I think I finally got it.

[sky's the limit]

Hey .,

I would have thought after a healthy number of these threads over the years you'd have just come over to rotary full-time, I mean you want a place where hands and feet matter, and you know enough about it to know what I'm talking about, right? Lol You just need to let go of that fixed wing thing, take a "been there, done that" attitude, and move on over to a place where what you prioritize is gospel.

I can't wait until we buy the 206 so I can finally go back where I really want to be, was talking to Bob on Saturday and told him you will be doing my training on the machine and he is just fine with anything I need to do......as we both know there is going to be quite a few hours of dual before I will be content to fly it on my own....and of course there is the insurance requirements.

I am finally feeling like I may recover and hopefully get back to a near normal life.

If Bob Hoover could maintain competency into his eighties I can do the same thing.

Sounds good, just let me know when you want to get started... as much lead time as possible would be good. I'll be flying the 212 most of the summer, also some Astar work as well, looking forward to a good year again.

I'm glad to hear you're feeling better, I will try to stop in next time I am over. The first dirt bike race of the year is in Sooke on the 20th, so I'm hoping to make that. If I do I'll try to stop in on the way home for sure.

stl

PS Who needs a tail wheel, when you can have a tail rotor???

[Cat Driver]

Flying the Atlantic

The North Atlantic and the South Atlantic are so vastly different they are on different planets.

Each have their dangers and each require decision making that leaves no room for error when flying old airplanes down in the low level altitudes.

The south Atlantic was probably the most difficult due the the ITCZ and the long over water distance.

With the fuel load we left Dakar with ( 5000 pounds over gross allowable. ) the first eight hours were the most worrisome due to drift down if we lost an engine.

I sit here and wonder about life and often think of all the hours and days Pene sat at home worrying about the type of flying I did all those years and yet here I am still alive and she is gone.

[RenegadeAV8R]

Tail wheel airplanes to me are just airplanes, I have over five thousand hours on DC3's alone and most of that time is off airport operations, so it is understandable that I am mentally stuck in an era that no longer really exists.

You are not alone...

A friend of mine used to take his vacation days from his "normal" job, as an Airbus 320 Captain; to fly cargo with a DC-3 on skis

[Grantmac]

a sad world when a J3 sits in a museum

Congratulations! You have now graduated to the rank of Grumpy Old Guy, Second Class (tm) and joined the ranks of many over-the-hill aviators on AvCan including Yours Truly Shortly you will receive by mail your ceremonial walking chair.

I'm turning 27 this month so I don't think I'm eligible for that club just yet. To be totally honest I've never flown any of the Cub family of aircraft, but that will change eventually.
If someone handed me the keys I would feel totally comfortable checking myself out in any PA-1x or J-x series aircraft.

Getting time in older, stranger aircraft is a real challenge. If you have the experience then its easy to get more, if you don't it is very unlikely you'll get any to start with. I'd like to fly a bipe this year but I don't see it happening, same goes for a round engine.

-Grant

[Hedley]

Getting time in older, stranger aircraft is a real challenge

It looks that way, at first, but not really. There are very very few really proficient tailwheel pilots around. Become one. Fly the @ss off your tailwheel aircraft - like riding motorcycles, it really doesn't matter what you ride, as long as you ride. It doesn't matter what kind of tailwheel aircraft you fly, just fly it and fly it and become very proficient in it, under all circumstances (wx, weird runway, etc).

If you get your instructor rating, you're very quickly going to become the local tailwheel instructor, whether you like it or not. This has less to do with your good looks and golden hands and feet, but more to do with a vanishing supply of tailwheel instructors and a healthy demand for them.

You will start by flying all sorts of homebuilt tailwheel aircraft, checking the owners out in them. Please don't kill yourself. Homebuilts are a special challenge, and will not tolerate a pilot who is not mechanically inclined, or can't handle something breaking.

After you get some homebuilt tailwheel types under you belt, people will start asking you to ferry aircraft as well. This will include weird old "warbird" (really trainer) types such as Harvard, Stearman, Cornell, etc. Treat them just like a homebuilt - with great caution due to their age. Don't panic when something breaks.

I had thought, years ago, that as a civilian aerobatic pilot, I would never fly military jets. Was I ever wrong.

Anways, start by flying your tailwheel aircraft 1,000 hours. It's a good start. Learn to wheel land on one main. Get comfortable with the falling leaf. And most important, don't kill yourself. Lots of pilot much, much better than me are now dead, dead, dead. The list of pilots who have died in aircraft accidents is incredible and depressing. Don't do that. Not really sure why I'm still around. All I can suppose is that a somewhat unusual combination of theoretical knowledge and many decades of practical experience has saved my sorry @ss.

