Tailwheel...?

[warbirdpilot7]

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.

I should have read the earlier posts I cant imagine the turning radius this machine had!!

[MichaelP]

The F104 was just another simple nosewheel aeroplane, just that the approach speeds were a bit more... Why are we off topic on a "mine is bigger than your's" tangent?

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

This written by Aerobat?
What could be more docile than a Cessna 150/152 Aerobat?
Should we be teaching people to fly in a monsterous nosewheel aeroplane with a thousand horsepower because the Cessna is too docile???
You're joking right?

If we're comparing willies I have been teaching tailwheel for more than 30 years and thousands of hours and I think the following:
1. The Citabria is a very good tailwheel trainer.
2. The Stearman is an easy aeroplane to fly, it was the Cessna 150 of its time...

I spent five hours after doing a perfect landing in the Tiger Moth (my first, uncorrupted effort) trying to do good landings in it. Why?
Because the egocentric twits in the clubroom told me how difficult this aeroplane would be!
The Tiger Moth is another Cessna 150. Do the job properly and she will land very easily.
It takes patience.

Understand that we all see landings differently. What the instructor sees is not necessarily what the student sees, but it's the result that counts...

I was really annoyed with myself, I couldn't do it any of the ways I was told to do it!
So I decided, bugger it, I'll peg the speed at 55, I'll look out the left side, I'll flare and fly the venturi until it reached the horizon as I saw it and we'll see how it works.
The gentle bumping of wheels and skid at the same time on the grass was very satisfying... I'd done it my way and the landing was gentle.

I was originally trained in the Cessna 150 without any allowance for getting away with it because of the 'Land-O-Matic' gear. Tailwheel meant keeping it straight and that was all.

What is often needed by tailwheel instructors is a bit of modesty, an ability to reduce the BS developed through flying real aeroplanes... Every new type has been an ego boost... Forget it, the student is the most important person and does not need to know his/her ability is not as good as your own.
He/she needs to know that since the Tiger Moth and Citabria have been flying for so many decades, such a skill is attainable by any pilot worth his/her licence.

[Hedley]

Michael: you misunderstand. Generally, it is (often low-time weak stick) private pilots who are parrotting the "fire breathing dragon" reputation. They may never have even flown the type!

Any decent flight instructor ought to tell you, "Rubbish. You can do this, and I can show you how". If he doesnt - or can't - time to move on to another instructor.

Take Budd Davisson, for example. He specializes in teaching people to land the Pitts, which most pilots find challenging. Let's see what he says:

http://www.airbum.com/pitts.html

We can teach anyone to land a Pitts. Click below where we check out an amputee.

http://www.airbum.com/Pitts/PittsFlightTraining.html

I prefer to concentrate on overcoming the mystique of the Pitts and similar airplanes on the ground. It's not that hard. I really mean it when I say teaching Pitts landings is fun and I've never had a single student who didn't come to enjoy it

So the next time a low-time private pilot in a brown leather jacket and Ray-Bans tells you that an airplane is a "fire-breathing dragon!", just smile and move along.

The problem is that there are so few decent flight instructors for unusual types. I had to check myself out on a Piaggio Royal Gull - a geared, multi-engine, pusher amphib taildragger. First takeoff, I was PIC. Lots of kids around willing to spend 2 hrs with me to check me out in a 172, but none of them would step up and check me out on that.

Aircraft I have had to check myself out on, and usually teach myself aerobatics in - first flight was PIC:

PT-22 Ryan
PT-19 Fairchild aka PT-26 Cornell
PT-17 Stearman modified to 450hp
T-6 Harvard modified to 700hp and clip wings
Beech 18
Piaggio Royal Gull
Many homebuilt types - Sonerai, skybolt, etc

I gotta tell you about the first time I flew the 450hp Stearman - you know, the "fire-breathing dragon". All the knobs in, take off, climb out, turn left and level off on downwind with the knobs still pushed in. 180 mph. Goodness. Nose up, and a pretty aileron roll. Throttle gently back for a wheel landing. Knobs in again. 180 mph on downwind. Stick back, loop, exit at 1000 AGL, power gently back, another wheel landing. You get the idea.

