Officially a Pitts Pilot

[Scudrunner]

Good on Ya Scud! Hope you have tons of fun with it.

Just for your consideration:
https://bandc.com/product/alternator-8- ... #regulator

I've got one of these as a backup alternator, at 3 pounds sitting on the accessory case it's perfect to run a transponder and com radio. If you replace the battery with lithium it probably would be a wash for weight.

Just sayin' ;^)

Gerry

Thanks Gerry, a few people have recommended those to us as well , looks like a great solution

[Scudrunner]

PPS Fedex dropped this off last week:



New Softie crossover seatpack 240 reserve chute, brand new from the factory in WA.

I'll give it to the kid for his Pitts, I'm worth more dead than alive these days :^)

Almost got the same rig that came with the plane, mines made by Strong Enterprises, ill see about getting it repacked locally here as I have no idea how long its sat in the hangar or how much it was worn. looks mint though and considering the plane barely flew that would make sense.

[cgzro]

Congrats, that's a heck of a first few hours in the plane. Cross country in a Pitts S1 is not easy at all. I'm totally paranoid with 2 GPS's several maps, and fly airport to airport and avoid flights over water. Andy teased me mercilessly about it when he crossed the Gulf and I did not even want to cross over to long island! Mind you right after I grumbled about it a pilot ditched a fighter perfectly into the sound got his foot stuck in the pedal and drowned.

On the oil pressure, Andy hit most of the main points but one thing you should always do with an inverted oil system if the pressure goes low without a fast recovery is to get 3-4G on the plane to see if that will reseat the ball (or you can try inverted -3G see if you get inverted pressure). Of course if the oil was low that will do it too. Lycoming has some interesting information about minimum oil and deck angles which I discovered on a steep slipping final one day. As Andy says its just cheaper to keep the damn thing full all the time and I agree with him about the 100W+.

On the alternator. I looked at putting in the SD-8 but my plane is certified and I just did not feel like trying to do all the paperwork so I just used a plane power light weight alternator. An SD-8 together with the EarthX TSO'd battery would be frigging awesome as you'd be almost 25lbs lighter than what I have. I'm actually planning on putting an EarthX in next year and doing the LSTC paperwork for it.

Enjoy but be extremely careful with narrow runways and crosswinds. Most S1's end up damaged that way and as Andy says that left hand is a get out of jail free card for a lot of botched landings and of course a get into jail card for screwed up acro so pulling when the yaw goes wrong in flight immediately will save you from a lot of nasty unintended gyroscopics while pushing saves you from bad landings.

Enjoy and fly safe, you'll likely never outgrow the plane, I sure haven't .. and welcome to the very small club.

Cheers

Peter

S-1T C-GZRO

[Colonel]

welcome to the very small club

Indeed. You have paid the fixed cost, now enjoy the benefit by amortizing
it over as many flights as you can, per year. Fly the snot out of it. Fly it
every day, if you can. Gas is cheap, and the more and the harder you run
the engine, the better it will run. My compressions were always the best
on the field. Just keeps the temps down, and keep it straight during the
rollout, and you won't hurt it.

Learn to snap roll. S1 snap rolls better than anything else I've ever flown.
Just keep your entry speed (and torsional loads) down. Know your limit and
fly within it. Many decades ago, Gene Soucy used to do snap rolls on final in
his S1 to lose speed. It was glorious. Read up on snap rolls, or Peter and I
can give you a few pointers. Or arrays, if you want storage (to remember it :^)

Promise me something: get religion and fuel it full before every flight.

That gives you time, which takes the pressure off you when shit goes south,
so you can always make good decisions. Every year people run Pitts out of
gas. Don't do that.

After perhaps 10 years of hard work, you will have 1,000 hours of Pitts time
in your logbook - frankly, no other time on type matters when you are talking
about piston/prop aircraft - and you will have joined a very tiny club, indeed.



Get any TC Inspector to show you how to do that.

[Liquid_Charlie]

Even the DC3 needs a tail wheel lock to help keep it tracking straight when the tail wheel is on the surface.....

Chuck -- I actually flew a DC-3 that had no tail wheel lock. At one point it had x-wind gear on it and when we got it at Hooker's it had been converted back but they never put a tail wheel lock back(although I think it eventually was restored many years later). I believe there was a damping system for centering the tail wheel but one did get use to not having a tail wheel lock. It's the only one I ever came across, the good old Happy Hooker -- CF-GHL Hooker Air Pickle Lake.

I guess it was a throw back from flying skies but between the beech 18 and the all the tail draggers flew back then we rarely thought much of the requirement of tail wheel locks. I can't even remember using one on the Beech, even on wheels but that could be just a grey moment.

[Colonel]

A really superb stick doesn't need a tailwheel lock. Those guys are pretty well all gone,
and all we have left are button-pushers in elaborate costumes suitable for a Hallowe'en party.

Great example - I've mentioned him before - is Larry Loretto. He had various nicknames
but gosh, he could really fly. He had a DH Hornet Moth - maybe 2 flying in North America? -
and flew it from crosswind on dry pavement with no tailwheel lock. Insane. It was designed
before WWII to be flown from a large grass field, always taking off and landing into wind. The
brakes on it, are what you would expect from a pre-WWII British airplane. Complicated,
fucked up to non-existent.

I didn't get a checkout on the Beech 18 - I had to teach myself to fly it. The ferry pilot that
delivered it, as soon as he landed ran to the fridge and pulled out a cold beer. That was that.
He told me to always have a left brake and to lock the tailwheel before takeoff, and that
advice made it a pretty docile aircraft to land. Tail up, nose goes left. Tail down, nose goes
right.

Maybe it's an age thing, but I try to stack things in my favor, and give myself the easiest
problem I can, for me to solve. No one else knows the difference, after all.

