Taildraggers - What's the big whoop?

If you don't know how to fly a tailwheel you will never fly one of these. Enough said. Don
 

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I'll crab down real low in very light winds or direct head winds, but if it's blowing bad at a bad component, I like to drop a wing and see if I'm going to hold center line about 1/4-1/2 mile out.

I've aborted airport's and a few back country strips and chugged on, because I couldn't hold it.

S*it happens. :sigh:
 
Okay but are you really gonna make that call a half mile out? :dunno:
 
txflyer said:
I'll crab down real low in very light winds or direct head winds, but if it's blowing bad at a bad component, I like to drop a wing and see if I'm going to hold center line about 1/4-1/2 mile out.
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Not a bad plan at all.

But in my experience, I've see some pretty hellacious crosswinds either mitigate or, in some cases, vanish completely close to the ground. Credit surface friction, I think.

A few months ago in Peru, IN the crosswind was so strong I set up to land my Sky Arrow at a substantial angle to the runway centerline to reduce it. In the roundout and flare the need for correction nearly completely vanished and the arrival was a non-event.

I've aborted airport's and a few back country strips and chugged on, because I couldn't hold it.

S*it happens. :sigh:
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Absolutely the right choice. Four or five times strong westerly winds at 57GA or 1A3 (my home bases) sent me to a Blairsville, GA with a roughly E/W runway. In those cases trees to the west of the N/S runways make approaching in a Light Sport a very bumpy ride.

Then I snag a ride home (about 20 miles) from a friend and have an excuse to fly again in a few days to get my plane home.

I think one of the main contributors to the high accident rate in LSA's is pilots kind of forgetting that a given crosswind has much more effect on a plane with a 39k stall speed compared to a 60k stall speed. 12g20 in a Cirrus or Bonanza might be easily handled. In a Sky Arrow or CT, it's a far bigger deal.
 
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One point, not really related to just tail draggers, is that they generally have more adverse yaw and require more rudder than modern tricycle gear planes to keep the ball centered. I think that's a function of the time when many of these planes were designed; unlike many modern planes, the pilot was the interconnect between the rudder and the ailerons.
 
FastEddieB said:
Not a bad plan at all.

But in my experience, I've see some pretty hellacious crosswinds either mitigate or, in some cases, vanish completely close to the ground. Credit surface friction, I think.

A few months ago in Peru, IN the crosswind was so strong I set up to land my Sky Arrow at a substantial angle to the runway centerline to reduce it. In the roundout and flare the need for correction nearly completely vanished and the arrival was a non-event.



Absolutely the right choice. Four or five times strong westerly winds at 57GA or 1A3 (my home bases) sent me to a Blairsville, GA with a roughly E/W runway. In those cases trees to the west of the N/S runways make approaching in a Light Sport a very bumpy ride.

Then I snag a ride home (about 20 miles) from a friend and have an excuse to fly again in a few days to get my plane home.

I think one of the main contributors to the high accident rate in LSA's is pilots kind of forgetting that a given crosswind has much more effect on a plane with a 39k stall speed compared to a 60k stall speed. 12g20 in a Cirrus or Bonanza might be easily handled. In a Sky Arrow or CT, it's a far bigger deal.
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It really boils down to the pilot's crosswind component, not the plane's.

I can handle a little more X-wind if I go by the POH and use no flaps on a bad X-wind. But at some point, and that varies with each landing and location, the winds can push you around too much and you need to go around instead of trying to force it on. Usually, it's when the whole approach does not 'feel' right. It's not a stabilized approach.

It's a conglomeration of factors all changing second by second that fall into the category of pilot intuition, skill, and ability in that aircraft that day. :redface:
 
David said:
One point, not really related to just tail draggers, is that they generally have more adverse yaw and require more rudder than modern tricycle gear planes to keep the ball centered. I think that's a function of the time when many of these planes were designed; unlike many modern planes, the pilot was the interconnect between the rudder and the ailerons.
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Yep. That's called progress. Engineers eventually fixed a design flaw with further study. Prior to that it simply forced pilots to adapt to a flawed design.

