What airplane was the most difficult to fly?

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confusedalot
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Re: What airplane was the most difficult to fly?

Post by confusedalot »

Well then you have better hands and feet than me :lol: Which is a good thing.

Then again, it was my first and last taildragger. A little disappointed by that though, economics interfered.
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Cat Driver
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Re: What airplane was the most difficult to fly?

Post by Cat Driver »

The B18 on floats is really easy to fly compared to on wheels.
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Re: What airplane was the most difficult to fly?

Post by valleyboy »

Bch 18 on wheels was one of the nicest aircraft I ever flew. If that was your first tail dragger I can understand your reaction. That is how it got it's rep in the first place because back in the day the military was using it as an initial multi trainer with 25 hour pilots. The 748 is another example of an amazing aircraft that was tough handled short runways, big xwinds , with good reliability but sadly is fast approaching the end of it's day. Granted a little doggy in the climb but over all a wonderful aircraft. Too bad they never followed through with the prat 1000 mod. I would have loved to see the results. I would imagine a pretty good aircraft that would have kept the ATR 42 out of the north. Even now it hauls more but the darts are the weakness not the airframe.
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TG
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Re: What airplane was the most difficult to fly?

Post by TG »

I second valley boy, the B18 is nice to fly (or drive since it is where some have issues with it)
Most of its bad rep usually come from people with less than 50hrs on it. It was certainly my case before this little benchmark.

Kinda like ridding a bicycle, you know or you don't.
But once you know, you are all set... :mrgreen:
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Re: What airplane was the most difficult to fly?

Post by Cat Driver »

Volpar made a tri gear conversion of the 18 that was more passenger friendly for loading and unloading.

But the gear retraction was very slow which delayed your safe engine out speed time.

As to handling on take off and landing the conventional B18 was not really difficult.
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Re: What airplane was the most difficult to fly?

Post by confusedalot »

Oookay,

Never said I did not like the planes, the question was which ones I found to be the most difficult.

What can I tell ya, of the 5 cessna singles, 8 cessna multis, 4 pipers, twin otter, dash 8, 4 boeings, 1 lockheed, they were the ones I found the hardest. Did not say impossible.

Guess i am a person of limited and marginal talent, i got it. :lol:
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Re: What airplane was the most difficult to fly?

Post by Siddley Hawker »

Cat, who put the turbines on the Goose, Fred Frakes?
Oh, I can't think of an airplane that I found hard to fly, although I detested the Beech Queen Air. Had nothing to do with the airplane, it was the engines I hated.
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Re: What airplane was the most difficult to fly?

Post by Cat Driver »

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Cat, who put the turbines on the Goose, Fred Frakes?
I can't remember.

The only two I ever flew belonged to Air West Airlines in Vancouver.

That was in 1974/75 when I did a stint there as chief pilot, we used them mainly for taking barge loaders up the coast as far as Sitka Alaska and we used them because they were fast and outperformed the Twin Otters in every way except the number of passengers they could carry.

They really needed two crew because of the difficulty docking them, the props were really close to the dock and shutting down was a real bitch at a dock so the F.O. would go back and tie the prick to the dock so you did not lose control when you shut the engines down.

I really liked flying them because they were really over powered and fun to fly.

Oh they hated ice as well. :mrgreen:
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The hardest thing about flying is knowing when to say no


After over a half a century of flying no one ever died because of my decision not to fly.
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Re: What airplane was the most difficult to fly?

Post by Broker »

Cat Driver wrote:The Beech 18 on floats is an awesome airplane...it was my favorite float plane.
Ditto. Wonderful aircraft on floats.
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Re: What airplane was the most difficult to fly?

Post by Cat Driver »

Randy Hanna hopes to have his second one on line before the end of the summer.

If I were young and looking for a job on floats I would jump at that one.

I flew CF-TBD for George Terriault for two seasons and just loved the thing.
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The hardest thing about flying is knowing when to say no


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Re: What airplane was the most difficult to fly?

Post by xsbank »

McKinnon, I believe...
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Re: What airplane was the most difficult to fly?

Post by Siddley Hawker »

Yeah, McKinnon it was. Had a brain fart - not an unknown thing - and forgot. :)
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Re: What airplane was the most difficult to fly?

Post by Cat Driver »

Yes, they were McKinnon's.
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The hardest thing about flying is knowing when to say no


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Re: What airplane was the most difficult to fly?

Post by Tuk U »

Cat Driver wrote:The Beech 18 on floats is an awesome airplane...it was my favorite float plane.


I agree with you, it was my favourite as well
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Re: What airplane was the most difficult to fly?

Post by pelmet »

Cat Driver wrote:The B18 on floats is really easy to fly compared to on wheels.
Did several landings in a Beech 18 years ago from the right seat. No crosswind. Seemed easy to land.
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