Hey Neil. What do you think of your S1's directional stability when you pull up on the cable? :^)

Pilots these days struggle with Citabrias. Talking to a friend back in Ontario, he says since
he sold his Husky, the fucktwits that bought it have wrecked it twice. Fatalities.

You want those @ssclowns trying to land a large multi-engine aircraft in a crosswind with
no tailwheel lock? They think a Husky is a fire-breathing dragon, and as far as I can tell,
it's just a SuperCub with a forward C of G problem.

If memory serves, Porkchops or one of his kind taxied a supercub into the gas pumps, which
apparently jumped out in front of him. That is the level of pilot skill that we have today.
Even with a tailwheel lock, they are completely fucked. Without a tailwheel lock, you might
as well call 911 and notify the NTSB when they turn final.

[Colonel]

Here are some of today's DC-3 pilots:

https://aviation-safety.net/database/re ... 20180721-0

The co-pilot, who was the flying pilot reported that prior to the flight, it was briefed that he would perform the takeoff. He stated that the captain taxied the airplane to the runup area, where all pre-takeoff checks were completed; the captain then taxied the airplane onto runway 19. The co-pilot further stated that he then took control of the airplane, provided a pre-takeoff brief, and initiated the takeoff sequence. About 10 seconds into the takeoff roll, the airplane drifted right, at which time he applied left rudder input. This was followed shortly by the captain saying that he had the airplane.

The captain, who was the non-flying pilot, reported to the NTSB that during the initial stages of the takeoff roll, he didn't recall the airplane swerving to the right, however, recalled telling the co-pilot not to push the tail up because it was heavy; he also remembered the airplane swerving to the left shortly thereafter. The captain stated that he yelled "right rudder" three times before taking control of the airplane. He said that as he put his hands on the control yoke, he noticed that either the tail started to come down or the main wheels were either light or were just coming off the ground as it exited the left side of the runway. The captain said that he knew the airplane was slow as he tried to ease it over [to the runway] and set it back down. Subsequently, he felt the 'shutter of a stall," and the airplane turned to the left and impacted the ground. After the airplane came to a stop, a postimpact fire ensued, during which all the occupants of the airplane egressed through the aft left door.

A video of the takeoff and accident sequence shows the aircraft accellerating on the runway, with the tailwheel leaving the ground very briefly. A few seconds after the tailwheel touched down again, the aircraft seems to drift off the left side of the runway. The aircraft banks right, causing the left hand main landing gear to become airborne. The right hand wing tip touched or almost touched the ground before the aircraft became airborne. The left wing dropped and the wing tip touched the ground, causing the plane to slew to the left and touch down again. The right hand main gear then seems to fold as the aircraft comes to rest in a cloud of dust.

Examination of the accident site revealed that the airplane came to rest upright on a heading of about 113° magnetic, about 145 ft east of the left side, and 2,638 ft from the approach end of runway 19. The postimpact fire consumed the fuselage from the nose cone aft to about 3 ft forward of the left side cargo door along with a majority of the wing center section. No evidence of any flight control locks was found installed. The tailwheel locking pin was found in place and was sheered into multiple pieces. Vegetation (grass) within about 200 ft of the main wreckage was burnt from the postimpact fire. The wreckage was recovered to a secure location for further examination.

Good job!



I know I'm not a "good person", but I wouldn't let those @ssclowns push my lawnmower,
regardless of what costumes they wore, and what books they brought to read in the cockpit.

Today's pilots, a tailwheel lock isn't enough. You need to zip-tie their wrists and ankles to
the airport fence, if you don't want anything crashed today. Don't believe me? Go to the
airport, and watch light aircraft try to land. If you want to get really depressed, do it on
a windy day.

I wonder sometimes - do they hate the aircraft? Or, did their instructors hate them and
intentionally teach them to crash?

[Chuck Ellsworth]

If you need a tail wheel lock to fly a DC3 you have not earned to fly properly.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

Chuck -- I actually flew a DC-3 that had no tail wheel lock. At one point it had x-wind gear on it and when we got it at Hooker's it had been converted back but they never put a tail wheel lock back(although I think it eventually was restored many years later). I believe there was a damping system for centering the tail wheel but one did get use to not having a tail wheel lock. It's the only one I ever came across, the good old Happy Hooker -- CF-GHL Hooker Air Pickle Lake.

I flew a DC3 with X/wind landing gear and it was really weird landing pointed into the wind and the runway way over to the side, never could figure out why anyone would need X/wind landing gear.

As I recall it added 1800 pounds to the empty weight.

[Colonel]

If you need a tail wheel lock to fly a DC3 you have not earned to fly properly.

What a lucky man you are, to have never seen even one Porkchops video.

That's the future of aviation, right there. IIRC he rode in Harv's Pitts and puked.

X/wind landing gear

Like auto engines, that used to be "the wave of the future" in aviation. Everything
had them. C19x. B-52. Like auto engines in airplanes, don't see much crosswind
landing gear any more. So much for that fashion trend.

Cessna attempted to curb some of the ground-control accidents by introducing the 195 crosswind landing gear. This unique device allows the main wheels to caster about 15 degrees when provoked by a side load.

More locking tailwheel info:

The 195 has a non-locking tailwheel, although an STC for one is available from Ray's Aircraft Service of Porterville, California. Ray's specializes in 195s and has jigs for all the major airframe parts. It seems that owner Ray Woodmansee has seen enough pranged 195s that he decided to come out with a lockable tailwheel to help curb some of the ground looping incidents.

"I don't know if I really needed it, but it's certainly given me a lot more confidence on final with an 18-knot crosswind," said Luigs of the locking tailwheel that he had installed on his 195.