Tailwheel...?

[warbirdpilot7]

Quote:
Weird would be the Anson Mk. five.

This sounds like the begining of a good story.

The Anson was a very nice flying airplane except for the brake system.

The English sometimes build things that are truly demonic, such as their baggage carts that they supply at the airports that have full castoring wheels on all four corners, the things will go every direction except the one you want it to go.

The Anson had vacuum over hydraulic brakes that were downright frightening if you were not aware of the lag from the time you applied the brake/'s until they actually started to engage because if you increased pressure thinking nothing was happening they locked up the wheel/'s and it got exciting very fast.

It was actually easier to fly than the Beech 18.......except for the brakes.....

The Annie is alot more tame then the Beech 18. Yes, British systems can be a little "wierd" to us North American folk. I fly a Chipmunk that has its own type of brake system(I posted earlier on this) so I will not do it now to save space. The brake system is the same as most Tiger Moths.

What you need to keep in mind about the Anson is the fact that this was the first retractable landing gear system ever made by Avro. I have heard about people talk about the braking system.

The Manchester and later on the Lancaster used a pneumatic braking system as well.

[Hedley]

For some reason I am reminded of this:

In Heaven:
• The police are British
• The cooks are French
• The engineers are German
• The administrators are Swiss
• The lovers are Italian

In Hell:
• The police are German
• The cooks are British
• The engineers are Italian
• The administrators are French
• The lovers are Swiss

Back on topic ... some tailwheel aircraft demand more skill from their pilot, than others. However, like motorcycle riding, the important thing is that you ride, and someone with some tailwheel experience can generally move up to a more challenging type with a bit of training and stick time.

Speaking of tailwheel training ... it's often depressingly bad. Very few people have a clue how to efficiently teach it, perhaps because the experienced tailwheel pilots are rarely flight instructors.

People often ask me if there is a tailwheel endorsement or rating in Canada. I reply, "No, and don't give them any ideas." The important thing you need to learn is that airplanes can't read. They can't read your pilot licence and treat you differently depending upon whether you are a student or airline transport pilot, and they can't check your logbook to see how many tens of thousands of hours you have logged, and act appropriately.

As Richard Collins once said, you are only as good as your last approach, or in a tailwheel airplane, your last landing. You might have an ATPL and 50,000TT but if you groundlooped and destroyed the airplane during your most recent landing, are you really better than a student pilot with 30 hrs who's last solo landing was a greaser?

[MichaelP]

You might have an ATPL and 50,000TT but if you groundlooped and destroyed the airplane during your most recent landing, are you really better than a student pilot with 30 hrs who's last solo landing was a greaser?

Most ATPL's with those hours I wouldn't trust solo in a little aeroplane of any type!
Not a good example.

I used to see the ATC Cadets in England being flown by CPL/ATPL holders with little recent experience in light aircraft but with the professional licence. (Instructors at that time did not usually have a CPL!).
One such Boeing pilot took the whole field to get off in a Cherokee, it became airborne when it bounced off the perimeter track (assphalt) having slid along the wet grass runway with the brakes on!

The student pilot with 30 hours is supposed to be under supervision and the wind and weather limits are restricted.

I watched a student pilot flying a Cessna 152 at Langley a few weeks ago. He was doing soft field landings with his instructor who then sent him off for solo practice. I presume they were soft field as the flaps were fully down and there was some power on.
He continued to do really soft and gentle landings and always three point!
There would be no hope for this pilot if he ever tried to convert onto tailwheel aeroplanes as first things learned while they appeared to work on this occasion would only work if he wheeled the tailwheel aeroplane on, and thereafter by some miracle the tail stayed up and there was no crosswind.

I maintain that a pilot properly trained in the Cessna 150 should have little difficulty converting to tailwheel.
Lazily trained pilots, as many are today, evidenced by the sagging elevators, usually take longer to go solo in a tailwheel aeroplane than people with no previous flying experience do when they begin their flying training in a tailwheel aeroplane.

Air systems
If you fly a YAK or a Nanchang you'll be familiar with the braking system used in the Anson, the Blenheim, the Wimpy, and many other older aircraft.

[lownslow]

Speaking of tailwheel training ... it's often depressingly bad. Very few people have a clue how to efficiently teach it, perhaps because the experienced tailwheel pilots are rarely flight instructors.