A similar thing happened in automobiles. Once upon a time, every car on the road had a non synchromesh manual transmission. It meant that if you wanted to drive, you had to learn how to deal with this PITA. Eventually, engineers fixed the problem and now I bet there are precious few on this board that are proficient in driving a car with this transmission in real world situations.

I still deal with this type of transmission. Trust me. Progress is good.
 
Cross wind in a Stearman IS a big deal. So much so that during WW2 the Stearman training was done with the sock in the middle of a big grass, mowed field so that the cadet could ALWAYS land into the wind. I never attempted to land mine in anything over 12-15 in a direct cross wind and that was on grass which was easier. Anything higher, I did not fly. Too much money to repair it. Other than that it was a very big whoop, lots of fun compared to say droning around in a 172.
 
I read his biography and remember counting 15 or so crack ups. Some were total losses! With that said, he was one of the few to fly and race the Gee Bee and NOT crash it! He was some character!!

Jimmy cooper said:
How many airplanes DID Jimmy Doolittle crack up? I'm aware he bailed out of a B25 over china during the war. What others?
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Jimmy cooper said:
Cross wind in a Stearman IS a big deal. So much so that during WW2 the Stearman training was done with the sock in the middle of a big grass, mowed field so that the cadet could ALWAYS land into the wind. I never attempted to land mine in anything over 12-15 in a direct cross wind and that was on grass which was easier. Anything higher, I did not fly. Too much money to repair it. Other than that it was a very big whoop, lots of fun compared to say droning around in a 172.
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How much fun is a Stearman at temps below 50°?:D
 
LT4247 said:
I read his biography and remember counting 15 or so crack ups. Some were total losses! With that said, he was one of the few to fly and race the Gee Bee and NOT crash it! He was some character!!
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I just finished a book called The Aviators. By Winston groom. Excellent bios of Lindbergh, rickenbacker, and Dolittle. Dolittle flew the GB , won in it and the next day someone died in it I think. He was exceptionally smart, grad. Of MIT and so forth. And.....he WAS also very brave and.......lucky. All three were.
 
Henning said:
How much fun is a Stearman at temps below 50°?:D
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I've flown the N3N in high 30s low 40s to get a start on cross countries early in the morning. Just like snowmobiling or skiing if your dressed right its no big deal. Open cockpit is always a good time! Don
 
I'd always wanted a Stearman and finally had one in the 80's. It was painted navy yellow , stars and bars etc. it was a lot of fun, lots of noise and while not a show plane it was pretty nice. I remember a woman walked up to it at a fly in and said " oh dear, why would anyone want that?! " a retired Navy pilot who had come up to look at it turned to her and said " if you don't know then it would take too long to explain" and turned his attention back to the Stearman. Ahhhmen!
 
My hangar-mate had a Stearman way back when I first got my old Cherokee. Got to ride in it twice before he traded it off. it was about 45 deg F both times. Froze my butt off in the front seat but loved every minute of it. I knew from that moment on that someday I had to own and fly a taildragger but it took almost a decade to realize that dream.
 
I think that ANY extra training that you experience is a good thing, whether it's tailwheel training, complex, high performance, multi engine, etc.,

My first seven hours were in a Champ. I unfortunately did not solo in it, the instructor decided not to insure it for that and moved me to a 150. In the course of it, I ALMOST ground looped that darlin'. Maybe that factored into his decision.

The good that came from it was that I had been forced to focus on the rudder pedals along with everything else. When I got in the 150, I never again really thought about rudder pedals, until years later when I bought my taildragger. The rudder pedals were automatic when I flew that 150 and when I fly a tricycle today. When they draw lots of focus, is when I'm on the runway.

