Average Cost/Time for Tailwheel Endorsement

LevelWing

LevelWing

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LevelWing
What is the average cost and time for students to get the tailwheel endorsement?
 
Way too many variables to put a hard number for a truly proficient sign off… for an average, you’d need to find an outfit that does a BUNCH of them.
 
It's also not really fair to equate this in terms of "hours" - the whole trick with tailwheels is landings. 5 hrs of cross country flights with 4 landings total is much different than 1 hr with 10 landings
 
Depends on how well you land a tri-cycle gear airplane? Can you keep the center line between the main wheels for the whole take off and landing? Can you make coordinated turns in a airplane with a lot of adverse yaw?

It also depending on what else you are learning, if you are learning to fly a tandem aircraft it will likely take a bit longer. Or if you are learning to fly with the throttle on the left or a plane that is blind out the front (J-3) it may take a bit longer also.

I have done endorsements in as little a 3 hours and as much as 15-20hours. 5-10 is probably more typical. Insurance often required 5-10 hours.

Brian
CFIIG/ASEL
 
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Two friends of mine recently took 3.5 and 4.5 hours each respectively to get endorsed. This is a Great Lakes, and a Cessna 170

These are club planes, both are competent instrument rated experienced pilots
 
^these guys spent pretty much all their time doing landings..
 
It depends, do you know how to use those clubs on the end of your legs?
 
Thanks for the responses. 5-10 is kind of what I expected. I haven't seen much in the way of cost, but from some searching in various places it looks on average to be around $2,000. The tailwheel endorsement is on the list, it's just a matter of when.
 
When I started with the 120 my insurance required 10 hours. That was way too long. We ended up doing a bunch of stalls and spins for the fun of it.
 
manac said:
When I started with the 120 my insurance required 10 hours. That was way too long. We ended up doing a bunch of stalls and spins for the fun of it.
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It required 10 hours of dual to solo, right? That does not prevent you from getting the endorsement with fewer hours.
 
I got mine in about 2 hours, in a pacer. But, we did like 65 landings in that time.

he did say I was his best student ever.
 
Jeezus @Wagondriver! That was a landing every 1 minute 52 seconds for two hours straight! =) You fly a damn quick pattern bud! I'd have a hard time taxiing a Ford F-150 straight after that much spinning in circles. =)

Took me 10.2 in a J-3 Cub. I hadn't flown in the 15 years prior so I'm guessing many of you would come in significantly sharper and more current than I did. On the other hand I didn't have as many ingrained nose-dragger habits maybe. Kind of "sixes" probably.

Most fun I've ever had in airplanes has ALWAYS been in taildraggers. Every stinkin' time. It's still worth it if it takes you 100 hours. I'm stuck in skychickens these days.
 
For me it was 3 lessons and 4.8hrs, while I could demonstrate the takeoffs and landings, I would say I need more practice if I were to fly solo, and definitely a lot more practice now since it was earlier in the year.
 
For me insurance required 5 hrs in type, I bought a 7AC Champ, instructor says i was good to go after 4hrs. but we did the 5hrs to satisfy the insurance.
 
I always smile at this part of 61.31:
The training and endorsement required by paragraph (i)(1) of this section is not required if the person logged pilot-in-command time in a tailwheel airplane before April 15, 1991.
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Technically, a person with a SEL rating could be sole manipulator of the controls for 0.1 hours in a Cub in cruise with zero take offs or landings and be legally qualified to fly tailwheel aircraft, as long as the time was logged. Like lots of other pilots I have well over 1000 hours of TW time but no endorsement, and the initial qualification to fly solo was a simple "check-out" of about an hour or two.

One way or the other, it's usually insurance that dictates the amount of time to act as PIC now.
 
It cost me $16,000 for the plane and several airport restaurant cheeseburgers for the instructor.
Insurance company required 10 hours, but I was a fresh private pilot with around 60 hours TT and the plane was a hand propper.
 
dbahn said:
I always smile at this part of 61.31:

Technically, a person with a SEL rating could be sole manipulator of the controls for 0.1 hours in a Cub in cruise with zero take offs or landings and be legally qualified to fly tailwheel aircraft, as long as the time was logged. Like lots of other pilots I have well over 1000 hours of TW time but no endorsement, and the initial qualification to fly solo was a simple "check-out" of about an hour or two.
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Keep in mind that those simple check-outs of an hour or two are part of the reason 61.31 requires an endorsement. ;)
 
Insurance for my 180 simply required instructor sign off. Instructor said he never helped me on any landings.

that was almost 600 tail wheel hours ago.
 