[Grantmac]

This brings me back to when I was airplane buying last spring.
I knew I wanted one and it had to be COOL!
This meant 3 things:
1) Must have sticks, no negotiable. (Yokes are cool in big planes, I don't have that budget).
2) Must be able to fly with throttle in left hand
3) Must be a taildragger.
Then came the real problem, experience. Mine to be exact, I didn't really have any.
Every aircraft I looked at had some story floating around about its vicious nature "Oh those Luscombes will flip right over in a modest breeze" or "Shortwing Pipers all groundloop eventually, I mean they shortened an already brutal aircraft: the fearsome Cub!".
Then I got some time in a Citabria and it really wasn't much of a challenge. So I bought a PA-16, one of the so called Shortwing Pipers; supposedly a real handful. But I figured I'd get the hang of it and it can carry a hell of a lot more then anything else in the price range (cheap).
Was it more direct steering on the ground then the Citabria? Yes.
Did it take a rethinking of my control inputs? Yes.
Does it live-up to the hype of its reputation? No.

I've been lucky to learn from two excellent tailwheel instructors. They weren't the best tailwheel pilots in the world (by their own admission), but they were the best instructors for two simple reasons:
-They let me get beyond my abilities to regain control before they corrected the situation (just once with each, both the first flight in that aircraft).
-They told me that if they can do it anyone can. They gave me confidence in myself when I wasn't sure that I had what it took.

-Grant

[Hedley]

Every aircraft I looked at had some story floating around about its vicious nature

Sigh.

They gave me confidence in myself when I wasn't sure that I had what it took.

This is one of the most important things about flight instruction. Flying isn't like plumbing - you can't master it in one day. If someone handed you a guitar for the first time, could you reasonably expect to be playing it like Eric Clapton at the end of one day? Of course not.

Could you reasonably expect to learn a new language and speak it fluently and read and write it with a complete vocabulary at the end of one day? NO!

People are so impatient. Everyone wants instant gratification. Everyone wants to be that legendary phenomenon that didn't need any practice. They want become a master pilot in one day, and all I can do is shake my head and say, no, anything worthwhile takes a bit more effort than that.

People see me fly and think they ought to be able to fly like that after a little bit of practice. What they don't know is that I'm a third generation pilot that's been flying and wrenching for over 35 years now. It doesn't come easy. I trashed two marriages along the way, because flying is more important. Difficult choices, to be sure, but I couldn't pretend to be someone I wasn't.

And that's what you have to learn: to master something worthwhile, you have to want it - badly. It's not going to come easy and cheap. Motivation trumps genetic aptitude and circumstances, every time.

All I can really recommend is to start young. It's a lot easier to learn to fly tailwheel, or guitar, or a new language when you're 15 as opposed to 45.

[cgzro]

All I can really recommend is to start young. It's a lot easier to learn to fly tailwheel, or guitar, or a new language when you're 15 as opposed to 45.

No kidding. I get to see the log books of some of the veterans that come to Vintage Wings. Many come for a ride in the Finch/Moth etc. and bloody hell they soloed at 5-6 hours most of them in 1940 or so. Mind you that was on grass with no radio to worry about but it still says something about what a typical teenager can do when you take away all the distractions of a modern trainer.

On the comment about the Citabria being too easy ... thats strange because I find the Citabria with flaps and the long wing to be harder than say the heavier flapless, shorter wing Decathlon. I found the Decathlon to be dead trivial to fly but the Citabria was much more like the J3 cub and needed much more care to get things right. It gives you lots of time of course to get things right but it seemed to not like any yaw while the Decathlon seemed to just pretty much always work out easily. Anyway the Champ, J3, Citabria all make very good tail wheel trainers as far as I can tell because they give you lots of feed back in kind of slow motion about whats going wrong.. thats kind of what you want to learn. Once you know what the proper reaction is to gusts etc. its the same deal in a faster tail dragger just you have toreact a bit quicker. Also a J3 with somebody big in the front seat is actually more blind than a Pitts

[Hedley]

I found the Decathlon to be dead trivial

Me too. The Citabria is easy, but IMHO the Decathlon is the easiest-to-land taildragger I have ever flown.

One thing to keep in mind is that over the decades many taildraggers have experienced the indignity of a groundloop, and I harbour deep suspicions about the resulting geometry of the main wheels of many repaired taildraggers.

Supposedly identical taildraggers can behave differently on the ground - one twitchy, one comparitively stable - and it might have something to do with being incorrectly repaired from a groundloop. The airplane might look good, but if you actually measure the main gear toe-in or toe-out of two supposedly identical taildraggers, don't be surprised if you get very different measurements.