So far, I have been able to remain focused on the runway and have yet to do the stunt that was demonstrated in the Youtube Henning linked. I only hope I can keep it that way.

On my BFR last month, the instructor commented that I did a good job coordinating my turns. I don't know if that is a result of what I described or not, but I appreciated the compliment.

I originally bought my taildragger, because I thought the upcoming Keystone XL pipeline cut through my place was going to end up giving me a usable dirt strip, but that didn't play out.

I'm starting to think about selling or trading the Piggy and moving to a little more of a traveler if my budget will allow it. That said, I don't at all regret all the extra time it took to develop competency in the taildragger.

My $0.02,
 
FormerHangie said:
For those of us who fly off of paved runways, it seems like obsolete technology.
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So is the piston engine, but you've probably got one of those on your plane.

Go find an FBO where you can get an hour of pattern work in a Decathlon or other conventional-gear plane. That will answer all of your questions.
 
There are good and bad pilots in all types of aircraft. The thing about taildraggers is that you really can't stay bad too long as the expense of ground loops, upending one, etc. would quickly break the bank. You fly any taildragger, champ, t craft, 170, for a while and landing a tri gear becomes very easy. You are also able to land in many places , grass strips, where a mooney , for instance would have a prop strike. Many more options if your a back country pilot.
 
SoloEqs said:
So is the piston engine, but you've probably got one of those on your plane.

Go find an FBO where you can get an hour of pattern work in a Decathlon or other conventional-gear plane. That will answer all of your questions.
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I agree! The questions will be answered, maybe even before he gets to the runway for takeoff. If not then, almost certainly before he's airborne.
 
SoloEqs said:
So is the piston engine, but you've probably got one of those on your plane.

Go find an FBO where you can get an hour of pattern work in a Decathlon or other conventional-gear plane. That will answer all of your questions.
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A piston engine is not an obsolete technology. It's very cost effective and vastly more fuel efficient than a turbine.

I'm not flying power planes anymore, so for me the question is just academic. But if I were to take it back up, I still have no desire to fly an aircraft that has less forgiving ground handling, and no real advantages for the type of flying I've done.

Here's an analogy: I used to race sports cars. Up until about the mid-1960's, a number of cars used swing axle rear suspension. This was an early type of independent rear suspension that had a number of undesirable characteristics that would tend to make the car swap ends under certain circumstances. For example, if someone got sideways in front of you and you had to lift off of the gas, there's a much greater likelihood that you were going to spin if your car had a swing axle than if it had another style of rear suspension. Spinning the car is bad for lap times and quite often detrimental to the wallet. The drivers of cars so equipped did their best to adapt to their cars, but they still would occasionally get bitten. Eventually they developed an additional spring ( called a camber compensator) to help tame these tendencies. Were the guys who drove these cars better drivers? They were better at driving cars with swing axles, but getting experience in a car with a swing axle didn't make anyone faster, which after all, is the goal of racing.

If anyone wants to fly aircraft with conventional gear, by all means do so. But please stop telling new pilots that they have to get the tailwheel endorsement or they won't be complete pilots. For pilots flying traveling machine type airplanes, conventional gear is nothing more than an anachronism. You can learn to coordinate your turns, and be precise in your approaches in any airplane.
 
FormerHangie said:
A piston engine is not an obsolete technology. It's very cost effective and vastly more fuel efficient than a turbine.

I'm not flying power planes anymore, so for me the question is just academic. But if I were to take it back up, I still have no desire to fly an aircraft that has less forgiving ground handling, and no real advantages for the type of flying I've done.

