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