This seems like as good a place as any to ask this: How would one go about becoming a good tailwheel instructor? As it stands I'm an instructor and a tailwheel pilot but I have yet to combine the two. On the instructing side of things I've been very successful, which I often attribute to my experience with the tailwheel types I've flown. My tailwhel experience, however, has been kind of sheltered. Nobody pays me to fly a taildragger so if it ain't fun I ain't going flying. On top of that I fly borrowed airplanes so there's no way I'm pushing conditions. So what I have is about a hundred hours, mostly in Tiger Moths but with no more than say 5 knots crosswind (usually much closer to zero).

As it stands, I wouldn't provide tailwheel instruction to anyone but some day I'd like to be able to. What would you guys recommend for experience between now and when I start training folks to fly those old-timey aeroplanes with the little wheel at the back?

LnS.

[MichaelP]

Here at Boundary Bay we have had three nosedragger instructors convert to tailwheel instructors in the past two years.
Heinz did a brilliant job of bringing these chaps up to speed.

What was done was ten or so hours of tailwheel training in the Citabria followed by some solo experience and then they were let out with perhaps not enough experience but so far with some guidance from the experts on this field they have done a pretty good job.
Two of these chaps did their aerobatic instructor ratings in both the Citabria and the Super Decathlon. Doing such training improves the ability to control the aeroplane.

I remember when I started, I needed 100 hours in tailwheel aeroplanes before I was allowed to do checkouts in the Condor and Jodels, and then after a little more the Stampes and Tiger Moths.
I also learned aerobatics in the Stampe.
Then I ran my own 'business' with Condors, Austers, Tiger Moth, Stampe, Jungmann aircraft among others...
I developed a method of converting people from nosedragger to tailwheel and I still use this today.

I wouldn't provide tailwheel instruction to anyone but some day I'd like to be able to.

I think it's time you shared your experience and got on with it.
By all means get some back seat flying in a Citabria, Cub, or Decathlon with an instructor. You could come out here and do this if you wish.



With the mass of pilots being ignorant of tailwheel aeroplanes we do need more real aviators to ensure that in the future such aeroplanes are flown safely. There are still many tailwheel homebuilt aircraft and even factory made tailwheel aircraft being built, and so there will be a need for tailwheel instruction.
Like nosedragger instruction, we all start a bit ignorant at first and the limits we allow the 'student' to go to will be tighter to start with.
I find that my own limits expand when I do a lot of instructing, but contract when I've been off it for a while

I must admit I was somewhat concerned when I sat in the Extra 300 last month, but when in it I forgot this and just did my job. It's remarkable how your concentration and accuracy improve when there's some concern.

An instructor can find a niche market and have the opportunity to make an interesting future for him/herself.

[Shiny Side Up]

This seems like as good a place as any to ask this: How would one go about becoming a good tailwheel instructor?

The only way is to find someone to learn from, and likely this is going to be on your own dime. It would be fortunate to have maybe learned to fly originally on a taildragger, but this would be a rare option - possible - but tough say as a neophyte to distingush who would be someone good to learn from off the start. Since tailwheel aircraft are realtively hard to find to get some good experience you'll end up buying a lot of beer (Aeronca Chief and Champ), fuel (Cessna 170) and turning a lot of wrenches (Piper J5 and Champ) which was the way I wrangled most of my first tailwheel time. About a dozen of those hours I travelled to go rent the airplane and instructor (Cessna 180 and Citabria).

To be a decent tailwheel instructor I think one should have a good ammount of experience just being an instructor - I didn't start doing any tailwheel instruction until I was past the 3000 hour mark of instructing - if only so you have a good handle on how sideways you can let a student get before the "I have control" moment comes.

Oddly enough I've been told that my accident free record stands against me as a tailwheel instructor. Apparently to be considered an "experienced" instructor I have to go bend some metal. A student I was doing some instruction with told me this once, and left for an instructor who had a history of bending airplanes. Shortly after he bent his own airplane, but now I guess he's a better pilot for the experience.

[Adam Oke]

To be a decent tailwheel instructor I think one should have a good ammount of experience just being an instructor - I didn't start doing any tailwheel instruction until I was past the 3000 hour mark of instructing - if only so you have a good handle on how sideways you can let a student get before the "I have control" moment comes.