PS Don't be afraid of biplanes. You've flown high wing before, and you've flown low wing before, right? Now you're simply going to do both at the same time The trick with a biplane is the limited visibility forward in the landing attitude - very pre-WWII. Either that blows your mind - like driving down the highway at 80 mph with the hood blown up, covering the windshield - or it doesn't.

Don't be afraid of radial engines, either. They're just another 4-stroke engine. I used to be uncomfortable around them, too, until my friend Peter pointed out that when I am driving down the runway in knife edge, my trusty Lycoming was a radial engine. Radial engines just need LOTS of warmup time, and you MUST pull the prop through before cranking to avoid hydraulic locking the bottom cylinders. That's really it. I have a wonderful P&W PDF if you want.

[Shiny Side Up]

how many new aircraft are produced with tail drag configuration?

Not many, because of the difficulty that pilots encounter when they try to fly them.

Nosewheel light aircraft production includes Cessna, Cirrus, Piper, Beechcraft, Diamond, etc.

Tailwheel aircraft (eg Husky, Pitts, Decathlon) are mostly off-airport, towplane and aerobatic types, which need the extra prop clearance from the ground. They're very much specialty (and now older museum) pieces.

I would almost wager that there are more home builts finished as taildraggers a year than there are factory airplanes. Vans in the "A" configuration probably outnumber all the new Pitts, decathalons and huskys.

Flying tailwheel is like driving a car or truck with a manual transmission. Some people choose to never do it, because they don't like it, or they don't figure it's worth the effort to bother learning how.

I tell people that tube & fabric / tailwheel / biplane / aerobatic / radial engine aircraft are really museum pieces these days, even though people may be reluctant to admit it.

One must admit that when it comes to tailwheel aircraft that those who fly them do their best to enhance the mystique of doing it and tailwheel owners by and large are a pretty secular group. Its a magnification of the old aviation job viscious circle where you can't get more experience if you don't have experience. While its worth it, breaking into this group is a feat in itself. The experience of getting into the club was very similar I've found to getting into operation heavy construction equipment - everyone who does that would let you believe that there's a special monastary in tibet you train at to become skilled. While it does take skill, flying a tailwheel aircraft doesn't take as much skill as some would have you believe, much like an excavator or live drawworks crane - both of which I will say took far more effort to learn and were far more dangerous. The point is while it may not seem difficult to be in the club if you're on the inside, getting into the club from the outside takes a lot of work.

Not trying to seem selfish, but Hedley could probably do some writing as much as he's requested of Cat. If only before he gets too old and cranky to put words to paper. The knowledge needs to be passed on rather than hoarded.

[Beefitarian]

In the defense of anyone that flys tail draggers. You can be pretty sloppy with a nose wheel and never ground loop it.

[iflyforpie]

In the defense of anyone that flys tail draggers. You can be pretty sloppy with a nose wheel and never ground loop it.

The scary thing is, lots of nose wheel aircraft get ground looped every year. Piper Spam Cans seem to be the biggest culprits, owing to their laminar-flow wing, lack of stabilator authority, and closed rudder and nosewheel steering system.

Pretty sad when the Cherokee Series of aircraft are so simple to fly they came up with the term 'Cherokee Easy'.

[Beefitarian]

How bad are people neglecting things to make that happen?

[Shiny Side Up]

Indeed. Personally I'd believe that you could take a group of young fellows who'd only been on nosedraggers to PPL level, hand picking the brightest and most determined, turn them loose with a bunch of cubs and they'd probably figure it out. If one was content with them bending a few and possibly losing one or two, you have a crop of new pilots who'd be reasonably decent sticks with no real additional training. Its not rocket science after all. I'd almost go as far to say that the cub was by far the easiest airplane to take off and land if only because there was only such a short time one really needed to manage it in the transition from a stand still to the air and vice versa. If you gave said fellows above a big flat square field they'd probably bend less airplanes in the process.

Wish in one hand shit in the other as they say. The times they are a changing. The way the world works, or wishes to work has changed. When I look at stuff my grandfathers did or even my father did people today are wusses by comparisson.

[Beefitarian]

Funny you say that bit about your father/grandfather.

I was just musing last week about how my wife's little camping trailer has all the modern amenities, furnace, toilet, cook top, beds, refrigerator, etc. yet my Grandparents lived with two babies in an uninsulated shack with a wood stove a few miles south east of Milo AB.

I'll be honest though, I'm sure thankfull when my back goes out or something.

