Best taildragger for training

Maybe I should've substituted "lazy" for uncoordinated :D
 
Dale, A Citabria would best fit you and your price range. A 140 is way too narrow for a couple of big guys and underpowered to boot. If you can swing a 150hp Citabria that would be the best. KCAB, GCBC and there is a model with 150 hp carburated and no flaps. With 100hrs in that you will be ready for the RV. Make sure and get some transition training in a 7 before you attempt to fly yours. Don
 
I'm going to sniff around and see if there are any Champ or Citabria owners around here that might want to work out a deal or take on a partner. If I can't swing something like that, I'll start shopping. That should give me time to recover from paying for the flippin' bathroom remodel that just cleaned me out.
 
Another option is a 150 taildragger...pretty cool I think. This one looks like a mini 180 with the straight back / tail.[/QUOTE]

150 isn't a good primary trainer, in my opinion. Buddy bought one to start flying in. I told him it ought to be fine. After 20 hours and he hadn't soloed he was getting discouraged. So I went and flew it. Had to drag the right brake on take off and it was a little stiff on landing(didn't have extended gear). He finally soloed, then looped it twice on landings.It found a new home.
The 140 is docile. If your not tall & full figured like me, that is.
 
Texastaildragger said:
150 isn't a good primary trainer, in my opinion. Buddy bought one to start flying in. I told him it ought to be fine. After 20 hours and he hadn't soloed he was getting discouraged. So I went and flew it. Had to drag the right brake on take off and it was a little stiff on landing(didn't have extended gear). He finally soloed, then looped it twice on landings.It found a new home.
The 140 is docile. If your not tall & full figured like me, that is.
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Sounds like there was something wrong with it.

150 with 140 gear is very similar to a 140A. As mentioned before, if the gear is installed / rigged properly it should handle just as well, except for the slight increase in rudder authority with the 140 / round tail.

I fly both a texas taildragger (150 gear moved forward) and a lowe conversion (140 gear). Anyone that's gonna ground loop a 150 conversion is going to ground loop a 140 just as easily.
 
Look guys, Dale is a big guy so a 140 or 150 conversion is out. A 85hp Champ doesn't have much performance. A decent Citabria can be had in the $25,000 range and still have the same value when its time to sell. It will handle a big guy and as a bonus is mildly aerobatic. He wants to get ready to fly his RV7 when he is done with it and this is the best airplane in his price range to get him ready. I have flown all of these airplanes so I'm speaking with experience. Just flew the C 140 yesterday to go pick up the Super Cub to do an oil change. The 140 is a nice airplane solo but is too easy to fly and doesn't have a heck of a lot of performance. I have flown three different 150 T/W conversions and am not impressed. I have a lot of hours in RVs and do transition training and insurance check outs. Don
 
Having done a fair amount of tail wheel instruction, the Citabria would be my clear choice. Here's why: The least expensive model (7ECA) has the best useful load...on paper, anyway. It's big enough to fit two fat guys comfortably. Having been designed to perform - modest - aerobatics, it has excellent flight control authority...particularly its rudder, which is essential, if the instructor is going to allow a student to get even slightly sideways -- I can let my students get way out of wack before I say I got the airplane. It will slip like a set of car keys. It's a phenominal crosswind airplane, but takes finesse to wheel land well. Also, like most trainers, Citabrias have a really tough landing gear. Get a little crossed up in say, a Luscombe, and one could fold the gear right under the fuselage. Most Citabrias have a good intercom, they burn 5gph, and hold their resale value well. The wood spar wings are lighter.
Note: A good instructor can teach in most any airplane, but the combination of instructor skill and an airplane that makes it obvious to anyone that it's being flown poorly hard to beat. There are CFIs with some tailwheel time, and there are tailwheel instructors, that difference is more important than the choice of aircraft.
 
The one you buy or can rent after you're done getting your training in it.
 
Note: A good instructor can teach in most any airplane, but the combination of instructor skill and an airplane that makes it obvious to anyone that it's being flown poorly hard to beat. There are CFIs with some tailwheel time, and there are tailwheel instructors, that difference is more important than the choice of aircraft.[/QUOTE]


That is the best advice in this whole thread. Good tailwheel instructors are tough to find. Don
 
People have already beaten me to the punch, but a Citabria by far is the best girl to learn in... Also, you need to pick up a copy of Damian DelGaizo's Tailwheel 101 DVD... Great video. Best of luck
 
akpilot907 said:
People have already beaten me to the punch, but a Citabria by far is the best girl to learn in... Also, you need to pick up a copy of Damian DelGaizo's Tailwheel 101 DVD... Great video. Best of luck
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Gain the endorsement in the Citabria and there is a long list of aircraft you best get more instruction before you attempt a solo. 170/180/185/globe swift/super cub/etc.
 