[MichaelP]

I'm sorry Hedley but mine is bigger than yours!

My first flight in the Stearman (a 450hp/985 version) was also solo, it had two Spandau machine guns over the front cockpit!
But I'm not lazy, doing a wheel landing, I did it properly with a three pointer, so there

The Citabria, Tiger Moth, Stearman, Stampe, Jungmann, Cessna 120, etc etc were all Cessna 150's in their day.
It could be said that the Cessna 152 is a more difficult aeroplane to learn in, perhaps it's too complex, as it takes most people longer to go solo, and much longer to get a Private Pilot Licence in this aircraft than they took in the old tailwheel aeroplane.

[Hedley]

I'm not lazy, doing a wheel landing, I did it properly with a three pointer

I'm not going to touch that can of worms

[Cat Driver]

It could be said that the Cessna 152 is a more difficult aeroplane to learn in, perhaps it's too complex, as it takes most people longer to go solo, and much longer to get a Private Pilot Licence in this aircraft than they took in the old tailwheel aeroplane.

So it would stand to reason that if you were to take two pilots.

A pilot who got the P.P.L. on a Cessna 120.

A pilot who got the P.P.L. on a Cessna 152.

As soon as their licenses were issued you gave them the other airplane to go flying in.

If you owned the Cessna 120 would you let them fly it with no further training because they were trained to a higher standard on the Cessna 152?

Conversely, how would the pilot trained in less time on the Cessna 120 fare on the 152 without further training?

[cgzro]

It could be said that the Cessna 152 is a more difficult aeroplane to learn in, perhaps it's too complex, as it takes most people longer to go solo, and much longer to get a Private Pilot Licence in this aircraft than they took in the old tailwheel aeroplane.

I believe that a large percentage of the difference to solo can be attributed to the cross countries that most instructors seem to like taking their students on while in the circuit these days. For some reason tail dragger instructors always harp on about keeping within gliding distance of the runway and teach steep slipping approaches both of which give you more experience per minute.

[Big Pistons Forever]

It could be said that the Cessna 152 is a more difficult aeroplane to learn in, perhaps it's too complex, as it takes most people longer to go solo, and much longer to get a Private Pilot Licence in this aircraft than they took in the old tailwheel aeroplane.

So it would stand to reason that if you were to take two pilots.

A pilot who got the P.P.L. on a Cessna 120.

A pilot who got the P.P.L. on a Cessna 152.

As soon as their licenses were issued you gave them the other airplane to go flying in.

If you owned the Cessna 120 would you let them fly it with no further training because they were trained to a higher standard on the Cessna 152?

Conversely, how would the pilot trained in less time on the Cessna 120 fare on the 152 without further training?

The Cessna 120 was only commonly used as a trainer in the 1948 to the early 1960 time frame. After that flight training units all switched to the C 150, so it seems to me that in around about way what you are really saying is "flight instruction and therefore by extension flight instructors of the 1950's produced better pilots than after that time frame". I think that some will agree and some will not but at the end of the day it I would suggest that it is now a theoretical argument given that no flight schools in Canada use a C 120 for ab initio instruction. Since virtually all of todays pilots will have trained on tricycle gear aircraft the reality is today virtually all taildragger training is conversion training.

I had the pleasure some 20 years ago, of doing 2 PPL's on privately owned C 120's. I put a lot of work into developing good hands and feet skills in all my students but there is no question both of these new PPL's had sharper hands and feet than the students I trained on C 150's. Sadly AFAIK they were the last students at my (large) home airfield to do a PPL on a taildragger and I see little chance of that changing......

[Cat Driver]

The Cessna 120 was only commonly used as a trainer in the 1948 to the early 1960 time frame. After that flight training units all switched to the C 150, so it seems to me that in around about way what you are really saying is "flight instruction and therefore by extension flight instructors of the 1950's produced better pilots than after that time frame".

No I made no such comment in that post.

I was indirectly asking this simple question.

If you were to take two students, one trained on a Cessna 120 and one trained on a Cessna 152 and had them switch airplanes without a check out who would fare better?

For some years now you have this misguided idea that I am anti instructor which I am not.

One other thing B.P.F. I used to be a licensed flight instructor but let my rating expire in 1965.

Since then I have taught flying, so I am a teacher not an instructor, and charge accordingly.

For instance to teach on tail wheel light airplane I charge $100.00 per flight hour for my time, something like a DC3 I charge $400.00 per flight hour.

