First Tailwheel flight + Back to Basics with POA Pilot

SixPapaCharlie

SixPapaCharlie

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Somehow @RyanShort1 and I connected which should have happened a long time ago, we are only a 15 min flight apart.
I have never taken off or landed a tail wheel plane but I have flown many. I like to make fun of the tail wheel bravado guys since as I think it's fun to point out that you only use it on the ground.

Yesterday might have been the most educational 1.5 hours on the hobbs since I started flying.
Before we do any tail wheel work, he wanted to go back to the basics. However we were in a 1946 C-120 which is a lot different that what I have most of my time in.

He had some cool methods of demonstrating adverse yaw which in his particular plane is quite extreme.



After that, we did steep turns, stalls, and we went over unintentional pro spin inputs.
I 100% see how a pilot can get in to a base to final spin and not make it out. We have all read or maybe seen that when a wing drops in a stall, if you try to lift that wing with the ailerons, it has the opposite effect seen here in yesterday's demo. Watch , the left wing drops and Ryan abruptly (like a scared low time pilot might), quickly adds right aileron to try and lift the wing.



Once he was satisfied with my airwork, we went to Caddo Mills to work on landings. He did the first one and talked in great detail through what he was doing and my first thought was there is no way I can land this plane with out breaking it. Then he coached me through a 3 point landing and I did maybe 50% of it and he helped where I was over correcting. After that he talked me through 3 landings which I was able to do without him taking over or correcting.
I felt pretty good because I didn't expect to be able to get through a landing from final to stopped without help but I managed to 3 times. My first takeaway is it is a LOT of work. Probably gets easier but you cannot be lazy until you are stopped on the ramp. Even taxiing is more work.

1. I will concede that I would probably have a bit of the tailwheel bravado if I flew one of these regularly. I flew home in my Comanche and realized how simple a task it is.
2. I think a lot of the adverse yaw has been engineered out of later aircraft. I tried to get the nose to wander by making uncoordinated aileron inputs on the way home and it really didn't. I may try again in slow flight.
3. I am of the thinking that this is what our BFR's should be. I will admit a couple of mine have been me and a CFI flying to lunch. I and I would guess that is not uncommon.

Great flight, Great lesson, great instructor.
Once I am gainfully employed, I plan to complete the tailwheel training and while my BFR situation is going to be different and managed by a third party moving forward, I will likely reach out to Ryan from time to time just for some refresher training like this.

If you are near Dallas and want some good training, tailwheel or other, I would give Ryan a shout (www.TexasTailwheel.com)
*Being somewhat of a youtuber, I feel obligated to point out that Ryan did not pay me to say that or pay for the flight, these are my honest opinions.
 
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Looks like fun. A tailwheel landing is not complete until: The plane is on the ground, tied down securely, the pilot drives home, and sits in the barcalounger with a cold frosty malted beverage in hand. Then, the TW landing is complete.
 
100% agree with above. I fell in love with the Piper Cub when I went to do my spin endorsement for CFI. I pretty much paused my CFI training to get my tailwheel endorsement. I think it was valuable to feel like a student pilot all over again and even had a first 'solo' in the tailwheel. I'll be happy to give Ryan a call if I'm in his neck of the woods.
 
Another thing to note is that every tw model handles differently. Although someone can demonstrate proficiency in say a C-120 or a Citabria, it doesn’t mean he can climb into a more challenging, higher performance tw right away. Get model specific training first. Your insurance likely will require it anyhow.

What I love about my C-170, beside flexing on the trike pilots, is the little bit of challenge the tw provides at the beginning and end of each flight. Otherwise, it’s just another 172 which doesn’t really get me excited. I also love the 1950s vibe, as well as the simplicity of the aircraft. Purchase price and low maintenance also helped steer me here.
 
Tailwheel taught me more about landing than 300 hours of other flying put together. I've always slogged my way through crosswinds landings, usually landing in a crab, then timing straightening out to try to minimize side loading and drift.

After just 4 hours of tailwheel, I was coming in with my instructor with a pretty good crosswind and did a correct landing. He knew I had problems doing it and I could tell he was apprehensive, but he relaxed when saw me start doing the right things and it all came together.