I agree that having a good instructor base would be beneficial for tail wheel instruction. But I would still be more tempted to choose the 3000hr taildragger PPL over a 3000hr misc instructor with some tail time. Experience on configuration still weighs pretty heavy in my mind. If you have enough experience in taildraggers, it doesn't take thousands of hours of instructing in general to know how far you can let it go. I think that the experienced taildragger pilot would know the limits of the aircraft a bit better than an experienced instructor with some tailwheel time.

Having said that, I am not talking about ab-initio training -- more so transition training.

[Hedley]

In general, a flight instructor should be able to teach pretty much anything he can do himself.

This includes multi-engine, instrument, float, tailwheel, aerobatic, ski-plane, type-specific, etc.

The ability any decent flight instructor should have, is the ability to distill down to the bare essentials of WHAT task the student really needs to master, and then organize HOW to perform each task.

For example, on the L39, there are three skills that you need to master to fly it, and I can teach you each skill, with a combination of ground briefing and flight training, breaking each one down into easy-to-learn components.

Back to tailwheel instruction. What I learned, years ago, when I started tailwheel instruction, is that the student will explore strange corners of the aircraft's behaviour that you, as a proficient pilot, never experience, because you simply never get that far out of control.

I remember, 15 or so years ago, checking a guy out on a maule, and he got this strange double-oscillation going in pitch and yaw during landing, that I had never experienced before. Weird, and potentially very expensive.

Fast reflexes and good judgement about how far you can let the student go, is paramount for any tailwheel instructor, to avoid a groundloop.

Nosewheel ab initio flight training helps with that, plus simply getting some stick time in a tailwheel airplane. Personally, I don't think you should instruct on any aircraft type that you are not confident and skilled in. If you do that, there are going to be two passengers in the aircraft, sooner or later, and that spells TEE ESS BEE.

Here's the skill test for a potential tailwheel instructor: if you can sideslip in a crosswind and touch down only on the upwind main, on the centerline, wing low with the downwind main and tail in the air, then add power and overshoot without the downwind main or tailwheel ever touching the ground, you are approaching the skill level required to instruct tailwheel.

Bonus points if you can "falling leaf" your tailwheel aircraft, stick all the way back, a trickle of power on for pure sadism, and walking it down through the full stall with the rudders.

Bottom line is that a tailwheel instructor must have good hands and feet, and he must be able to identify WHAT a student needs to know, and be able to explain HOW each task is performed.

Many virtuoso pilots are lousy instructors, because they just "do it". They don't think about it. If you ask them what they're doing, and how they do it, they might not be able to tell you - it's that natural for them.

I remember talking to Rob Holland about trying to teach someone to tumble - he was as frustrated as I was about trying to teach tumbles, because the maneuver was so technique-intensive and subtle - it's not a cookie-cutter maneuver like a roll or loop, where you just make the inputs, and the airplane pretty well always does it.

One last thought about tailwheel instruction: you could always learn it from the master. A guy called Budd Davisson specializes in teaching people to land the Pitts. It's all he does. I know a guy who went down to Budd's a few years back. Cost him usd$10,000 but in around one week, he learned to land a Pitts, which I guess i cheaper than wrecking one.

Budd isn't cheap, but he sure knows what th's doing. And, earns a pertty good living, doing it. It doesn't cost $10,000 per week to run a Pitts S-2A.

[MichaelP]

Let's not set the bar too high on this.

Two of the three new tailwheel instructors here did not have that much experience (Class IV just) but they succeeded in doing the job through having a good attitude.
As long as the 'student' tailwheel instructor keeps his/her limits simple to start with and has the discipline to take extra training as experience is gained that person can become an excellent tailwheel instructor in the future.
Learning aerobatics, going flying with a more experienced instructor on a windy day, and not experimenting too much and without reading, are good disciplines.

We're in a situation these days where there are few people learning to fly to be "Johnathon Livingstone Seagull" types.
There are few "Reluctant Messiah" types around, (but there are a lot of high ego types!).

We need more tailwheel instructors and the likes of me, Hedley, and Shiny should be encouraging new instructors to take on the task of tailwheel instruction to replace us as we move on...