MauleSkinner said:
Keep in mind that those simple check-outs of an hour or two are part of the reason 61.31 requires an endorsement. ;)
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Hah! I checked myself out in a C-120. Of course, by then I was a 1,000 hour CFI and had just done a flight review in the airplane.
 
My tailwheel endorsement took 3 flights, for about 2.5 hours total if I recall correctly. First flight we did three point landings, instructor demoed one, then I gooned one, then I figured out what I did wrong and nailed 10 in a row with no problem. 2nd flight the same thing but with wheel landings, 1 demo, 1 bad landing, then figured it out. Third flight we mixed it up and threw in some emergency stuff, instructor got bored so he signed me off and hopped out.

Despite having a Commercial license and lots of other experience, that first time solo in a taildragger was just as exciting and nerve wracking as my first solo.
 
midwestpa24 said:
Despite having a Commercial license and lots of other experience, that first time solo in a taildragger was just as exciting and nerve wracking as my first solo.
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Beyond that is a "second first solo", which is a little unusual in that there is no way to fly dual with an instructor to get you prepared to fly alone. There's only one seat in the Pawnee, and the long nose creates a totally different sight picture from other tailwheel aircraft I had flown in the previous 35+ years. I remember a fairly routine takeoff and pattern, then wondered what it even feels like to land this thing . . . :)

Over 2,000 flights in the thing since then, I love flying it.






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dbahn said:
Beyond that is a "second first solo", which is a little unusual in that there is no way to fly dual with an instructor to get you prepared to fly alone. There's only one seat in the Pawnee, and the long nose creates a totally different sight picture from other tailwheel aircraft I had flown in the previous 35+ years. I remember a fairly routine takeoff and pattern, then wondered what it even feels like to land this thing . . . :)
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I had to learn to land a Pawnee over an obstacle onto a 1500-ft strip. I ended up looking at the wingtip for my pitch reference the first handful of landings.

Almost got to check myself out in a UPF-7 on that strip.
 
IK04 said:
Hah! I checked myself out in a C-120. Of course, by then I was a 1,000 hour CFI and had just done a flight review in the airplane.
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Self-checkouts are definitely viable. Unfortunately a lot of pilots do a very poor job of self-evaluation.
 
It took me 12 hours in a cub but I also had not flown in a few years so some of that was just getting back into the swing of things. I'm not sure how anyone could do it in under 5 hours. Its one thing to land a tailwheel airplane, another to learn to do it in different weather conditions as well as build the skill and reflexes to fix landings you may have not been perfect on. Cost wise the plane was around $90 an hour and 50 an hour for the instructor so right around $1700
 
MauleSkinner said:
Self-checkouts are definitely viable. Unfortunately a lot of pilots do a very poor job of self-evaluation.
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Self checkouts require the discipline to read the manual, know the cockpit layout, assess the pitch attitudes of the aircraft and have a lot of speed discipline, at a minimum.
 
IIRC it took ~5 hours over a couple of days. The weather the second day was pretty dreary but was acceptable enough to get it done. Don't remember the cost as that was eleven years ago ...
 
dbahn said:
Beyond that is a "second first solo", which is a little unusual in that there is no way to fly dual with an instructor to get you prepared to fly alone. There's only one seat in the Pawnee, and the long nose creates a totally different sight picture from other tailwheel aircraft I had flown in the previous 35+ years. I remember a fairly routine takeoff and pattern, then wondered what it even feels like to land this thing . . . :)

Over 2,000 flights in the thing since then, I love flying it.






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I remember the Pawnees were used extensively for glider tows when I flew out of Van Sant Airport in Pennsylvania. Always enjoyed seeing them fly.
 
dbahn said:
Beyond that is a "second first solo", which is a little unusual in that there is no way to fly dual with an instructor to get you prepared to fly alone. There's only one seat in the Pawnee, and the long nose creates a totally different sight picture from other tailwheel aircraft I had flown in the previous 35+ years. I remember a fairly routine takeoff and pattern, then wondered what it even feels like to land this thing . . . :)

Over 2,000 flights in the thing since then, I love flying it.






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I haven't flown a Pawnee, but I remember that feeling from my first 1-26 flight.
 
Lindberg said:
I haven't flown a Pawnee, but I remember that feeling from my first 1-26 flight.
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My first Ag Husky flight was kind of nerve-wracking…I couldn’t find the fuel valve to make sure it was on, but figured after fifteen minutes the engine was still running, so odds were good. ;)
 
It was a long time ago, but I did it on one day in a J-3. Something like 27 landings that day. Unfortunately, I have never landed a tailwheel airplane solo.
 
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