The best airplane for tail wheel training?

[Cat Driver]

I'd go along with that. The Canuck is a simple, honest airplane that seems to do both exactly what the text books say it should do and exactly what you ask of it. When the Canuck is not doing what I expect, I simply ask myself what I'm doing wrong.

If the Canuck is so simple to fly then you should be able to let any flight instructor just jump in one and fly it.

[Hedley]

., you are so cruel

[Cat Driver]

Not really Hedley because the minimum requirements to be a flight instructor is best shown by using that as a skills level requirement.

I'm betting your 15 year old could fly circles around most flight instructors in Canada.

[fl80]

I'd go along with that. The Canuck is a simple, honest airplane that seems to do both exactly what the text books say it should do and exactly what you ask of it. When the Canuck is not doing what I expect, I simply ask myself what I'm doing wrong.

If the Canuck is so simple to fly then you should be able to let any flight instructor just jump in one and fly it.

Fair enough, .. I thought we were talking about the quality of the airplane not necessarily the quality of the pilot. Now I will agree that instructors, and not just flight instructors, can be found anywhere in the talent spectrum.

I'll likely be looking for an instructor to do some ab-initio training with a famliy member in the next couple of years. I think I can recognize what I'd be looking for in that instructor when the time comes. Or maybe I'll have to become one myself.

Back to the airplane, would you recommend against the Canuck for ab-initio training?

[Cat Driver]

Back to the airplane, would you recommend against the Canuck for ab-initio training?

Are you asking me that question?

[fl80]

Back to the airplane, would you recommend against the Canuck for ab-initio training?

Are you asking me that question?

Not really, just playing your game

[Cat Driver]

Not really, just playing your game

You really think that I think learning to fly properly is a game?

[fl80]

Not really, just playing your game

You really think that I think learning to fly properly is a game?

No and neither do I. I was serious when I said that I'd be using the airplane for ab-initio training for a family member. I'd like to believe that there are still some instructors out there that I can trust to do the job right, if I'm wrong I'd like to know sooner rather than later. As far as the airplane goes, I'd like your opinion is it still as suitable as it once was. I'd find it hard to believe that you don't see it as a simple airplane, but you might be trying to tell me that it is no longer a good candidate for ab-initio training given the available instructor pool.

[Cat Driver]

I can not think of a better airplane that is certified and meets the TC standards to learn to fly on than the Fleet Canuck.

I am sure there are instructors in your area that are capable of doing the training on a Canuck.

The very fact we are even discussing where you can find an instructor that is capable of teaching on such a basic training airplane is a sad comment on flight training in Canada.

I learned to fly on the Fleet Canuck and the Cessna 140 back in an era where the minimum time for the PPL was 30 hours....many of us did the PPL in the 30 hours.

Today it takes two or three times as long in nose wheel idiot proof trainers..go figure.

[tonyhunt]

The very fact we are even discussing where you can find an instructor that is capable of teaching on such a basic training airplane is a sad comment on flight training in Canada.

This is my daughter working on her PPL in our Husky. I took the photo from the rear seat. The Husky has stick, throttle, rudder and toe brakes in the back.

[tonyhunt]

She's pumped - her first landing on grass. Last summer at Carleton Place.

[fl80]

.,

Thanks for the feedback.

The very fact we are even discussing where you can find an instructor that is capable of teaching on such a basic training airplane is a sad comment on flight training in Canada.

I learned to fly on the Fleet Canuck and the Cessna 140 back in an era where the minimum time for the PPL was 30 hours....many of us did the PPL in the 30 hours.

Today it takes two or three times as long in nose wheel idiot proof trainers..go figure.

I couldn't agree more.

Tony,

Great photos. The smile on your daughters face says it all. And in my mind that's what learning to fly has lost. I'd like to make sure that I do my best to ensure that my daughter has a similar smile once she gets started.