As long as the new instructor is under the control of an experienced person then there's no reason why such people should not gain the experience required to do the job.
Most flying instructors cannot fly the aeroplane they teach in to the limits of that aeroplane in any case regardless of whether it's a Cessna 152 or Pitts S2C.

[Hedley]

Most flying instructors cannot fly the aeroplane they teach in to the limits of that aeroplane in any case regardless of whether it's a Cessna 152 or Pitts S2C

Good point, Michael. Most pilots (including instructors!) are limited by their own skills, not the airplane's capabilities.

Let's not set the bar too high

Not sure I entirely agree with that sentiment. Any flight instructor that isn't acutely aware of his limitations - and works hard at continually expanding them - isn't taking aviation very seriously.

We're all learning, every day, regardless of our qualifications and experience. I've been flying tailwheel for over 35 years but today I learned that the tail feathers of a PT-22 Ryan are aluminum. I would have never guessed that.

[Shiny Side Up]

But I would still be more tempted to choose the 3000hr taildragger PPL over a 3000hr misc instructor with some tail time.

Something often to consider is how much of that time is doing what. For example I know one pilot that while most of his 2000 hours is tailwheel time - one has to remember that most of that time is going back and forth between places, so usually 3 to 5 hour trips with one take off and one landing. This has been also stretched over a long chunk of time. I cringe when I see him go flying since I know the next time I see him fly his airplane it will have been probably almost a year since it flew last. He's bent metal a few times.

I spend a lot of my flying time in the circuit though, so I might not know much.

If you have enough experience in taildraggers, it doesn't take thousands of hours of instructing in general to know how far you can let it go.

It does however take a bit of experience to know how far you can let the student go, when they can be pushed to get better performance, when you have to step back or to switch up the game. Sometimes they're going to fix the mistake themselves, somethimes they're not. While airplanes behave like airplanes, no two students are alike - regardless of their "hours".

Bonus points if you can "falling leaf" your tailwheel aircraft, stick all the way back, a trickle of power on for pure sadism, and walking it down through the full stall with the rudders.

Don't need to have a taildragger to pull this off, its an excersise I have all students in the ab initio phase do to get them to realise the importance of their feet. But then again I don't have thousands of hours of tailwheel time, so take it for what its worth.

edit:

Budd isn't cheap, but he sure knows what th's doing. And, earns a pertty good living, doing it. It doesn't cost $10,000 per week to run a Pitts S-2A.

He does have a pretty sweet pad to stay at by the looks of it,I'm trying to convince the wife that this would be a good vacation since he advertises awesome shopping too - possibly part of the 10,000 is to get to fly and keep the other half happy while you do it.

[Big Pistons Forever]

If I am asked to convert your average Cessna/Piper driver to a tailwheel aircraft I do the training in 3 stages.

1) Airwork review: Unfortunately you can get away with flying your typical Cessna/Piper without ever having to use the rudder in flight. Many instructors do not in my opinion put enough emphasis on always maintaining coordinated flight, therefore when you put the student in your basic light taildragger they will will initially struggle just doing turns and climbs/ descents. They will also usually have poor airspeed control on final because modern trainers are so forgiving. There is no point in going to the circuit before the student can accurately fly the aircraft.

2) Taxing practice: I think this is very important because it burns in the three point sight picture and teaches the student the effect of prop wash over the rudder and reduced responsiveness of tailwheel steering over were used to in a tri gear, especially Pipers with there direct connected nose wheel. It also teaches the benefits and dangers of using the brakes.

3) Circuit work: I start out with a normal takeoff and stop and go three pointers on a calm day or one with a steady wind directly down the runway. I am looking for two things, the student is actively correcting any swerves and he/she is flaring to the three point attitude with the wings level. Not keeping the wings level is usually the root cause of crooked touchdowns or touchdowns with sideways drift. I believe strongly that the initial circuit lessons should not be touch and goes as the landing isn't over until the aircraft is at taxi speed. Similarly the first part of the takeoff from a standing start sets the tone for the rest of the takeoff run. As experience is gained you can move on to touch and go's, wheel landings, and crosswinds.

I do not think there is any magic bullet for teaching someone how to handle a taildragger. They just need to practice until the brain and the hands and feet get connected.

