Scudrunners

DID HE HIT A SKYWAGON!!!

GOD DAMNIT!

I'm pretty sure that video is Russian disinformation.

Did they get it off Hunter's laptop?

D’oh. Those little Nieuports look squirrelly on the ground, but I bet they’re fun once you reach the safety of flight.

Taildraggers were easy to fly until Russia Collusion ruined them.

Easy as shitting down a well and only half as dangerous

All the four bars love dry paved runways, but they are death for a taildragger.

Those old biplanes were designed to be taken off and landed on a big grass
field, always into wind. They had big bows under the wingtips for the inevitable
(and hopefully gentle) ground loops at the end of the landings.

Visit Old Rhinebeck sometime. They have runners positioned along the edge
of the grass runway, that run out and try to grab a wingtip to try to stop the
inevitable groundloop of the landing WWI biplanes.

A dry paved runway and crosswind is death for a taildragger. This lesson has
not yet been learned, and needs to be continually relearned, over and over again:



My problem is that I feel no overwhelming obligation to take off and land on
a runway.

Today's pilots would rather crash, than risk a letter from the Regulator.

Sad. Really fucked up priorities. In my life, I have never dinged an airplane,
and have received copious correspondence from an enraged Regulator.

I think I made the right decisions, time after time.

hey have runners positioned along the edge

That brought back memories. The maintenance staff would do the same for our arrivals at change over in the spring, all aircraft with no breaks on wheels landing beside the mainline CNR at Reddit Ontario. They would catch the aircraft and hopefully prevent the dreaded trip across the tracks -- Most of the time it was a non-event but on at least 2 occasions, nordyne and a cub, there was a bumpy ride. The second reason for the mechanics was to retrieve the aircraft from the tracks as well. We always flew both directions looking for trains before we landed --

https://satellites.pro/Canada_map#49.97 ... .398805,17

I remember watching the float guys land on grass on the end of the season.
They'd hope for some water (or a little snow) on the grass, but I'm not sure
it really made much difference.

Gosh, they stopped short!

The only thing better was in the spring, when they took off from trailers
behind trucks driving down the runway as fast as they could.

Today's four bars would wet their pants and call Enforcement if they saw this:



I remember, about that time, taking off from that very same runway, Eric
telling me that we should have some fun with the Vintage Wing guys who
were having a BBQ and drinking beer behind the hangar.

So we took off, me lead and the kid in right echelon. I half-rolled upside
down and Eric tucked in tight again, in right echelon, and we went past
the Vintage Wings hangar driving down the runway level with one set
of wheels pointing up, and one set of wheels pointing down.

We landed everything from cubs to bch 18 on the grass beside the runway in Gimli (moved from Reddit) - the 185 on whips was the best, you could taxi and although I didn't try it I'm sure I could have taken off. Yup a little dew went a long way.

Taking off on the dollies was always interesting. We had a beech depart and got a little light on the dolly and the break lever flipped over and on. Oh my! he got airborne but scuffed the keels a little after touching the hard surface to get airborne.

Thinking that they didn't want that to happen again they removed the breaks on the dollies and the next departure the dollies became embedded in the chain link fence at the end of the runway, seems 60 kts gave them lots of energy, it tool 3 hours to untangle the mess. -- LMFAOOooo