After your private, I believe this is the next thing to get or better yet, learn in a tailwheel.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Once I am gainfully employed, I plan to complete the tailwheel training and while my BFR situation is going to be different and managed by a third party moving forward, I will likely reach out to Ryan from time to time just for some refresher training like this.
Click to expand...
Way to bury the lede ;)
 
Thanks @SixPapaCharlie! It was genuinely fun flying with you.

Bryan did a great job of listening and paying attention and has had some good instructors in the past because he picked things up faster than some folks I've worked with. I was quite happy with the way the flight went.
 
Barrett50 said:
Looks like fun. A tailwheel landing is not complete until: The plane is on the ground, tied down securely, the pilot drives home, and sits in the barcalounger with a cold frosty malted beverage in hand. Then, the TW landing is complete.
Click to expand...
Amen. My son was with me earlier this summer and we landed 25G40. We weren't off the runway yet and he said, "well that was sporty".

"Until we are in the hangar, this isn't over", I replied.
 
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I have found that if you religiously keep your tricycle on the center line. The transition to tailwheel usually goes pretty well (quick).
If you let your tricycle wander a bit on TO and or Landing, you will need to improve your rudder skills quite a bit before completing the transition to tailwheel.
Tailwheel just isn't tolerant of you waiting to make a correction.

Brian
CFIIG/ASEL
 
One more flight and the bug will have bitten you good... come on over to the dark side.

(BTW, I'll be starting a T-6 school next year in the Boise area so if you want to see big heavy metal with all the bad tendencies.... come on up!)
 
RyanShort1 said:
Thanks @SixPapaCharlie! It was genuinely fun flying with you.

Bryan did a great job of listening and paying attention and has had some good instructors in the past because he picked things up faster than some folks I've worked with. I was quite happy with the way the flight went.
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Check is in the mail. ;)
 
brcase said:
I have found that if you religiously keep your tricycle on the center line. The transition to tailwheel usually goes pretty well (quick).
If you let your tricycle wander a bit on TO and or Landing, you will need to improve your rudder skills quite a bit before completing the transition to tailwheel.
Tailwheel just isn't tolerant of you waiting to make a correction.

Brian
CFIIG/ASEL
Click to expand...
I try to always be on centerline. I don't know why. Runways I fly at are mostly wide but I used to make it a challenge to nail the centerline on landings and now I get irritated if I am of it landing, taking off, or taxiing.
 
EvilEagle said:
One more flight and the bug will have bitten you good... come on over to the dark side.

(BTW, I'll be starting a T-6 school next year in the Boise area so if you want to see big heavy metal with all the bad tendencies.... come on up!)
Click to expand...
I might take you up on that. Post when it is up and running.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
He had some cool methods of demonstrating adverse yaw which in his particular plane is quite extreme
Click to expand...
Have a couple hours in a 140, which I've been told is almost the same airplane - "but with useless flaps added". I was surprised by the adverse yaw - that airplane (at least the one I flew) - will fly crabbed, and stay there indefinitely, even in level flight until stepping on the pedal(s). [One can get lazy on the rudder flying things like a 150 or a 172.]
 
EvilEagle said:
One more flight and the bug will have bitten you good... come on over to the dark side.

(BTW, I'll be starting a T-6 school next year in the Boise area so if you want to see big heavy metal with all the bad tendencies.... come on up!)
Click to expand...
Now that's something I want to do.
 
Not just rudder skills, but TW landings teach a lot about energy management. The TW plane will tell you when it's done flying and wants to land. Push it to land sooner and it will respond with anger and costly metal changes. Plenty of nose-draggers I see landing get it close to the surface, and sort of give up and drive it on anyway. It usually works. :)
 
Ah, the good ol' days. I passed my checkride in a Citabria - way back in 1996. Today, I "drive" an Ercoupe around the Delmarva Peninsula.

Good on ya. The bug will bite...hard.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
After that, we did steep turns, stalls, and we went over unintentional pro spin inputs.
I 100% see how a pilot can get in to a base to final spin and not make it out. We have all read or maybe seen that when a wing drops in a stall, if you try to lift that wing with the ailerons, it has the opposite effect seen here in yesterday's demo. Watch , the left wing drops and Ryan abruptly (like a scared low time pilot might), quickly adds right aileron to try and lift the wing.
Click to expand...
That's what I did with my tailwheel students. The syllabus usually called for some upper air work first, including intentional spins (normal entry), slow flight, steep turns and the like, then off to the circuit ("pattern" for you "Murricans") for some takeoffs and landings. I usually had trouble with them skidding the airplane a little on base-to final at some point, and we'd break off and go back to altitude and do what was shown here. Citabrias (Champ earlier on). We'd pretend to be on base, low power, then start turning final and I'd say "we're a bit low here" and start raising the nose to stretch the glide while skidding some, just like a student or poor pilot might, and the airplane would roll over into the spin. This uses the Learning Factor of "Intensity," and the student would never skid that airplane in the circuit (pattern!) again.