As for becoming a tailwheel instructor, well you first need to be a fully confident tailwheel pilot yourself. I think gusty crosswinds are a good litmus test. If you are happy to go out in your typical bug smasher taildragger with a 90 deg 15 kt gusty crosswind than you IMO have the skills necessary to save your student when they lose it on landing. If you are struggling in these conditions than I would submit you are not ready to teach.

I have two other points that are going to be controversial but I am going to say them anyway:

First: Assuming the necessary tailwheel flying experience and competence being equal, pilots who have a flying instructor rating and a goodly amount of recent PPL/CPL instructional experience IMO generally make better tailwheel instructors than those pilots who have never done any ab intio or basic flying instruction. This is because the initial tailwheel wheel conversion is ultimately all about basic stick and rudder flying skills and the flying instructor rating gives you lots of experience effectively teaching those foundation skills.

Second: I make a big point that I do not want the student to touch the brakes above taxing speed, but brakes are my last line of defense for an aircraft that is seriously bent out of shape and the only way to save the day in the event of a blown tire or a tailwheel failure, therefore I will not instruct in aircraft that do not have a set of brake pedals for the instructor seat. There seems to be two schools of thought on this point and other tailwheel instructors are happy to teach without brakes on their side, so ultimately you will have to make your own risk-reward decision. However requiring instructor brakes may eliminate some students who's aircraft are not so equiped, although in my instructing career I have never had a student who wanted a license or tailwheel checkout in their own aircraft where I had to refuse because it was only fitted with one set of brakes.

[Big Pistons Forever]

deleted double posts ....... stupid computer

[MultiSister]

Michael P. Where do you guys train out of? I am interested in some tail wheel experience. I live in the Lowermainland BC. not to mention try some aerobatics.

[Cat Driver]

Generally I have a good idea of what the student " should " know by talking to them and finding out their flying background.

Generally they already have a pilot license.

From there I teach them the difference between a nose wheel airplane and a tail wheel airplane by taxi instruction which includes low speed loss of control by inducing enough yaw that the rudder will not stop the yaw.

Then we go back and forth down the runway with the tail in the air until they can S turn down the center line with confidence.

Once they learn the ground handling I start the flying part and if I find their instructors did not teach them how to fly I will as long as they pay my rate per lesson.

As to teaching in airplanes with no brakes on the instructors side that never really bothered me as when I first started as an instructor half of the fleet had no brakes on the right side so we learned how to teach on that type.

Funny thing I can't recall any of our instructors ever letting one get out of control on the runway.

[MichaelP]

Michael P. Where do you guys train out of?

I'm at www.sealandair.ca
CZBB
For tailwheel and aeros I teach in the CFC Citabria and Super Decathlon

[AEROBAT]

Michael P. Where do you guys train out of?

I'm at http://www.sealandair.ca
CZBB
For tailwheel and aeros I teach in the CFC Citabria and Super Decathlon

I truly hope this isn't taken as a negative post but I don't feel the Citabria makes a good tailwheel trainer as it is a very docile plane to begin with. Perhaps it is too benign a taildragger. That being said if they ever [God forbid] created a tailwheel endorsement I would use a Citabria or Champ to teach in as they are very easy to fly and you would suffer far less from insurance claims.

[Hedley]

I don't feel the Citabria makes a good tailwheel trainer as it is a very docile plane to begin with

Not sure I really agree with that. Citabria/Decathlon/cub/champ/chief/t-craft are all very good introductory tailwheel trainers. Sure, they move slowly, but that allows the student to keep up with them.

For tailwheel training, I like the first lesson to start with a pretty comprehensive ground lesson, discussing C of M in both nosewheel and tailwheel, so that the student understands the theory of why a tailwheel aircraft is docile in the air, but a handful when the tires are on the pavement, and some considerations that result from that, such as the Tailwheel Prime Directive: during landing, the tires never touch the ground unless the aircraft is pointed the direction it's travelling (no crab). (why?)

The problem is that everyone wants to go flying. And, that's the last thing you should do, during tailwheel training, because it flies exactly the same as a nosewheel aircraft (admittedly with perhaps a bit more adverse yaw) but when the poor student tries to land it, he's miles behind the aircraft in terms of rudder, and he bounces back into the air for another circuit, to try to calm his nerves until the next time he touches down, and frightens himself again as the aircraft lurches back and forth, and the student again is miles behind the aircraft. He's a passenger.