If I didn't already mention it...

...of the 1,500 tailwheel hours I have, perhaps half were instructing, much of that a 5-hour tailwheel transition course I taught and all of the instructing done in one of two Citabrias. The rest was aerobatic instruction, personal use and ferrying of cropdusters to the Caribbean and South America.

In that time I had my share of exciting moments. Even had at least one memorable excursion off the runway at Opa Locka West back in the day. Took a while to get the berry stains off the belly!

But of note: I have never seen a fully-developed ground loop. I mention this not as a testament to my superior flying skills (which I really think are about average), but to point out the general docility and forgiveness of the Citabria/Decathalon/Scout/Champ airframes. Not that you don't still need to be literally on your toes (or heels) - just that any one would be a good choice for training.
 
In general the best bang for the buck is going to be a Champ or Citabria. For one thing there are just a lot more of them out there than anything else. Cubs carry a heavy nostalgia premium and that's not what you're looking for. Same goes for the Cessna 170, you're just going to pay more for it because they tickle people's fancy. Of course you're going to get it back in the end when you sell it so it depends on how much you want to hang out there.

The bottom line is, if you're shopping for an old plane like this to fulfill the mission you've described they are all pretty much going to do it so rather than focusing on any particular model just look for a good deal on a well sorted airplane. It could be a Champ or a Pacer or a Cessna 120 or a Taylorcraft. You might even find a nice Stinson. There is no reason to hog tie yourself to one engine or another either, it all depends on the condition of what you purchase, they all work and have been working for the past 60+ years.

As far as tailwheel training and the nonsense that you're not gonna really learn how to fly a taildragger if you fly a Citabria, that's a bunch of hooey. I mean come on, it's not that big of a deal. :rolleyes:
 
Silvaire said:
Same goes for the Cessna 170, you're just going to pay more for it because they tickle people's fancy. Of course you're going to get it back in the end when you sell it so it depends on how much you want to hang out there.
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Have you see. 170 prices lately? The B models generally get a premium, but the '48s and A's are down there. Higher than Champs, but comparable to a lot of Citabrias.
 
I forgot about the Pacer until Silvaire mentioned it. I usually wouldn't recommend a 135hp Pacer but they are cheap and at the low altitude you are flying will perform just fine for a time builder. One just sold locally here for $18,000 and it was a pretty nice airplane. Shoulder room is a little tight just like all the early airplanes but not that bad. It is short coupled and quick on the ground so it will teach you a lot about tailwheel flying. The 150-106hp Pacers are going to be $5-10,000 more money up front but would be a little easier to sell when the time comes. Don
 
If you can fly a Pacer, you were BORN TO FLY ANYTHING! I lost count of how many Pacers have ground looped and crashed...
 
The Pacer is very quick on the rudder on the ground. The RV is a pussycat compared to the Pacer. Don
 
Never flown the Pacer, but I thought its older sister, the Clipper was great fun. A little quicker on the runway than a Citabria, but no harder to fly, IMO. Really hard to fly taildraggers are the ones in which there is limited control authority, and or visibility...there's only so much you can let a direction change in a Cessna 195 get outa hand before there's no controlling it, and you become a passenger. There are some really quick little airplanes on the runway - like a Pitts Special, (that will get your feet to dancing) and there are some really slow ones like a Curtis Commando. Slow ones are much more scary. A Twin Beech requires a whole new level of centerline consciousness.
 
I've done a few tailwheel endorsements for pilots who close to finishing their RVs. I've had the option of teaching them in a C-140, J-3, oleo'd gear 7DC, and a 69' Citabria 7ECA with spring gear. The 7ECA we used even had the O-235 C1 engine of 108HP and it pulled two big guys just fine around the pattern.

I've found that for the money, you really can't beat an O-235 engine'd 7ECA. with the aforementioned ADs complied with, it's plenty fast, very comfortable in both seats and the spring gear more closely replicates the RV "feel". I wish I had another Citabria to compliment the Cub and Stearman.

