thats a loooooot of touch and goes in a Pitts!
Yeah, the neighbours here must really hate me (ahem).
I just leave it at 2700 RPM. Doesn't hurt the engine.
Burned off a Lang tailwheel in the process, and left main
will need a change before Geneseo, but that's just par
for the course!
Told the new Pitts pilot to order two new sets of main
tires and tubes, and a new tailwheel, and to try to burn
them off as fast as he could!
I don't understand the medical science behind it, but
what you need to do, is 300 to 500 landings in the Pitts
in as short a period of time as possible. 25 a day (one
flight) is nice, 50 a day (two flights) is better.
After that intensive experience, the hand-eye skill and
judgement required to approach and land blind and roll
out straight is burned into the electrochemical tracks in
your brain for life. However, it must be done in as short
a period of time as possible. One week, max 10 days.
Not 10 years.
The really cool thing about learning to land the Pitts, is
that once you master it, the high wing loading and approach
speeds (I use minimum 110 mph on base, minimum 100
mph on final) means that you really couldn't care less
about the wind.
While other pilots are fretting and looking at the windsock
standing straight out across the runway, you have a short
fuselage and a tiny vertical fin and a big rudder, and you are
saying, "Yahoo! I will be able to see something on final, in
the sideslip today!"
You become really quite contemptous of the wind. This will
occasionally bite you. A few years back, I did some Pitts
flying in a howling wind - just watch the ailerons and canopy -
just fine, and then jumped into the Maule, did a lazy takeoff,
and damn near ended up in the grass during the takeoff, on
the downwind side of the runway!
That young Pitts pilot in Quebec is going to learn an awful
lot about aerobatics, and stick & rudder flying in the next
couple of years. All he needs to do, is put enough 100LL
through his engine.
His reward, at the end of two years, is that he will be able
to jump into nearly any interesting airplane - Stearman,
Waco, Harvard, P-51 - and be able to effortlessly fly it,
first time. And people will envy him for being a "natural"
pilot
As my buddy (AN-2 pilot) says, Welcome to the Biplane Mafia!
