kaiser
Pattern Altitude
- Joined
- Mar 6, 2019
- Messages
- 2,441
- Location
- Chicagoland
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The pilot formerly known as Cool Beard Guy
Ok – I’m pretty bad at these but @jsstevens put in a request and I thought maybe I could give it a whirl.
I've recently decided to go after my tailwheel endorsement. I'm not entirely sure why - it just looks like a lot of fun! Hopefully this post will shed light onto my journey and encourage others to do the same! As far as my background in case others are interested - I'm a >400 hr with Commercial ASEL +Instrument - so not a lot of experience.
I’m training in a 1940 Piper Cub with the Reed Clipped Wing conversion and a Continental C90 upgrade. So you take a regular old bright yellow cub, put a 90 horsepower engine in it, and “clip” about 7’ of wing. There is no electrical system, though we have a handheld radio. Instruments are very basic and include a tachometer, Air speed, Compass, Altimeter, Engine (Oil pressure/temp), and a ball for help with coordination.
My first lesson was an extensive ground and an attempted flight. I say attempted because after we had loads of fun hand propping, once it started oil pressure zero became the name of the game. It ended up being a sensor issue. I was given a lesson on how to hand prop and then primed the engine (pulling blades through practicing hand propping technique). Once primed the instructor actually started it.
The ground lesson focused on pre-flighting the airplane as well as the nature of tailwheel as opposed to nose wheel aircraft. This included the position of CG (behind the wheels) and how that changes the nature of handling characteristics, and left turning tendencies. It was interesting to learn how P-factor and precession were much bigger factors in tailwheel than nose wheel. Case in point, when you add power to begin the takeoff role, you have a certain amount of p-factor & precession applied. If you were to raise the tail to make a wheel take-off, the p-factor & precession changes significantly (which must then be compensated by rudder). It’s not really an issue in nose wheel – since you just keep adding right rudder on takeoff until “it looks right” and flies off of the runway.
TT: 0
Landings: 0
My second lesson was a few days later. Perhaps due to the fact that we weren’t able to fly on the first, there was a little pressure to get to the sky. Winds were 10G16 in a direct crosswind from the left*, so I got to learn wheel take offs and landings!! And by learn, I mean the CFI let me take off and land in it! I got to prime the engine again but the instructor when ahead and started it.
Once airborne we focused on just plain flying and then some maneuvers. Flying the plane was a blast. Just dragging knuckles around at 800-1000 AGL is a different kind of flying, all together. Once we got to the practice area, we did steep turns, slow flight, stalls (power on/off/falling leaf), and engine failure demo with a glide to an emer field. This cub glides like the Arrow for the most part, straight down. With very little wing, the ailerons travel 3 / 4 the length of the wing. This makes for very fun flying characteristics like high roll rate and emphasizes the importance of the rudder w/o ailerons during slow flight and stalls. I was quite pleased with myself that I was disciplined enough to keep neutral ailerons during the slow flight and stall maneuvers – especially since 1 of my 2 only comments on my commercial checkride was I needed to use less aileron recovering from an accelerated stall. On a power on stall, wings love to drop – the thing just wants to spin. Power off and falling leaf were fun… just fly the rudders! It does have a big rudder, but patience is also key. Sometimes the rudder input would take a moment until the wing would lift.
We headed back and did 3 landings in the gusty crosswind. We did all wheel landings and all I’ll say is, those poor tires… I never ground looped, but I have no clue how I saved it! The tires were screaming the entire time. I think I only felt the instructor on the controls twice, and not too major of a correction – just a little help and reassurance that my inputs where appropriate. But this guy definitely has nerves of steel. Not much else to include here, as the next lesson I feel like I actually learned more. This was just getting all beat to hell.
TT: 1.1
Landings: 3
Third lesson was much nicer weather, though barely VFR (low ceilings but good vis). This was now my third lesson in priming and was given the opportunity to actually start it. Learning to hand prop is like learning to dance. Once you know the moves and practice, it’s not too difficult. But it’s absolutely awkward at the beginning. For inquiring minds at home, I'm a swing-right-leg guy...
