An Old Airplane Mentors A Young Pilot

[fleet16b]

Not sure what the Vintage Wings Finch has for a gear spring but she demands attention on pavement.
The advice I give other pilots is to drop her on the gear quickly rather than try to fish for a greaser. You need to get the gear bearing weight as quickly as possible otherwise you get a nice series of zig zags as the gear starts to compress and change geometry.

I am pretty sure that the VWC Finch had the stiffer gear installed in her as supplied by Hugo
It makes for better handling but she still demands respect

[sidestick stirrer]

Several years back, I was giving dual on a very-well kept Cessna 170 with the original gear and tyres.
Despite excellent visibility over the nose on landing, upon touching down in a perfect attitude, it would consistently charge off to the same side.
Some searching online revealed the troubleshooting step of laying two, large garbage bags on the ground in front of the main gear and then pushing the airplane forward so that the tyres rolled over the bags. The idea was to see if one of the tyres turned one of the bags or curled it up as it scrubbed across it at an angle.
The other method was to use two sets of two panes of clear glass or sheet-steel plate, separated by a thin layer of grease, rolling each tyre simultaneously onto them and perhaps back and forth a little while observing how the top pane stayed aligned with the bottom one.
If these methods revealed a problem, the gear had provision for accepting a shim which would align the wheel and tyre so both were pointing the same direction.
The ground where the 170 was parked was too rough to be able to get a result from the garbage bag trick so I think we used two steel pipes, each laid horizontally between the inside of the wheel and the gear leg and then measured the difference between the pipes at the front and back.

[Big Pistons Forever]

The closet I have ever come to a full on ground loop was when I was doing a PPL for a guy in his Cessna 120 (Good choice ). It still had the horrible original goodyear brakes. After a 3 point landing there was an increasing vibration from the right side then at about 20 kts ground speed the aircraft made a sudden massive lurch to the rigth. I instinctively stood on the left rudder and applied full brake and the aircraft screeched to a halt turned about 60 degrees.

It turned out that a clip on one of the brake pucks had broken which allowed the puck to come loose and jam the wheel. 2 things saved us that day. The first was the aircraft had wheel extensions which made it much harder to nose over under hard braking and the second was the fact that I had brakes on my side.

Needless to say the brakes were replaced with clevelands

[Colonel Sanders]

I always found the C120/140 with their spring gear
to be kind of squirrelly during landing. Never got
the feeling they respected me very much

Generally, the heavier the tailwheel airplane (and
the heavier the wing loading, sorta related), the
easier it is to keep straight. Unless you totally get
out of control, in which case you're screwed.

They're all different, and that's part of the charm.

The 450hp Stearman I fly, has 3 gas tanks in the
top wing, and all that mass up high creates a
tendency to "duck walk" down the runway, after
a wheel landing. It's not really a control issue,
just kind of weird.

Flew an Ultimate 10-180 (Stef's old single-seater)
the other day. With that wide spring gear, low
C of G and locking Haigh tailwheel, it was on rails
after touchdown, as compared to a stock Pitts,
which loves to take you of a tour of the entire
runway after touchdown. No dihedral on bottom
wing, so no slipping during the flare.

Probably the oddest taildragger I have seen lately
(and will surely snivel some stick time in) is
Clunkdriver's (he been banned from here, but I
think I can mention his name) 1936 DH.87 Hornet Moth:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Hornet_Moth

Only one flying in North America. Look at that wingspan!!
You're probably not going to believe me, but it's
swing-wing. Pins come out, to hinge the wings back
flush with the fuselage for efficient storage.

I know I'm weird, but I really like funky tailwheel aircraft.
Tube & fabric? Good. Biplane? Better!



So much character!

[Shiny Side Up]

All I know is things can turn on you faster than you can say "Hoochimama" in most taildraggers. They're like riding a horse that is saddle broken but doesn't want to be ridden and is going to look for a way to dump you, so you'd better pay attention.

Don't fall asleep in the saddle. Unfortunately I can say I've been in a ground loop, and that tail swings around awfully fast.

It also worries me when people say they've gotten "comfortable" with their taildragger. While I can only count my tailwheel time in the hundreds of hours rather than thousands, I don't think its ever going to be comfortable.

[Colonel Sanders]

Taildragger is just completely unforgiving of landing
with any crab. Once you figure out that the Prime
Directive of tailwheel flying is to land with the aircraft
perfectly aligned with the direction of travel, it's not
so bad.

Like any other technique-intensive task, landing a
taildragger takes less and less of your brain (CPU)
percentage as you get more practice at it, until
after a while you are chatting and thinking about
where to go for dinner, while you are doing it.

I don't really have much tailwheel time - maybe a
couple thousand hours of Pitts time, a thousand hours
of Maule, and maybe five hundred hours of other
stuff. Maybe 3500 tailwheel. Not much compared
to the old guys here (Cat, Doc). My friend Freddy
Cabanas had over 20,000 tailwheel - all one hour
at a time (Waco, Pitts). No autopilot. Those are
real hours, not airline pilot "watch the auto-pilot"
hours.

I tell new Pitts owners to buy two new sets of main
tires and tubes, and a new tailwheel, and in their first
month of ownership, fly 300 to 500 landings. You can
do 20 circuits an hour, so it's not that bad - maybe
20 to 25 flights. Try to burn off all the tires and replace
them as fast as you can.

After achieving solo proficiency in the Pitts, if you
fly 300 to 500 landings in the next month, the
repetition burns the technique into the electro-chemical
tracks in your brain, and for the rest of your life,
you can land a Pitts (and pretty much anything else)
in wind that leaves everyone else grounded.

It's a bit of a weird thing to do - some people prefer
racquet sports - but it's a wonderful gift to give to
yourself

[Colonel Sanders]

It's worth mentioning that not all taildraggers
are created equal. Some really are fire-breathing
dragons, and others are total pussycats (citabra,
decathlon, etc).

There is a spectrum of difficulty. Some people
might avoid the difficult ones, but I rather prefer
to seek them out.

Cranky taildraggers are like spicy food. Some
people like spicy food, some people prefer bland.
I like food so spicy that it blows your o-ring
out like the Challenger shuttle. Makes life
interesting.

Reminds me. Read about a burger joint that
advertises the "world's spiciest burger" which
uses some concentrated pepper spice from India.
Owner discourages people from trying to eat it.
He guarantees that it will ruin your weekend. The
last person that tried it, had their eyeballs roll up
and start to convulse, and had to be taken away
by ambulance to the hospital. I am not making
this up.

PS The Beech 18 is sold! Wasn't flying enough.
Hope it went to a good home. Pilot knew his
stuff, which is a good sign.

[lownslow]

Probably the oddest taildragger I have seen lately
(and will surely snivel some stick time in) is
Clunkdriver's (he been banned from here, but I
think I can mention his name) 1936 DH.87 Hornet Moth:

Oh, how I adore that airplane. I had drooled over it since I was a small kid and I had this fantasy that I'd find enough success in life in a short enough time to buy it when the day came that it went up for sale.

Maybe next time...

[Colonel Sanders]

Read the handling notes. Easy to fly - just
keep the nose down, and watch the airspeed.

Difficult to taxi, especially with any crosswind
on a dry paved runway. Much prefers a large
grass field, where it can always be taken off
and landed into wind.

[lownslow]

I can't picture it being too horrendously different from a Tiger Moth except (without looking it up) probably heavier, more side area on the fuselage to keep crosswinds interesting, and those nifty swiveling air brakes built into the landing gear.