Maybe I'm naive, or an idealist, but I can't get it out of my head that learning to fly ought to be special, that it should be both challenging and enjoyable. It should be about real accomplishments rather than about paper exams.Technique should count for at least as much as procedures.

Here's a question, what happens if we judge the caliber of an instructor by the appearance of his or her student at the end of the flight? Success looks like a student who has worked hard, has the sweat to prove it, and an enthusiatic smile that says they want to do it all over again.

[mark_]

What about a Piper Cub for training guys?

Mark

[Hedley]

What about a Piper Cub for training?

Perfect, esp on a grass runway.

The value of someone spending their first 10 or 15
hours in a tailwheel aircraft - like a cub, champ or
canuck - cannot be understated.

They will learn to use their feet, and will be much
better at crosswind landings later on.

[biohazzard]

Hello all,
I am new to flying and would like to buy a taildragger. There is some conflicting info on the net about the C-150/152. I absolutely mean no offense and could use some guidance before spending the money.
Conversions: The TexasTaildragger seems to be narrower and higher than the CustomAircraft conversion. Could someone elaborate on the pros/cons of this. Angle of attack as it applies to taildragger landings?
Rudder: I have read that the swept tail 150/152 doesn't have enough rudder authority for tail wheel ops. However, Cat Pilot converted one and seemed to like it. So, do I need a straight tail, or will a swept tail work?
The planes I have found are:
65' 150E (straight tail) with Custom Aircraft conversion
81' 152II (swept tail) with Texas Taildragger conversion
The 152 is a better looking plane. But for now I am looking for function over appearance.
Keep in mind, I am very low time (C-172) and want a plane that handles reasonably well.
Thanks in advance,
Mike

[HS-748 2A]

Fleet 80 Canuck.

-Nice wide cabin, side by side seating, stick control, no nasty habits but it keeps you honest. It beats out the Luscomb, the T Craft and the 120/140 for the shoulder room.
-No heavy duty ADs against it.
-Classic Canadian airplane.
-Relativley cheap to buy too. (28-30K for avg cond.)

48

[Cat Driver]

My, my, my one of my old threads has popped up.

Those of you who want to remind me of my promise to not post on the training forum again can kiss my ass if you want to complain that I am posting again...because this is my thread.

Anyhow to those of you who read this stuff now that I have sold my Texas Taildragger Aerobat I have decided to make a change to the Cub project I am building.

I am going to change it from a Cub to the clipped wing version so I can do bush pilot training with it.

I bet even Hedley would approve of that decision.

[MichaelP]

Excuse me Cat, may I have the honour of posting on your thread?

OK, I'll do it anyway...

It's nothing to do with the aeroplane... There is no 'best' tailwheel aeroplane to train someone in.
It is everything to do with the person doing the teaching... If he or she does a good job in any tailwheel aeroplane then that is all we could want.

There has to be some relevance. I once took a couple of Cherokee pilots and trained them in the Condor, side by side and relatively easy as a tailwheel aeroplane. But I needed to work out the lazy habits of the Cherokee instruction they'd been given.
They graduated to the Auster, a more serious tailwheel aeroplane, "The Steel Aeroplane", "Real Austers Fly Their Pilots!".
Opposite rotation propeller.... Don't think about it, just keep the aeroplane straight!
From the Auster they graduated to the aeroplane they'd bought, a Cessna 195.

Wouldn't you like to fly these:

[Cat Driver]

Wouldn't you like to fly these:

No.

I would " love " to fly them.

As to the best you are correct, what counts is how you are trained.

Having said that we need to examine what we want to do with an airplane and how much it will cost.

That was why I did the conversion on the Aerobat because for the money I got an airplane that would do the job at a reasonable cost.

By turning my Cub into a clipped wing Cub I once again will have an airplane that will do the job at a reasonable cost.

http://home.xcountry.tv/~dann/id17.htm

Have you flown a clipped wing cub Michael?

