Tailwheel time...does it matter what its in?

I have about 800 hours tailwheel and about 1200 tailwheel landings. In my way of thinking, my landing number indicates my tailwheel proficiency much more than my tailwheel hours…… but that’s just me.
 
I agree^^^. If only insurance companies saw it that way. Insurance makes everything more difficult.
 
Yes! I've been looking at that! If I build two of them and join them in the middle like a P-82 twin mustang, we can build multi time on the cheap!
 
Why stop there? Put the whole shebang on floats and build that rare AMES time.
 
Couple of kayaks and some ratchet straps....my mind is a raging torrent, filled with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives! I'll be qualified for the Grumman Goose in no time!
 
moparrob66 said:
Couple of kayaks and some ratchet straps....my mind is a raging torrent, filled with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives! I'll be qualified for the Grumman Goose in no time!
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I had a friend in college who designed an auto gyro canoe.
 
dbahn said:
I'd sell the 172B and replace it with a comparable tailwheel model, or even something less expensive that still suits your needs. The fear of tailwheels is unfounded IMHO, and I always wonder what the difference is between a fifty hour TW pilot and a 500 hour one actually is.

In reality, hours shouldn't matter. Number of landings would be a better metric. I guess one of the concerns relates to the first solo and next few flights in an aircraft that only has one seat, but that should also relate to landings, not logged time.
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I always like the insurance forms that ask how much tailwheel time I have. My sailplane is a taildragger. I typically do up to a 100 hours per year in my sailplane, but rarely do more than 25 landings per year in my glider. They rarely specify time in an Airplane.

Same with Retract time.

Brian
 
moparrob66 said:
Couple of kayaks and some ratchet straps....my mind is a raging torrent, filled with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives! I'll be qualified for the Grumman Goose in no time!
Click to expand...
oooooooh, I am imaging Jet Cri-Cri and an Amphibious float, sort of a cross between the Jet Cri-Cri and a Grumman Duck
would be Multi-Engine, Turbine, Amphibious, Tail wheel time. Sorry my photoshop skills aren't quite up to making a composite image.


1725030613601.png1725030661948.png
 
If my homebrew affordaplane winged lawn chair has half of a VW up front and a surplus APU turbine pushing, why couldnt I log turbine time? Assuming I didnt burst into flames?
 
I dunno… gotta get a type rating? Or are you talking turbo prop pushing?

Would be an interesting type ride! We want details about how that goes!!
 
Due to the jankiness of such a sketchy contraption, I think a hybrid piston puller, jet pusher would be safest-ish if equipped with a BRS, fire suppression and a helmet. If a homebuilt is inspected by the FAA and registered E-AB, do they care what alterations are made after the initial flight testing is complete?
 
I think so. If you change yay so much, gotta redo the fly off period. Don’t really know what “yay so much” is though…
 
I know where one is I wanna make into a house BAD.

This one doesn’t have the jet stc… but I got a line on one of those too!!! Hehehe

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dbahn said:
I get that, but should that world of experience have the perceived value it has for operations like towing and and cropdusting?

Shouldn't the number of landings be the parameter used for proficiency? You can fly a TW aircraft for two hours and get one landing, or fly the same aircraft practicing landings and log a dozen or more in the same time. For those pilots like the OP I feel like a lot of money is wasted building "hours" instead of proficiency.

At our local glider operation I was one of three tow pilots sharing duties in an operation doing 1500 to 1800 tows per year. This year one tow pilot had to withdraw for medical reasons then I developed brain cancer (permanently grounded). There aren't that many 500 hour TW pilots hanging around to fill the void, which is devastating to an operation like ours.

I have a lot of sympathy for the OP having to meet a standard that doesn't make complete sense to me.
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Well in the ag world you get the flight time and the cycles. The 500 hours is not unreasonable nor is it negotiable in most cases. Insurance companies drive the requirements and the actuarial data supports the requirements.

At least that’s the opinion I’ve developed after working as an ag pilot and owning an aircraft for ag.

Obviously five hundred hours of intense pattern work is better than the same hours on long cross country flights but the five hundred hours is still beneficial regardless of how it’s obtained.
 
Tarheelpilot said:
Well in the ag world you get the flight time and the cycles. The 500 hours is not unreasonable nor is it negotiable in most cases. Insurance companies drive the requirements and the actuarial data supports the requirements.

At least that’s the opinion I’ve developed after working as an ag pilot and owning an aircraft for ag.

Obviously five hundred hours of intense pattern work is better than the same hours on long cross country flights but the five hundred hours is still beneficial regardless of how it’s obtained.
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Agreed. I always found taildragger landings to be more challenging after having flown a long cross country, so 500 hours with 100 landings would indicate a high level of proficiency in my mind.
 
The C-119 would put the Air in AirBnB? Lots of windows to offset the coziness of the space? Trucking would probably be the biggest expense for the project....unless you built a yuuge pedestal/staircase to set it on.
 
Yea get a Champ, it's a Cub for half the price and you can get 500 hours without ever going anywhere.
 
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