[bandaid]

My only reason for asking that question is to accertain how important it is to learn how to fly the tail wheel configuration if they no longer produce that type for commercial use.
I can see by some of Hedleys videos that he is a gifted pilot and no doubt good on more type than most but I can also see why they are not teaching tail wheel if they don't need it to fly most commercial aircraft.

[Cat Driver]

Bandaid, there are several superb tail wheel airplanes still built under the certified category.

I am not quite sure why more flying schools do not use them.

When I owned a fairly big flying school I put a Cub on line but the instructors never really wanted to teach on it so I finally sold it.

By the way I also had a Cheetah on line for about four years and the same thing with the Cheetah, the instructors felt it was just to dangerous a machine to teach on.

However I did have one instructor who flew everything in the fleet including the R22 which I gave him his helicopter license on over a period of about a year because he was such an awesome employee.

He is now a senior captain on West Jet.

[Shiny Side Up]

I am not quite sure why more flying schools do not use them.

Cost of purchase, cost of operations and Marketability. Cost is the bigger of these two. Ask Michael P why they use the DA-20. Training on plastic airplanes sells. It looks new, it feels futuristic. Production wise a castoring nose wheel is the cheapest and easiest to maintain landing gear set up. If Cessna and Piper find a way to retrofit the 172, 182 and Cherokee line ups this way I'd almost guarantee the production line would change.

I'm in the business though of making old airplanes make money. I don't have a lot of options in airplane choice when it comes to it, and I've done some research and shopping around. That might be different if past consumers would have chosen differently. Contrary to popular belief here the disappearance of the tail dragger isn't a recent occurance in general aviation. Back in 1955-56 when both the Cessna 170 and the 172 were both simultaeneously in production, the 172 outsold its taildragging sibling ten to one. One has to wonder why this happened - after all, previous to that more pilots would have been trained on taildraggers than nose draggers. Why did they make the switch?

[Cat Driver]

Back in 1955-56 when both the Cessna 170 and the 172 were both simultaeneously in production, the 172 outsold its taildragging sibling ten to one. One has to wonder why this happened - after all, previous to that more pilots would have been trained on taildraggers than nose draggers. Why did they make the switch?

I remember when Central Airways got their first 170 B and how impressed we were with the full flap approach.

The 172 became the trainer of choice because it was easier to fly.

[Beefitarian]

Most people presume, easier = less expensive and that's the key right there. If students thought they could get a commercial license for $35 less half of them would let you remove a testicle.
Perception is,
A - Less expensive and faster because you'll take less time.
B - Safer because of all the ground loop stories from when training was exclusively tail draggers.

[Cat Driver]

B - Safer because of all the ground loop stories from when training was exclusively tail draggers.

From 1953 to around 1959 when I left Toronto I only recall one ground loop at the Toronto Island Airport that caused damage to an airplane.

These stories may be suspect.

[Beefitarian]

Perception is not interested in facts and stuff.

[iflyforpie]

The 'ground loops' we hear about are mostly the ones in an age of nosewheel airplanes and automatic transmissions.


True story. I got taught tailwheel by a friendly flying club pilot on his Taylorcraft BC12D. It was quite a departure from the aircraft I'd flown before, the closest experience I had was on floats, but that plane was still a 172.

Heel brakes that hardly worked, a tachometer that went backwards, no VSI, AI, or DG (there was a TB though), coat hangar behind the cowl for your fuel gauge, no electrics, and a trusty Ernest Hemingway starter (farewell to arms). It was quite an ordeal to get my 6'2" 200lb frame into the pilot seat.

We did quite a few flights. We'd go and do circuits at half-altitude in the morning otherwise it would have taken us forever to climb. We'd keep the circuits close in because of the low top speed and so we would look higher to Air Radio. Three points, wheel landings, crosswind, lets-see-if-we-can-get-off-at-the-first-taxiway landings. Then out to have some fun. Wingovers, lazy eights, a couple touch and goes at on a farmer's field (my first grass landing), and back.

The pilot sold the plane to another young AME apprentice and I helped ferry it for him. This young man was going to take his private license on the aircraft from a freelance instructor. Not a week later, we got the sad news that the plane had been wrecked in a ground loop, no doubt flown by an instructor pilot who didn't have experience with these wonderful old aircraft.

