It seems odd to me that a high level instructor wouldn't have the skills to fly tailwheel
Believe it or not, that is almost always the
case. It is extremely rare to find a class 2/1
instructor that can fly tailwheel, let alone
teach it.
You have to look at some history to understand why.
For decades now, basic stick & rudder skills have
been viewed as antiquated. Pilots were "systems
managers" and there was no end in sight to cockpit
automation. Airbus talked about single pilot.
Then some not-so-funny things happened:
AF 447
Colgan 3407
Asiana 214
Airliners were crashing and people were dying
because airline pilots can't fly any more. They
had never acquired the basic stick & rudder
skills to fly an airplane.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueJeC2pxxbM
All of a sudden, those of us out in the wilderness,
that had been preaching basic stick & rudder skills
in the bad decades, didn't look like Ted Kaczynski
any more. Maybe there was actually something
to be learned from an old-fashioned tube & fabric
taildragger - with NO GLASS PANEL!!! Maybe
aerobatics and radial engines weren't totally
useless museum stuff, after all.
However, the damage has been done. Stick &
rudder skills have been bred out of the pilot population.
Today's instructors were taught to fly by the previous
generation of instructors, who couldn't fly tailwheel,
couldn't land in a crosswind, couldn't land on one main.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=US9je8STwjo
The way to solve this problem is by improving the
quality of the instructors, one at a time. I had a nice
kid come to me, flunked his class 4 instructor flight
test. Examiner couldn't stand that he couldn't keep
the ball centered. The only time it was centered was
when it was passing through. How he got his PPL and
CPL mystifies me. This also reflects extremely poorly
upon his instructors, esp his class 1. Regardless, I
took him up in the unforgiving and politically incorrect
Maule, and then a lesson in the 172, and he was good
to go - passed his test. His feet had "woken up". I
didn't shove butter up his @ss or blow sunshine and
lollipops at him, but gosh, he sure got better in a hurry
because he was motivated, and he did what I told him to.
Anyways, this lack of fundamental piloting skills is a huge
embarrassment to us in Canada. I get crapped on a lot
because I point it out - which hurts people's feelings - and
I try to do something about it.
Denial isn't just a river in Egypt.
Following is how students of today's instructors (and
future airline pilots) fly tailwheel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vfy5SRKx ... page#t=139
Oh. My. God. As far as I can tell, he hates that Maule.
He has no idea what adverse yaw is. He has no idea
what the rudder pedals are for. Because his instructor
doesn't either.
The FAA is not happy with this. After this latest spate
of accidents, they went bananas and insisted that everyone
up front in part 121 must have an ATP, which includes
1500 real hours in an aircraft, and a whole bunch of new
requirements, which are now in effect (Aug 1st).
The FAA is going exactly opposite to the rest of the world
in this respect. Everywhere else, people are trying to
get kids with 200TT into the right seats of Boeings. This
is not working terribly well in the Orient.