From the Canadian Flight Instructor Guide:

INTENSITY - Use dramatic, realistic or unexpected things, as they are long remembered.

(a) Students learn more from dramatic or exciting experiences than from boring ones. It is a well-known fact that a student's "lookout" while flying will improve considerably after a first experience with a near miss. There is no suggestion here that you provide your student with a near miss, but you should attempt to make your students' learning experiences exciting by being excited yourself and perhaps using any opportunity you can to introduce unexpected things to your students.....(b) The Learning Factor of Intensity implies that students will learn more from real experiences than from substitutes. You will have to use your imagination to develop vivid experiences for dramatic or realistic effects.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Somehow @RyanShort1 and I connected which should have happened a long time ago, we are only a 15 min flight apart.
I have never taken off or landed a tail wheel plane but I have flown many. I like to make fun of the tail wheel bravado guys since as I think it's fun to point out that you only use it on the ground.

Yesterday might have been the most educational 1.5 hours on the hobbs since I started flying.
Before we do any tail wheel work, he wanted to go back to the basics. However we were in a 1946 C-120 which is a lot different that what I have most of my time in.

He had some cool methods of demonstrating adverse yaw which in his particular plane is quite extreme.



After that, we did steep turns, stalls, and we went over unintentional pro spin inputs.
I 100% see how a pilot can get in to a base to final spin and not make it out. We have all read or maybe seen that when a wing drops in a stall, if you try to lift that wing with the ailerons, it has the opposite effect seen here in yesterday's demo. Watch , the left wing drops and Ryan abruptly (like a scared low time pilot might), quickly adds right aileron to try and lift the wing.



Once he was satisfied with my airwork, we went to Caddo Mills to work on landings. He did the first one and talked in great detail through what he was doing and my first thought was there is no way I can land this plane with out breaking it. Then he coached me through a 3 point landing and I did maybe 50% of it and he helped where I was over correcting. After that he talked me through 3 landings which I was able to do without him taking over or correcting.
I felt pretty good because I didn't expect to be able to get through a landing from final to stopped without help but I managed to 3 times. My first takeaway is it is a LOT of work. Probably gets easier but you cannot be lazy until you are stopped on the ramp. Even taxiing is more work.

1. I will concede that I would probably have a bit of the tailwheel bravado if I flew one of these regularly. I flew home in my Comanche and realized how simple a task it is.
2. I think a lot of the adverse yaw has been engineered out of later aircraft. I tried to get the nose to wander by making uncoordinated aileron inputs on the way home and it really didn't. I may try again in slow flight.
3. I am of the thinking that this is what our BFR's should be. I will admit a couple of mine have been me and a CFI flying to lunch. I and I would guess that is not uncommon.

Great flight, Great lesson, great instructor.
Once I am gainfully employed, I plan to complete the tailwheel training and while my BFR situation is going to be different and managed by a third party moving forward, I will likely reach out to Ryan from time to time just for some refresher training like this.

If you are near Dallas and want some good training, tailwheel or other, I would give Ryan a shout (www.TexasTailwheel.com)
*Being somewhat of a youtuber, I feel obligated to point out that Ryan did not pay me to say that or pay for the flight, these are my honest opinions.
Click to expand...
I owned an Aernocker and never got over the white knuckles over the fence feeling. I know I could have eventually conquered the antique but a friend offered me a dump truck full of money. Now I'm affectionately called tricycle boy
 
I have something like 1400 tailwheel hours and 600 nosewheel hours. I took the RV-6 down a while back to install some landing gear (welded) gussets because there is/was a fleet history of cracked gear/engine mounts. The airplane was down for much longer than I expected, and in the meantime, I flew the RV-10. When I put the RV-6 back into service, the first few flights (actually the 2nd and 3rd landings) were more of an adventure than I expected. Without a doubt, tailwheel requires better skills and those skills are perishable....
 
