton NH. Probably not worth your effort to make the trip,
however, at least not this week.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email:

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

"John Harper" wrote

So it took me over 20 hours. A more reasonable time would
probably be about 10 hours.

Something is not reasonable here. For someone who knows how
to fly, two hours is more than enough. Just out of curiosity,
I looked back in my first civilian logbook, and sure enough,
there it was, my first tailwheel flights back in 1962 flying
an Aeronca Champ. Thirty minutes of dual (6 landings) followed
by a one hour solo flight in the pattern. Geeeze....back in
the '40s and early '50s, it was not uncommon to solo a brand
new student in a Cub or Champ in about 10 hours!

Something is REALLY wrong about this story.

Bob Moore
ATP CFI

Took me 11 hours to solo, my (now) wife 7.
But we had a couple of advantages.
1. This was from scratch, no previous time at all.
2. Young, still in high school - that's worth a lot
3. My cost was $11 per hour, dual, wet. Solo was $7 per hour, wet.

Today (Dec 7) is the anniversary of my first flying lesson, 1958. So
10 times the price isn't far off.



In article 1070776484.626893@sj-nntpcache-3, "John Harper"
wrote:
It took me far too long to do it, because I had an instructor who was only
available for one week a month and whose technique, I realised late in
the game, was not really right for me. I'm writing the full story for my web
page. So it took me over 20 hours. A more reasonable time would probably
be about 10 hours. IIRC I was paying about $70/hr wet for the Citabria,
plus the instructor who was about $35 until I started working with my
acro instructor who is rather more expensive (and a lot better).

John

"pix" wrote in message
. ..
How much an hour did you pay for the endorsement, John? And how many hours
did it take you to do?

cheers...pix
who is thinking of getting a TW End.
"John Harper" wrote in message
news:1070762767.667218@sj-nntpcache-3...
Well, I finally got my tailwheel endorsement this week, and today was my
first solo tailwheel flight. I took the Decathlon, since I need to
practice
my landings. With my previous instrcutor I was struggling, in the
Citabria,
but my acro instructor took care of me and within three lessons I did
ten
good wheel-landings straight off, so I guess he must be doing something
right.

The Decathlon is a real fun plane to fly. It's great for acro, much
better
than the Grob I've been flying until recently. Landing is a bit of a
challenge, because the symmetrical wing means that lift drops off very
quickly at lower speeds. It hardly floats at all, in fact if you don't
keep
speed up on final it drops in like a brick.

Solo, it has pretty impressive performance. The take off run is over
before
you know it. On LVK's 5000' runway, I just about managed to get it to
pattern altitude before the opposite threshold, using a Vx (58 mph)
climb.

It's fun. It has been a struggle at times, especially when I was trying
to
conquer wheel landings with my first instructor. But in the end it's
been
worth it.

John

Cub Driver wrote in message . ..
So it took me over 20 hours. A more reasonable time would probably
be about 10 hours. IIRC I was paying about $70/hr wet for the Citabria,
plus the instructor who was about $35 until I started working with my
acro instructor who is rather more expensive (and a lot better).

From what I've read, ten hours is indeed a reasonable period of time.

Kinda funny when you think about it. In 1946, a Cub dealer in New
Jersey used to travel around New England. He and his partner would
come to a small city with an airstrip of some sort, and they'd grab
hold of a high-school athlete and solo him in an afternoon. Then
they'd say: look how easy it is! And they'd get a half-dozen lawyers,
doctors, and merchants to pool together $2600 for the airplane.

Then they'd take the train home, pick up another Cub, and do it again
somewhere else.

And now we think ten hours is reasonable for an experienced pilot to
transition to the taildragger!

I'm not bragging! It took me 48 hours to solo on the Cub, and 102 to
get my license. But I didn't ca it was the most fun I ever had.


I took my first lessons in a tailwheel (Aeronca 11AC Chief) and
it took six hours to solo.

The last TW endorsement that I did took ten hours because
the owner's insurance required it. He was ready before this, but
it gave me extra time to "tune" him up on other fine points such
as spins.

Skyking

Two hours seems a bit short to me. I think if I'd done it all with my
acro instructor, over a short time, it would probably have taken
around six. Just getting wheel landings down reliably is at least
a couple of hours. I certainly spent a lot of time flying round the
pattern doing stuff I was doing just fine (three-point landings,
which I was doing fine with after one hour), which is one reason
I got very frustrated with my first instructor.

John


"Robert Moore" wrote in message
. 6...
"John Harper" wrote

So it took me over 20 hours. A more reasonable time would
probably be about 10 hours.

Something is not reasonable here. For someone who knows how
to fly, two hours is more than enough. Just out of curiosity,
I looked back in my first civilian logbook, and sure enough,
there it was, my first tailwheel flights back in 1962 flying
an Aeronca Champ. Thirty minutes of dual (6 landings) followed
by a one hour solo flight in the pattern. Geeeze....back in
the '40s and early '50s, it was not uncommon to solo a brand
new student in a Cub or Champ in about 10 hours!

Something is REALLY wrong about this story.

Bob Moore
ATP CFI

FMI, I've posted FAQs on the tailwheel endorsement at
http://www.richstowell.com/dragger.htm

Rich
http://www.richstowell.com


"pix" wrote in message .. .
How much an hour did you pay for the endorsement, John? And how many hours
did it take you to do?

cheers...pix
who is thinking of getting a TW End.
"John Harper" wrote in message
news:1070762767.667218@sj-nntpcache-3...
Well, I finally got my tailwheel endorsement this week, and today was my
first solo tailwheel flight. I took the Decathlon, since I need to
practice
my landings. With my previous instrcutor I was struggling, in the
Citabria,
but my acro instructor took care of me and within three lessons I did ten
good wheel-landings straight off, so I guess he must be doing something
right.

The Decathlon is a real fun plane to fly. It's great for acro, much better
than the Grob I've been flying until recently. Landing is a bit of a
challenge, because the symmetrical wing means that lift drops off very
quickly at lower speeds. It hardly floats at all, in fact if you don't
keep
speed up on final it drops in like a brick.

Solo, it has pretty impressive performance. The take off run is over
before
you know it. On LVK's 5000' runway, I just about managed to get it to
pattern altitude before the opposite threshold, using a Vx (58 mph) climb.

It's fun. It has been a struggle at times, especially when I was trying to
conquer wheel landings with my first instructor. But in the end it's been
worth it.

John