I have no problem writing the above because I have no problem posting under my real name and anyone who wants to can soon check around to confirm that the above is correct.

[Big Pistons Forever]

I am sad that you do not consider flight instructors worthy of the appellation "teacher"...but that is neither here nor there with respect to the current thread topic which started with a tailwheel conversion question. Your comments on how you do the conversion were, I thought, quite insightfull but again I struggle to understand the point you are making. Do you seriously expect anybody to suggest that it is easier to transition from a C152 to a C 120 (or any equivalent taildragger trainer for that matter) than the other way around ?

[Cat Driver]

B.P.F. when I decided to return to posting on Avcanada again it was because I am having great difficulty trying to accept what happened to my wife just recently/

I do not want to fence with you over what you think my beliefs or opinions on flight instructors are, nor am I willing to fence with you about teaching flying.

The following is typical of how you have for some time now tried to put words in my mouth so to speak.

I am sad that you do not consider flight instructors worthy of the appellation "teacher"...

Suffice to say I was a flight instructor probably before you were born and owned a flight school from 1986 t0 1991 operating single and multi engine airplanes and also a R22 on floats, for sure the experiences I had with young flight instructors did give me some in site into the system, and I did find it challenging dealing with their fear of T.C. and their lack of real understanding of the subject they were teaching.

This will be my last response to you on this topic.

[MichaelP]

I'm sorry I opened this can of worms that has lead to this dispute between people on this forum.
It's a New Year, let's try to be positive, read and re-read what we write before we post so as to not be taking bad pokes at each other.

My little poke at Hedley over the wheeler vs three point landing is meant in humour... Let's be clear, often we'll take a jibe in humour and this is fine.
I am aware in this country that the line between serious and humour is extremely thin so forgive me when I inject something that an Englishman would find hilarious, a German wouldn't understand, and a Canadian would get extremely angry about!

There's no question that the Cessna 120 pilot would have little problem in a Cessna 152, that's not the point.

When I ran my own flying business I would let many pilots check themselves out in the Slingsby T67A. This is a simple nosewheel aeroplane easy to fly, and fun.
But it would kill you if you were too brusque in your handling when doing aerobatics.
One pilot had learned to fly in my Condors (tailwheel)... She went flying with her instructor man friend... This was her first takeoff in a nosewheel aeroplane and so she held the stick back and banged the tail!
Her friend wasn't ready for this, it was unexpected!
So the Cessna 120 pilot would need to be briefed on not pulling hard back on the wheel during the whole takeoff roll

[Cat Driver]

I'm sorry I opened this can of worms that has lead to this dispute between people on this forum.
It's a New Year, let's try to be positive, read and re-read what we write before we post so as to not be taking bad pokes at each other.

No need to apologize Michael, these personal snipes are to be expected from time to time when anonymity protects the snipers.

I just try and take into account where it is coming from and then try and ignore it.

I am considering starting a new thread on how I teach height judgment from one hundred feet to zero feet during the approach and landing.

Maybe later today I will as a new start to the new year.

[MichaelP]

I look at height judgement this way:

If we take a run at a wall we see it slowly moving towards us, then suddenly we get close and so we slow down in proportion to our distance. This is what an approach is like.
This applies to joining formation as well.
And if it's a clear glass door this could be construed as a glassy water 'landing'. (Crows are hopeless at glassy water landings it seems!).

So we see the runway coming up slowly and then it speeds towards us, so we slow it down by raising the nose into the flare.
The finer point of height judgement is now required.
If a student has trouble with this then a power on landing with a gentle descent (glassy water!) results in success and the finer height judgement is learned, "oh and by the way this is the way we do a soft field landing"

[Hedley]

My little poke at Hedley over the wheeler vs three point landing is meant in humour

Ah, but since I'm Canadian and this is the internet, I took it extremely seriously. I ranted about you to everyone I met today, even the people in the produce section of the grocery store that I didn't know, that quickly moved on to the baked goods department for some reason.

So, using a tiny photo from your school's website, today I had it blown up to a extremely grainy 3 foot square and super-imposed a dart target on it and mounted it on a cork board on the side of my hangar wall, and I now require, as part of their pre-flight briefing, for all my students to throw 2 darts at your picture, all the while shouting "I hate Michael!", over and over again, and if they score over 150, their lesson is free.

Quite a proportionate response, if I do say so myself.