[Big Pistons Forever]

I think I too have finally got it. I guess there is a segment of avcanada posters that find it impossible to conceive of the possibility that new commercial pilots could ever be as good as they were when they had a fresh CPL and few hundred hours total time. Nothing anyone says will ever change any minds so there doesn't seem much point in trying


My advice to new Cpl's is simple. Be the best pilot you can be. You don't have to fly a taildragger to have excellent hands and feet you just have to have the personal drive to fly accurately. That means constantly striving for ball in the center, on speed exactly or exactly the planned altitude, all the time. It means working hard to touch down exactly on the centerline, at the selected spot, with no drift. It means taking responsibility for your pilot decision making and keeping your mind, eyes and ears open to better ways of doing things. Training on a taildragger with the best instructor in the world won't make you skilled, ultimately you have to want to be a good pilot.

[Hedley]

Funny coincidence - we were talking about this on the ramp this morning. A class 4 instructor candidate I am teaching, was grumbing that his feet were getting lazy on the 172, and he needed to fly the Maule again. That's what he said, not me.

The three of us on the ramp agreed that the 172 was in fact the worst training aircraft in the world, because decades of refinement had bred out all of it's bad habits in the interests of safety.

I have an unpleasant amount of time in a 172. It is astoundingly forgiving of virtually any pilot error. You can approach at 50 mph or 150 mph. You don't have to ever use the rudder pedals in flight. Not pretty, but it won't bite you for your errors. I guess that's safe, but it's not a good trainer, IMHO, because it is so forgiving.

It's easy say, "Just fly precisely" but it takes a really annoying instructor in a 172 to harp on his students to develop good stick & rudder skills, because he really doesn't need any on a 172.

I can see by some of Hedleys videos that he is a gifted pilot

No, no, no! (sound of stomping foot). I am NOT a gifted pilot. I have had some tremendous advantages that most people in Canada simply don't. I am a 3rd generation pilot - I was taught by my father, a CF-104 test pilot. I've been flying for over 35 years. Learned to fly on a Maule. Got an engineering degree. Got an ATPL. Got an airshow pilot card.

If you did the above, I'd wager that you'd be a pretty darn good pilot, too. The guy that flies the most is usually the best. Over the years I have consistently flown 200 to 250 flights per years. You do that for enough decades, and if you don't get pretty good at it, there's probably something wrong with you.

But, you do have to want it, with a burning desire. Nothing good in life comes easy, sorry. You're going to have to work for it.

I've trashed two marriages along the way. Are you prepared to pay that cost and make the sacrifices it's going to take, to become the very best pilot you can be? Most people aren't, and that's ok. But please, no excuses. You make your decisions, you get to live with the consequences.

www.pittspecials.com/images/eric_form1.jpg

[Big Pistons Forever]

It's easy to say, "Just fly precisely" but it takes a really annoying instructor in a 172 to harp on his students to develop good stick & rudder skills, because he really doesn't need any on a 172.

Guilty as charged, just ask any of my students

[Beefitarian]

I've trashed two marriages along the way. Are you prepared to pay that cost and make the sacrifices it's going to take, to become the very best pilot you can be?

I thought you were going to charge me money.
When can we start?

[bandaid]

Bandaid, there are several superb tail wheel airplanes still built under the certified category.

I am not quite sure why more flying schools do not use them.

When I owned a fairly big flying school I put a Cub on line but the instructors never really wanted to teach on it so I finally sold it.

By the way I also had a Cheetah on line for about four years and the same thing with the Cheetah, the instructors felt it was just to dangerous a machine to teach on.

However I did have one instructor who flew everything in the fleet including the R22 which I gave him his helicopter license on over a period of about a year because he was such an awesome employee.

He is now a senior captain on West Jet.

I understand that they are available for the PPL type pilot but commercially there seems to be none being built. My thinking is though it would probably increase your skill in hand and foot work it really has little commercial value. I'm not sure that I have gotten my point across very well, I guess what I am trying to say is if they don't sell this configuration for commercial use than the skill to fly them really isn't needed for a pilot going into commercial training.

[Cat Driver]

Bandaid there are many reasons why tail wheel airplanes are difficult to find in flying schools, but my guess is they are easier to train on.

Reading this thread it is obvious the subject brings out a lot of opinions and a lot of condescending asinine comments from some of the posters here.

The subject is really not that important anyhow for the simple reason conventional gear airplanes are no longer in vogue in training.

As to the question concerning which type of airplane makes for better hands and feet students in the early stages of flight training the best way to find the answer to that is simple.

Take ten students trained on a nose wheel airplane to PPL standards, then take ten students trained on tail wheel airplanes to PPL standards.

Then without any check out on the other gear configuration just switch them around, put the nose wheel pilots in the tail wheel airplanes and the tail wheel pilots in nose wheel airplanes, then see who does best without a check out on the new type.