kyleb said:
I have something like 1400 tailwheel hours and 600 nosewheel hours. I took the RV-6 down a while back to install some landing gear (welded) gussets because there is/was a fleet history of cracked gear/engine mounts. The airplane was down for much longer than I expected, and in the meantime, I flew the RV-10. When I put the RV-6 back into service, the first few flights (actually the 2nd and 3rd landings) were more of an adventure than I expected. Without a doubt, tailwheel requires better skills and those skills are perishable....
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Yes, they are perishable, but I think you can get to the point where they aren't soo perishable. I've got close to 825 dual given in tailwheel and over 2000 landings with students and I've had a few times when I had to go do my 90 day currency for lack of time to go fly tailwheel between aerial photography missions and it wasn't terrible. Enough intensity (and teaching can be intense) and it can become like riding a bike. You have to ALWAYS respect the machine, though. No matter if you're current and fresh or not, a perfect landing can become an adventure if something goes wrong mechanically (I've got recent experience with that!).
 
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Great thread!

Grass fields are the natural habitat of the taildragger. Soaks up a lot of little lateral excursions.
 
Ed Haywood said:
Great thread!

Grass fields are the natural habitat of the taildragger. Soaks up a lot of little lateral excursions.
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I prefer grass for teaching, but we had very light winds and Bryan's first three were on the pavement at Caddo Mills, and he did ok with that. I don't like to sign people off without pavement experience.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
I try to always be on centerline. I don't know why.
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Hopefully it’s because peaking at minimum ACS standards on the checkride and then applying no standards to the rest of your flying isn’t your goal. ;)

I used to get people ****ed off at me because I wouldn’t let copilots land on a 50-ft wide runway when they couldn’t keep the wingtips on opposite sides of the centerline.
 
texasclouds said:
beside flexing on the trike pilots
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I had fun at a local fly-in last week. A couple of tailwheel guys were busting everyone's chops about our training wheels. My buddy smiled and asked me, "How many tailwheel hours do you have, Jack?" I answered... and then they shut up! It was all in good fun and I told them I'm a tailwheel pilot with a tricycle-gear endorsement!
 
Lowflynjack said:
I had fun at a local fly-in last week. A couple of tailwheel guys were busting everyone's chops about our training wheels. My buddy smiled and asked me, "How many tailwheel hours do you have, Jack?" I answered... and then they shut up! It was all in good fun and I told them I'm a tailwheel pilot with a tricycle-gear endorsement!
Click to expand...
It’s interesting when certain groups of people only know you in one context. I used to walk through the lobby of the local FBO after arriving in my Maule…

”Flying the taildragger today, huh?”
“Yup…building quality taildragger time instead of that worthless jet stuff.”

Most of the career track flight instructors were confused. Some thought it was funny. The ones who knew me realized I was serious. The ones who didn’t know me didn’t recognize me without my white shirt and tie.
 
MauleSkinner said:
Most of the career track flight instructors were confused. Some thought it was funny. The ones who knew me realized I was serious. The ones who didn’t know me didn’t recognize me without my white shirt and tie.
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I was fairly new at our little rural airport. One day I taxied the Champ to its tiedown after a flight and shut it down. A scruffy, older gentleman in a ragged logger-jacket came up to me, holding a Goodyear brake disc clip. "It fell off while you were taxiing," he said. He was about to pull out his ancient Piper to fly it a little.

After he left, a friend came along. "Who was that?" I asked. He told me the name, and said that the fellow was a captain for a major US airline.
 
Really cool! enjoy the journey! Hope your first ground loop is tame! My last tailwheel flight was in May :( The outfit I use here sold their 170 and bought a Decathelon (sp?). I gotta get back into it.
 
brcase said:
I have found that if you religiously keep your tricycle on the center line. The transition to tailwheel usually goes pretty well (quick).
If you let your tricycle wander a bit on TO and or Landing, you will need to improve your rudder skills quite a bit before completing the transition to tailwheel.
Click to expand...
Not just centerline - almost every landing has some crosswind component. Put the upwind wheel on first, then the downwind, then the nosewheel, and the transition will be much easier.

Although in very high crosswinds there is a school that suggests landing on the downwind edge since the initial tendency is for the aircraft to weathervane into the wind.
 
Got the video edited and uploaded. I know we are only supposed to share video in the media thread or whatever but this should be buried enough not to irritate anyone.

Probably one of the best all around flying lessons I have had in years.

 
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