Here's an analogy: I used to race sports cars. Up until about the mid-1960's, a number of cars used swing axle rear suspension. This was an early type of independent rear suspension that had a number of undesirable characteristics that would tend to make the car swap ends under certain circumstances. For example, if someone got sideways in front of you and you had to lift off of the gas, there's a much greater likelihood that you were going to spin if your car had a swing axle than if it had another style of rear suspension. Spinning the car is bad for lap times and quite often detrimental to the wallet. The drivers of cars so equipped did their best to adapt to their cars, but they still would occasionally get bitten. Eventually they developed an additional spring ( called a camber compensator) to help tame these tendencies. Were the guys who drove these cars better drivers? They were better at driving cars with swing axles, but getting experience in a car with a swing axle didn't make anyone faster, which after all, is the goal of racing.

If anyone wants to fly aircraft with conventional gear, by all means do so. But please stop telling new pilots that they have to get the tailwheel endorsement or they won't be complete pilots. For pilots flying traveling machine type airplanes, conventional gear is nothing more than an anachronism. You can learn to coordinate your turns, and be precise in your approaches in any airplane.
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Just a curiosity question, do you have any tail wheel time?:)
 
FormerHangie said:
A piston engine is not an obsolete technology. It's very cost effective and vastly more fuel efficient than a turbine.
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Large turbines are MORE efficient than any piston engines. Think airliners. Small turbines like those in helicopters and King Airs are less efficient.

[/QUOTE]I'm not flying power planes anymore, so for me the question is just academic. But if I were to take it back up, I still have no desire to fly an aircraft that has less forgiving ground handling, and no real advantages for the type of flying I've done.

[/QUOTE]

Isn't that a picture of you and a hang glider in your avatar? I started hang gliding in the early '70s and nearly killed myself twice, so I learned to fly real airplanes instead. I own and fly a taildragger and a big chunk of my time is in taildraggers and I used to teach it at a flight school. We didn't pay any more for insurance on those airplanes than we did for the trikes, either. The fact is that they are NOT the scary item so many pilots think they are. I was also an aircraft mechanic at that flight school and we had far more issues with nosegear wear and tear from sloppy landings than we did with any taildragger hardware. Trike pilots break airplanes, too, and of the six accidents we had in the 19 years I was there, four were trikes being sloppily handled. Two were on a Champ: one noseover (just onto the prop) caused by taxiing too fast downwind and then trying to stop and turn at the same time, a technique that also nearly broke a Cessna 150; they don't like that either. The other was a crosswind landing for a student that hadn't been cleared to fly in crosswinds. That one was an administrative error and he shouldn't have been alone in the airplane at any time until he'd mastered all of it. His mistake was to neutralize the ailerons right after touchdown, and the wind lifted the wing, dragged the other wingtip, and it turned OUT of the wind. That exact same thing happens to trikes, too.

Please go pay for an introductory flight in a taildragger. There are way too many guys who criticize and dismiss what they haven't tried.

Dan
 
Hilarious. You just did to hanggliding what you complain about pilots doing to taildraggers. All the taildragger bashing comes from some guy that tried flying a taildragger in the early 70's nearly killed himself and moved on to tricycles.:rofl:
[/QUOTE]

Isn't that a picture of you and a hang glider in your avatar? I started hang gliding in the early '70s and nearly killed myself twice, so I learned to fly real airplanes instead. I own and fly a taildragger and a big chunk of my time is in taildraggers and I used to teach it at a flight school. We didn't pay any more for insurance on those airplanes than we did for the trikes, either. The fact is that they are NOT the scary item so many pilots think they are. I was also an aircraft mechanic at that flight school and we had far more issues with nosegear wear and tear from sloppy landings than we did with any taildragger hardware. Trike pilots break airplanes, too, and of the six accidents we had in the 19 years I was there, four were trikes being sloppily handled. Two were on a Champ: one noseover (just onto the prop) caused by taxiing too fast downwind and then trying to stop and turn at the same time, a technique that also nearly broke a Cessna 150; they don't like that either. The other was a crosswind landing for a student that hadn't been cleared to fly in crosswinds. That one was an administrative error and he shouldn't have been alone in the airplane at any time until he'd mastered all of it. His mistake was to neutralize the ailerons right after touchdown, and the wind lifted the wing, dragged the other wingtip, and it turned OUT of the wind. That exact same thing happens to trikes, too.