Clearly that is a waste of the student's time.

Generally, a student will have no problem flying the tailwheel aircraft, if his stick & rudder skills are adequate in a nosewheel aircraft.

What he needs to do, is to learn to land it, and take it off, when the tires are on the pavement. He needs to learn to fast taxi the aircraft, because that's what he is doing during takeoff of landing.

The way you teach a tailwheel student to taxi is with the "wind game", which I stole from Budd. You teach him the 3-step, and do it faster and faster until the student has a chance of keeping up with the aircraft during takeoff and landing.

You give me any tailwheel student, and I will make more progress with him in an hour of the "wind game", than with 10 terrifying hours of touch and goes. It's a bit hard on the tailwheel - often you can melt the tailwheel tire right off the rim doing this - but that's just the cost of business. And progress.

[Cat Driver]

Insurance claims are a concern for sure.

The main reason is what they first learn is hard to change.

Use of rudder is way down on the list of important skills with most of the instructors since nose wheel trainers replaced tail wheel trainers.

I flew ( And instructed ) at Central Airways at the Island Airport in Toronto from 1953 until about 1960 and they generally operated around nine tail wheel airplanes as their main training fleet, the last of which was a Cessna 170B before nose wheel airplanes took over.

During that seven year period I can not recall a loss of control that resulted in a damaged airplane.

So safety is determined by proper training.

[Cat Driver]

Jeses Hedley you think and teach a lot like me.

Remember when you wanted to know what a Beech 18 was like and I told you it was a pussycat for any pilot who knows how to fly a tail wheel airplane?

[Grantmac]

Here's the skill test for a potential tailwheel instructor: if you can sideslip in a crosswind and touch down only on the upwind main, on the centerline, wing low with the downwind main and tail in the air, then add power and overshoot without the downwind main or tailwheel ever touching the ground, you are approaching the skill level required to instruct tailwheel.

Bonus points if you can "falling leaf" your tailwheel aircraft, stick all the way back, a trickle of power on for pure sadism, and walking it down through the full stall with the rudders.

Tried both of these exercises in the PA-16 "Clipper" Today.
#1) Not quite there yet, at least not with the wind we had today. Could 3-point then unicycle in a high-speed taxi swapping main gear back and forth down the 4000ft runway at Skagit all day long though.

#2) Too easy and definitely a great exercise to wake up the feet if its been a little while since you were up. Also did slow-flight to the limit of control and stalls in slow-flight without recovering to level.

MichaelP: Were you up near CZBB today? I was just across the border at Pt. Roberts playing on the grass. Had the most noticeable example of very low level widshear I've yet experienced. Great training opportunity but got a little tense when the gusty 20kt 40* headwind completely disappeared 10 feet up from the flare.

-Grant

[lownslow]

Thanks a bunch, guys. Hedley, Cat Driver, BPF, Shiny Side Up, Michael, your advise is invaluable and I'll be putting it all together in my notes.

LnS.

[Hedley]

Remember when you wanted to know what a Beech 18 was like and I told you it was a pussycat for any pilot who knows how to fly a tail wheel airplane?

Yeah, I'm like Charlie Brown and the football - someone tells me "That airplane is a fire-breathing dragon and I fall for it - again

People told me the Stearman was a "fire-breathing dragon". People told me the Harvard was a "fire-breathing dragon". People told me the Pitts was a "fire-breathing dragon". People told me the Maule was a "fire-breathing dragon". People told me the Beech 18 was a "fire-breathing dragon". And so on.

Anyone spot the pattern? I know, I need to start ignoring that nonsense. All those aircraft do what you tell them to do. I checked myself out in the Beech 18, just as I have on so many other types. Sweet airplane. I loved the gyroscopic effects of the props as the tail went up during takeoff, and down during the wheel landing.

I was talking to a test pilot friend of mine this summer, as we were watching the Sabre carve it's way through the sky, doing some aerobatics at an airshow. Simply marvellous to watch. The test pilot friend of mine remarked that you could only fly jet fighters, if you had flown jet fighters before, but that somehow I had snuck in under the wire with the L39's.

I thought for a moment and replied that over the decades, I had learned that all airplanes have a wing that accelerates air down, producing lift, opposing weight. And, all airplanes have an engine that accelerates air back, producing thrust, opposing drag. And that was pretty well it. Sure, there are some systems associated with the wing producing lift, and the engine producing thrust, but really, all aircraft obey the same laws of physics.