With a 11kt (no gust) direct crosswind from the right* we wanted to head to another airport so that we may practice landing with minimal crosswind. Once we took off, it was clear that weather in the direction we wanted to travel was lower, so we stayed in the pattern. Most of our lesson was on 3-point landings. The name of the game here is speed control. And a big part here is remembering that landings do really start on the downwind. This cub lands with full nose up trim, so applying trim starts as you begin pulling power approaching abeam the numbers. Beyond the numbers power comes down to 1500-ish or so, where you can crank in the rest of the nose up trim. Flying from the back seat means approaches are also much steeper. This is because in 3 point landing and even tail low wheel landings, you can’t see out in-front of you (never mind the instructor’s head). My technique at this point has been to keep my steep approach with eyes on the runway at least until I have kicked the rudder out of a crab, put in aileron crosswind correction, and I’m certain the plane is flying straight. This probably happens at 20-30 AGL right now. Then on the round-out, my visual cues on the peripheral remains relatively static – confirming I’m still straight. From there it’s relatively simple. For a 3 point landing, you hold the plane off whilst increasing pitch until it stops flying. If you do it right, all three tires touch at the same time. On this lesson, I think most of my landings had tailwheel and upwind wheel touch first, but it all mostly happens at the same time. We did 6 3 point landings and by that last one they were starting to feel good.
The last two landings we did were my reintroduction to wheel landings. My first one had too much energy, and touching down with too much energy is quite the experience. Although we didn’t impact the ground at a high descent rate, the touch makes the entire craft shutter and shake and we immediately bounced some feet in the air. So I went around. The second wheel landing was fairly passable. I did have one small skip initially, but when it passed, stick forward locked me onto the mains nicely.
* As a note, right crosswinds and resultant control inputs do a nicer job at countering left turning tendencies. I think I have to attribute some of my success on my third lesson to this.
TT: 1.2 (2.3 total)
Landings: 8 (11 total)
That’s it so far. Next lesson is tomorrow morning where we’re forecasting… you guessed it! A direct crosswind!
I've recently decided to go after my tailwheel endorsement. I'm not entirely sure why - it just looks like a lot of fun! Hopefully this post will shed light onto my journey and encourage others to do the same! As far as my background in case others are interested - I'm a >400 hr with Commercial ASEL +Instrument - so not a lot of experience.
I’m training in a 1940 Piper Cub with the Reed Clipped Wing conversion and a Continental C90 upgrade. So you take a regular old bright yellow cub, put a 90 horsepower engine in it, and “clip” about 7’ of wing. There is no electrical system, though we have a handheld radio. Instruments are very basic and include a tachometer, Air speed, Compass, Altimeter, Engine (Oil pressure/temp), and a ball for help with coordination.
My first lesson was an extensive ground and an attempted flight. I say attempted because after we had loads of fun hand propping, once it started oil pressure zero became the name of the game. It ended up being a sensor issue. I was given a lesson on how to hand prop and then primed the engine (pulling blades through practicing hand propping technique). Once primed the instructor actually started it.
The ground lesson focused on pre-flighting the airplane as well as the nature of tailwheel as opposed to nose wheel aircraft. This included the position of CG (behind the wheels) and how that changes the nature of handling characteristics, and left turning tendencies. It was interesting to learn how P-factor and precession were much bigger factors in tailwheel than nose wheel. Case in point, when you add power to begin the takeoff role, you have a certain amount of p-factor & precession applied. If you were to raise the tail to make a wheel take-off, the p-factor & precession changes significantly (which must then be compensated by rudder). It’s not really an issue in nose wheel – since you just keep adding right rudder on takeoff until “it looks right” and flies off of the runway.
TT: 0
Landings: 0
My second lesson was a few days later. Perhaps due to the fact that we weren’t able to fly on the first, there was a little pressure to get to the sky. Winds were 10G16 in a direct crosswind from the left*, so I got to learn wheel take offs and landings!! And by learn, I mean the CFI let me take off and land in it! I got to prime the engine again but the instructor when ahead and started it.