Please go pay for an introductory flight in a taildragger. There are way too many guys who criticize and dismiss what they haven't tried.

Dan[/QUOTE]
 
MBDiagMan said:
Just a curiosity question, do you have any tail wheel time?:)
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Around 1000hrs, 'tail wheel skills' are irrelevant unless you plan on buying or working a tail wheel plane due to the lack of available rentals.
 
FormerHangie said:
If anyone wants to fly aircraft with conventional gear, by all means do so. But please stop telling new pilots that they have to get the tailwheel endorsement or they won't be complete pilots.
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Who are all these people saying that? I haven't seen any. I've only seen people say that it can improve your flying skills to a degree. Tailwheel is only sliver of the skills you can learn in the different types of flying out there - floats, skis, glider, aerobatics, formation, multi, etc. There is virtually no such thing as a "complete" pilot. Nobody has mastered it all. That does not mean you cannot be better than you are now by learning new skills.

And FYI - most people don't see airplanes as simply taildraggers vs. trikes, and make a choice on which one to fly based on the landing gear configuration. People choose to fly the airplanes that interest them. Sometimes these airplanes have tailwheels, and sometimes they happen to have nosegear. Most of the cool old airplanes happen to have tailwheels...if you like antique-classic-aerobatic-sport airplanes. I understand that some don't care about that...and that airplanes are just chunks of metal for getting from point A to B. Airplanes and flying are much more than that for most pilots of tailwheel airplanes. Cherokees, 172s, and Mooneys have tricycle gear...if you like those airplanes...or chunks of metal. Yes, they serve their dull purpose well...no argument there. That's not to say that there aren't some cool, fun trike airplanes. But they are vastly disproportionate. You seem to have a chip on your shoulder for some reason. Not sure why.

FormerHangie said:
For pilots flying traveling machine type airplanes, conventional gear is nothing more than an anachronism.
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What's the point of this statement? There are a whole bunch of different types of airplanes out there. Some are "traveling machines", some are not. Tailwheels still have a purpose on many airplanes. And traveling actually takes place in some of these airplanes. ;) If by "traveling machine", you mean an airplane only used for making pancake breakfasts and hamburger runs to and from some paved county airport, and you really don't care about what you're flying, then I guess there's no reason to have a tailwheel. Others here have pointed out the reasons why tailwheels still exist, but you seem to be grasping for some small remnant of a reason to support your argument that tailwheels are unnecessary. No, we are not likely to see a tailwheel on an airliner at any point in the future. Happy?
 
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RoscoeT said:
Who are all these people saying that? I haven't seen any. I've only seen people say that it can improve your flying skills to a degree. Tailwheel is only sliver of the skills you can learn in the different types of flying out there - floats, skis, glider, aerobatics, formation, multi, etc. There is virtually no such thing as a "complete" pilot. Nobody has mastered it all. That does not mean you cannot be better than you are now by learning new skills.
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That's about what I wanted to say, but you did a fine job. It's not that a non-TW pilot can't handle a plane, but that the skills taught can improve the process.

I can think of two fairly recent events where this can be seen. First there was a hard landing by a SWA plane a short time ago where the pilot drove it on nose first. Energy mgmt on that was sorely lacking. Next is the recent crash in Aspen. Early reports are looking like he wheelbarrowed it down and tried to force it to slow/stop. Again, way too much energy and poor mgmt.
 
yakdriver said:
I've flown the N3N in high 30s low 40s to get a start on cross countries early in the morning. Just like snowmobiling or skiing if your dressed right its no big deal. Open cockpit is always a good time! Don
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I fly my open-cockpit Fly Baby year around, here in the Seattle area. Of course, the winters don't get all that cold. I flew last weekend (43 degrees) and two weeks before that (31 degrees). Only 'special' clothing was a ski mask.