By the way the last time I flew a Tiger Moth was at a farmers field in I believe it was called Rush Green north of London.

[sidestick stirrer]

Cat Driver:
You didn't ask me, you asked MichaelP, but we did have a PM exchange awhile back about clipped-wing Cubs.
My clip-wing was both my first taildragger and the first airplane I owned. I had not flown a stock-wing Cub so had nothing to compare it to, but certainly noticed a longer flare when I eventually did strap the latter on.
Thanks to MichaelP and a couple of other, outstanding instructors, my daughter soloed, then earned her PPL in the family RV-6, a short-coupled, 160-hp, two-seat taildragger.

[sidestick stirrer]

I should add that I have checked out six pilots on taildraggers using this RV-6, and concur with the advice previously posted-and employ it myself- recommending running up and down the runway for as long as it takes to get them proficient with coordinating rudder inputs, despite it getting the engine in the tightly-cowled RV mighty hot, with the brakes not far behind if the available run is short, like the north runway at Pitt Meadows.
Grass is infinitely easier to start out on, for obvious reasons of being more tolerant of drift than pavement.
Once the "keeping it straight" part is well in hand, the only other part really needing to be learned is the different handling in the latter part of the flare and on touchdown, especially if it bounces or skips.
Oh, and learning the two different types of touchdowns the taildragger offers the pilot.

[Jungle Jim]

Another good training plane is the Stinson. Fairly wide inside, most have brakes on both sides, manual flaps and perfomance numbers similar to the 172.

Jim

[Hedley]

The best tailwheel training airplane would have:

1) side-by-side seating. Tandem is cool, but makes
instruction harder.

2) brakes for the instructor on the right side

3) accelerator pump in carburetor, so power can
be applied rapidly

4) not spring gear - I prefer bungees, or some other
system that absorbs some of the energy of a less-
than-perfect landing

5) enough gyros that you don't need another
aircraft to do the hood work for the PPL.

6) in the panel: comm radio, good intercom,
transponder mode C. Only nav radio would be
a handheld GPS, powered off the aircraft 12V.

7) oh yeah, electrical system. Battery, alternator
(preferably, generator isn't as good at charging
at low rpms), electric starter for no hand-bombing.

Don't really care if it's high wing or low wing, or
make or model for that matter.

[Cat Driver]

I should add that I have checked out six pilots on taildraggers using this RV-6, and concur with the advice previously posted-and employ it myself- recommending running up and down the runway for as long as it takes to get them proficient with coordinating rudder inputs,

And therein lies the crux of teaching someone how to fly a tail wheel airplane especially if they have been trained on nose wheel airplanes.

Once they master the low speed / high speed tail in the air ground training the next lesson is how to perform correct wheel landings, this will in most cases be a bit of a problem with most pilots because they have never been taught how to flare very close to the runway, which is the secret to good wheel landings.

The three point stall landing is quite easy to teach because most of them have been taught to flare high and keep raising the nose until the airplane returns to earth. ( a whole lot of them have no idea how high they might be off the runway before gravity and loss of lift caused by speed decay reunites the airplane with the ground.)

[Cat Driver]

The best tailwheel training airplane would have:

1) side-by-side seating. Tandem is cool, but makes
instruction harder.

2) brakes for the instructor on the right side

3) accelerator pump in carburetor, so power can
be applied rapidly

4) not spring gear - I prefer bungees, or some other
system that absorbs some of the energy of a less-
than-perfect landing

5) enough gyros that you don't need another
aircraft to do the hood work for the PPL.

6) in the panel: comm radio, good intercom,
transponder mode C. Only nav radio would be
a handheld GPS, powered off the aircraft 12V.

7) oh yeah, electrical system. Battery, alternator
(preferably, generator isn't as good at charging
at low rpms), electric starter for no hand-bombing.

Don't really care if it's high wing or low wing, or
make or model for that matter.

Sounds like you are describing a Beech 18.