P.S. The L39 isn't a fire-breathing dragon, either. And just for the record, neither was the F-104, and certainly not the F-86, either.

"falling leaf" your tailwheel aircraft

Once you get the hang of it, learn to do it inverted. Seriously. Just watch your altitude, ok? I know a guy who just crashed his S-2B doing an inverted falling leaf. Amazingly, he survived. Guess what he said his mistake was? The falling leaf can develop amazing descent rates in a fairly level attitude, so your altitude MUST be carefully monitored.

[warbirdpilot7]

Remember when you wanted to know what a Beech 18 was like and I told you it was a pussycat for any pilot who knows how to fly a tail wheel airplane?

Yeah, I'm like Charlie Brown and the football - someone tells me "That airplane is a fire-breathing dragon and I fall for it - again

People told me the Stearman was a "fire-breathing dragon". People told me the Harvard was a "fire-breathing dragon". People told me the Pitts was a "fire-breathing dragon". People told me the Maule was a "fire-breathing dragon". People told me the Beech 18 was a "fire-breathing dragon".

Anyone spot a pattern? I know, I need to start ignoring that nonsense. All those aircraft do what you tell them to do. I checked myself out in the Beech 18, just as I have on so many other types. Sweet airplane.

I was talking to a test pilot friend of mine this summer, as we were watching the Sabre carve it's way through the sky, doing some aerobatics at an airshow. Simply marvellous to watch. The test pilot friend of mine remarked that you could only fly jet fighters, if you had flown jet fighters before, but that somehow I had snuck in under the wire with the L39's.

I thought for a moment and replied that over the decades, I had learned that all airplanes have a wing that accelerates air down, producing lift, opposing weight. And, all airplanes have an engine that accelerates air back, producing thrust, opposing drag. And that was pretty well it. Sure, there are some systems associated with the wing producing lift, and the engine producing thrust, but really, all aircraft obey the same laws of physics.

P.S. The L39 isn't a fire-breathing dragon, either. And just for the record, neither was the F-104, and certainly not the F-86, either.

"falling leaf" your tailwheel aircraft

Once you get the hang of it, learn to do it inverted. Seriously. Just watch your altitude, ok? I know a guy who just crashed his S-2B doing an inverted falling leaf. Amazingly, he survived. Guess what he said his mistake was? The falling leaf can develop amazing descent rates in a fairly level attitude, so your altitude MUST be carefully monitored.

All great points, what we need to keep in mind is that aircraft like a Harvard, Stearman and Beech 18 are not fire breathing dragons to us. We have a decent amount of tailwheel time under our belts.
.
Take the average general avaition pilot with no previous tailwheel expierence, and you will have an issue in a Harvard or Stearman. That same pilot will learn the "ropes" of tailwheel flying much quicker and safer in a Supercub, Citabria and so on.. This is not wartime, there is no rush for a pilot to jump right into a Harvard with "0" tailwheel time. Fact is, in this day and age that almost every pilot starts their flying on a trike(and sometimes devoloping lazy, sloppy feet skills) will not be tolerated by aircraft like a Harvard or Stearman.

My transition was Supercub, Pawnee(towing gliders) and then the vinatge warbirds. Even going from the Pawnee to a Harvard was a noticable jump.

As for the 104, I wonder what the approach speed is

[Hedley]

F-104: Maintain 200 kts during turn to final

Fly final approach at 170 kts + 5 kts per 1,000 lbs fuel over 1,000 lbs.

Note: Do not reduce power to less than 82% until touchdown, as the stall speed will increase due to the loss of air to the "BLC". Unwanted roll will also result as the engine decelerates unless you are on the ground.

Touchdown 150 kts minimum
Throttle - Idle
Nosewheel on ground
Nosewheel Steering - Engaged
Drag Chute - Deploy
Brakes - as required

My father once had a systems failure in the F-104 and he lost the boundary layer. Short final approach speed was 235 knots. Touchdown speed exceeded the maximum chute deployment speed.

Anyways, he says that when everything was working, the -104 was a lot easier to land than the Pitts. The -104 was his favorite aircraft for instrument approaches.