Once airborne we focused on just plain flying and then some maneuvers. Flying the plane was a blast. Just dragging knuckles around at 800-1000 AGL is a different kind of flying, all together. Once we got to the practice area, we did steep turns, slow flight, stalls (power on/off/falling leaf), and engine failure demo with a glide to an emer field. This cub glides like the Arrow for the most part, straight down. With very little wing, the ailerons travel 3 / 4 the length of the wing. This makes for very fun flying characteristics like high roll rate and emphasizes the importance of the rudder w/o ailerons during slow flight and stalls. I was quite pleased with myself that I was disciplined enough to keep neutral ailerons during the slow flight and stall maneuvers – especially since 1 of my 2 only comments on my commercial checkride was I needed to use less aileron recovering from an accelerated stall. On a power on stall, wings love to drop – the thing just wants to spin. Power off and falling leaf were fun… just fly the rudders! It does have a big rudder, but patience is also key. Sometimes the rudder input would take a moment until the wing would lift.
We headed back and did 3 landings in the gusty crosswind. We did all wheel landings and all I’ll say is, those poor tires… I never ground looped, but I have no clue how I saved it! The tires were screaming the entire time. I think I only felt the instructor on the controls twice, and not too major of a correction – just a little help and reassurance that my inputs where appropriate. But this guy definitely has nerves of steel. Not much else to include here, as the next lesson I feel like I actually learned more. This was just getting all beat to hell.
TT: 1.1
Landings: 3
Third lesson was much nicer weather, though barely VFR (low ceilings but good vis). This was now my third lesson in priming and was given the opportunity to actually start it. Learning to hand prop is like learning to dance. Once you know the moves and practice, it’s not too difficult. But it’s absolutely awkward at the beginning. For inquiring minds at home, I'm a swing-right-leg guy...
With a 11kt (no gust) direct crosswind from the right* we wanted to head to another airport so that we may practice landing with minimal crosswind. Once we took off, it was clear that weather in the direction we wanted to travel was lower, so we stayed in the pattern. Most of our lesson was on 3-point landings. The name of the game here is speed control. And a big part here is remembering that landings do really start on the downwind. This cub lands with full nose up trim, so applying trim starts as you begin pulling power approaching abeam the numbers. Beyond the numbers power comes down to 1500-ish or so, where you can crank in the rest of the nose up trim. Flying from the back seat means approaches are also much steeper. This is because in 3 point landing and even tail low wheel landings, you can’t see out in-front of you (never mind the instructor’s head). My technique at this point has been to keep my steep approach with eyes on the runway at least until I have kicked the rudder out of a crab, put in aileron crosswind correction, and I’m certain the plane is flying straight. This probably happens at 20-30 AGL right now. Then on the round-out, my visual cues on the peripheral remains relatively static – confirming I’m still straight. From there it’s relatively simple. For a 3 point landing, you hold the plane off whilst increasing pitch until it stops flying. If you do it right, all three tires touch at the same time. On this lesson, I think most of my landings had tailwheel and upwind wheel touch first, but it all mostly happens at the same time. We did 6 3 point landings and by that last one they were starting to feel good.
The last two landings we did were my reintroduction to wheel landings. My first one had too much energy, and touching down with too much energy is quite the experience. Although we didn’t impact the ground at a high descent rate, the touch makes the entire craft shutter and shake and we immediately bounced some feet in the air. So I went around. The second wheel landing was fairly passable. I did have one small skip initially, but when it passed, stick forward locked me onto the mains nicely.
* As a note, right crosswinds and resultant control inputs do a nicer job at countering left turning tendencies. I think I have to attribute some of my success on my third lesson to this.
TT: 1.2 (2.3 total)
Landings: 8 (11 total)
That’s it so far. Next lesson is tomorrow morning where we’re forecasting… you guessed it! A direct crosswind!