PS But seriously, folks ... I found the C120/140 to be surprisingly squirrelly, for a little taildragger. IMHO the C170 is more calm, the C180/185 moreso. I've never been very good at guessing heights, weights or ages, which is how I once ended up in the sack with a 300 lb 60 yr old mexican midget in Cancun.

[RenegadeAV8R]

If you were to take two students, one trained on a Cessna 120 and one trained on a Cessna 152 and had them switch airplanes without a check out who would fare better?

I never flew a Cessna 120 (I never flew any tailwheel aircraft at all) but I suspect that a Cessna 120 pilot could transition himself into a Cessna 152. The reverse could be more difficult, especially for a pilot who just earned is PPL in a 152.

For instance to teach on tail wheel light airplane I charge $100.00 per flight hour for my time, something like a DC3 I charge $400.00 per flight hour.

That... THAT... is what I want to do with my life

[Cat Driver]

That... THAT... is what I want to do with my life

It is only reasonable that when you are teaching flying you be paid enough money to make it worth doing.

[RenegadeAV8R]

That... THAT... is what I want to do with my life

It is only reasonable that when you are teaching flying you be paid enough money to make it worth doing.

At the FTU level, it seems that the salary/wage/compensation paid to the Class III Flight Instructors is similar to what they were 15 to 20 years ago; $20 to $30/flight hour. How can somebody feels like a professional when he is not paid like one?

I honestly think that you are doing the right thing and hope to be able to do the same.

[Cat Driver]

At the FTU level, it seems that the salary/wage/compensation paid to the Class III Flight Instructors is similar to what they were 15 to 20 years ago; $20 to $30/flight hour. How can somebody feels like a professional when he is not paid like one?

The facts are the instructors are used by the system.

Insurance companies do not sell their service any cheaper to flying schools than to any other sector of aviation.

A.M.O.'s don't charge less to schools nor do any other group that I can think of.

And of course at the top of the pyramid you find the T.C. inspectors who rule the schools with an iron fist to ensure compliance to their vision of how to teach, compliance through fear.

Their expense account is more than some of the instructors make.

What should be one of the highest paying jobs in aviation is just above the slavery level.

[Hedley]

What should be one of the highest paying jobs in aviation is just above the slavery level.

Agreed, ., but you must agree that pilots are their own worst enemies, esp at the lower levels.

How many times do we see a low-time pilot offer to "work for free"?

Pilot unions don't protect pilot from management - they protect pilots from each other. They stop pilots from undercutting other pilots, and offering to management to do the same job for less. Really, they're a cartel, like OPEC. They set the price of a commodity.

Market supply and demand determines the price of the instructor commodity. If FTU's found that they had to pay $50/hr to get an instructor, they would. But they don't, because there's an endless stream of low-time instructors who are willing to subsidize the FTU, because the low-time instructors are compensated in two ways: $20/hr, plus another hour in their logbook.

Higher-time instructors (like me) aren't going to instruct for $20/hr, because we don't need another hour of bloody day SEL PIC in our logbooks.

If flight instructors could form a cartel and set the price of flight instruction at $50/hr, that would solve the problem. Unlikely to happen, though.

Another simple change to solve the problem would be to increase the experience requirement for an instructor to be 1000TT. This would both increase the quality of instruction, and increase the flight instructor wage, because pilots with 1000TT have other options - flight instruction wouldn't just be about building hours, any more.

Don't hold your breath for that, either - ATAC won't let that happen. They lobby Transport very effectively.

[Cat Driver]

Another simple change to solve the problem would be to increase the experience requirement for an instructor to be 1000TT. This would both increase the quality of instruction, and increase the flight instructor wage, because pilots with 1000TT have other options - flight instruction wouldn't just be about building hours, any more.

Don't hold your breath for that, either - ATAC won't let that happen. They lobby Transport very effectively.

You have identified the two groups who are responsible for a situation wherein young people are seduced into near slavery working conditions.

ATAC has as their agenda the power of a lobby group that earns the management a good living for their efforts.

However how do you justify the regulator who is supposed to ensure the industry is regulated to a high standard allowing such shameful conditions to exist?

Every time I read someone claiming that Canada has one of the highest quality of flight training in the world I desperately want them to describe what the lowest looks like.

If my sewer line gets plugged from my motorhome the RV repair service charges $115.00 per hour per employee to unplug the sewer, and they don't need a sewer PPC to remain employed.