Of course, being a single-seat airplane, the Fly Baby cockpit isn't very drafty. I flew in the front pit of a Stearman once, in ~50 weather, and it was a lot colder.

I have a general rule-of-thumb that I use for dressing up for Fly Baby flying:

75 and above: street clothes
60 to 75: Light canvas jacket, light gloves if near 60.
45-60: A2 jacket, gloves, scarf. Light gloves ~50-60, heavy gloves at lower temps.
<45 add Ski mask, use heavy scarf
<40 Switch to B3 coat
<30 Add long underwear

When I stick to the above, I don't have a problem with cold weather. Coldest I've flown has been 15 degrees on the ground...flew for full hour, was just a bit chilly by the end.

Again, though, the Fly Baby's cockpit is pretty sealed.

For more on the jackets (A2, B3, etc.) see:

http://www.bowersflybaby.com/stories/jackets.html

Ron Wanttaja
 
ClimbnSink said:
Hilarious. You just did to hanggliding what you complain about pilots doing to taildraggers. All the taildragger bashing comes from some guy that tried flying a taildragger in the early 70's nearly killed himself and moved on to tricycles.:rofl:
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Hang gliders are many times more risky than any taildragger. Just try to insure one. Or get your life insurance company to cover the sport. Or try to fly one in turbulence. Their controllability is marginal at best.

The point was that the guy is willing to fly hang gliders but not taildraggers. Maybe you missed that. He calls taildraggers anachronistic, while hang gliding was invented by Otto Lilienthal well before the Wright brothers flew, but it's OK?

Dan
 
Dan Thomas said:
Hang gliders are many times more risky than any taildragger. Just try to insure one. Or get your life insurance company to cover the sport. Or try to fly one in turbulence. Their controllability is marginal at best.

The point was that the guy is willing to fly hang gliders but not taildraggers. Maybe you missed that. He calls taildraggers anachronistic, while hang gliding was invented by Otto Lilienthal well before the Wright brothers flew, but it's OK?

Dan
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Actually, you're wrong about the safety. On a per pilot per year basis, hang gliders have a somewhat better safety record than does general aviation overall.

Also, when something was invented isn't indicative of whether or not it is an anachronism. The wheel predates history, but it still seems pretty useful to me.

I shouldn't say that conventional gear is obsolete, I can think of at least two types of flying where it's preferred: ag planes and unlimited aerobatic planes.
 
Here is something fairly modern:

390993.jpg
 
You slam hang gliding based on a 30 year old minor experience with them, then went on to complain about pilots slamming tailwheels based on old small experiences or repeating same. Dude you are what you complain about. :rofl:

Dan Thomas said:
Hang gliders are many times more risky than any taildragger. Just try to insure one. Or get your life insurance company to cover the sport. Or try to fly one in turbulence. Their controllability is marginal at best.

The point was that the guy is willing to fly hang gliders but not taildraggers. Maybe you missed that. He calls taildraggers anachronistic, while hang gliding was invented by Otto Lilienthal well before the Wright brothers flew, but it's OK?

Dan
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kgruber said:
I know BS when I see it, and that is total BS. No one is counting!
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I was. The hang gliding community is very small, and all fatal accidents get reported to the USHPGA. During the seven years I flew and followed hangliding, approximately in in every 2500 pilots died per year in the USA. I did a comparison to GA in general and came up with a very similar figure

Where are your statistics?
 
Dan Thomas said:
Hang gliders are many times more risky than any taildragger. Just try to insure one. Or get your life insurance company to cover the sport. Or try to fly one in turbulence. Their controllability is marginal at best.

The point was that the guy is willing to fly hang gliders but not taildraggers. Maybe you missed that. He calls taildraggers anachronistic, while hang gliding was invented by Otto Lilienthal well before the Wright brothers flew, but it's OK?

Dan
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The original planes on wheels were tricycle.
 
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