Mike-
 
j1b3h0 said:
Never flown the Pacer, but I thought its older sister, the Clipper was great fun. A little quicker on the runway than a Citabria, but no harder to fly, IMO. Really hard to fly taildraggers are the ones in which there is limited control authority, and or visibility...there's only so much you can let a direction change in a Cessna 195 get outa hand before there's no controlling it, and you become a passenger. There are some really quick little airplanes on the runway - like a Pitts Special, (that will get your feet to dancing) and there are some really slow ones like a Curtis Commando. Slow ones are much more scary. A Twin Beech requires a whole new level of centerline consciousness.
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Twin Beech? It's a ***** cat until you unlock the tailwheel. The only thing tricky about her is taxiing since it's a free caster tailwheel.
 
lr60plt said:
Why not just fly the Citabria from the back seat with a passenger?
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I used to do that all the time in my Citabria -- as long as the front seat passenger could handle the things that are unreachable from the back. So that left out my kids, who were too little at the time.
 
Dan Thomas said:
Watch the empty weights on the 7GCBC. The factory used to fudge the weights, I was told. The engine and heavier airframe eat into useful load badly, and if you don't have the heavier struts you're stuck with the original gross weight. We bought one once and during the transition to the Commercial operation I did a weight and balance on it and found that it weighed 114 pounds more than the factory W&B. Some of that was the metal spar and heavier strut upgrade that had been previously done without an amendment (!), but certainly not 113 pounds' worth.

The 7GCBC's handling was more sluggish than the 7ECA. The instructors didn't care for it when aerobatting. The flaps made landings and takeoffs shorter, though.

Champ is more fun, anyway.

Dan
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That's why I like the 7GCAA better than either the ECA or the GCBC. Lighter than the GCBC and more power than the ECA.
 
Henning said:
Twin Beech? It's a ***** cat until you unlock the tailwheel. The only thing tricky about her is taxiing since it's a free caster tailwheel.
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Fly one at over 10,000lbs. Problem with the Beech is that all the usual methods of directional control have little or no effect -- the heading starts deviating, so the pilot applies rudder, oops, that's not enough...pedal to the floor, then. Doesn't work. Only the right combination of rudder, aileron, asymmetric throttles and sometimes brakes work. The Twin Beech is a ***** cat. But only if you stroke the fur in exactly the right direction.
 
Somehow I doubt that I'll be receiving tailwheel training in a Twin Beech, Lodestar or C-47. Just a suspicion with nothing to back it up, really, but I think it's accurate nonetheless. I suppose it would be a good way to pick up TW, HP, complex and ME at the same time though.
 
DaleB said:
Somehow I doubt that I'll be receiving tailwheel training in a Twin Beech, Lodestar or C-47. Just a suspicion with nothing to back it up, really, but I think it's accurate nonetheless. I suppose it would be a good way to pick up TW, HP, complex and ME at the same time though.
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Fair point. Stick with a Citabria. But, hey, if one can log heavy, multi-engine, turbine, tailwheel, night, IMC simultaneously, well, chicks dig that!
 
I think Dale was throwing $25k around for this... Might as well buy a Sonex with a center stick and fly it with feet on outside rudders for that kind of money. Most ask more, but it's doable, I think. Fuel burn is going to be less than on Citabria.
 
j1b3h0 said:
Fair point. Stick with a Citabria. But, hey, if one can log heavy, multi-engine, turbine, tailwheel, night, IMC simultaneously, well, chicks dig that!
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What, you mean like this? :D Nice! OK, actually... I think it's a little sad to see an old bird torn apart and put back together like Frankenstein that way, but still... yeah, pretty cool.
 
lr60plt said:
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Another option is a 150 taildragger...pretty cool I think. This one looks like a mini 180 with the straight back / tail.
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Yep my goal is a 76M conversion ..if I can buy back the 150M I sold
 
Ken Ibold said:
If it was used for aerobatic instruction, good chance it's been snap rolled. Long history of tank weld leaks associated with snap rolls, and sometimes rib cracks.
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Very uncommon for Citabrias to be flown that way these days. Most of the wing/tank issues were associated with the Decathlon. If the tanks in the airplane have been OK for years, then it's probably fine. I don't know anyone doing lots of snap rolls in Citabrias, aerobatic instruction or not.
 
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100 hp champ (0-200) LOTS of fun, and enough power for a big guy!
 
I have a 140 and it's a great plane for what you want to do. You should at least fly in one first, I think you would fit fine.
 
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