Officially a Pitts Pilot

[Slick Goodlin]

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.

Jeez, I know I’m one of those things but these days I’m not even sure which one...

[Chuck Ellsworth]

If you really want a good airplane to get competent in flying a tail wheel airplane the most demanding one I have flown is the Grumman Turbo Goose, if you can fly that in any wind conditions both land and water you can fly other airplanes in you will be a very competent pilot.

The little Grumman Widgeon is another demanding little slut.

[Colonel]

There are some other Grummans that would be fun (but they are nose wheel):

[Colonel]

The Vintage Wings guys said this was a handful:



I remember at one airshow, the wind was so strong they couldn't taxi
to take off. So, no fly. The wind blew the Canso over the crowd. It
was kind of a fun day, actually, but a little bumpy.

I flew in the Pitts, and RickV flew in the Bf109, which I am told is fun
with a crosswind on pavement. CamH flew in the Fleet, which was insane
because of the light wing loading in that wind, but he's been flying all
his life, and he's a great stick, like Rick Volker.

I don't care about the wind, which is one of the nice things that happens
after you get 1000 Pitts hours in your logbook :^)

I'm trying to remember if that's the same airshow a guy in a MiG flew
over at like 10,000 feet - you needed binoculars to see him - and the
TC monitor got his panties in a bunch because he did a roll, and wasn't
supposed to. This was years ago, I'm sure they're still in court, talking
about the damage to TC's panties.

The wx briefing was nuts. This weirdo talked about mesoscale activity
over Kansas, which was maybe 1500 miles away? What is it, with wx
guys? All I want to know about is the wind at 3 and maybe 6. That's it,
buttercup, my eyeballs can tell me the vis and the cloud, which I don't
care much about, either.

Bobby and I mooned Carole after she landed, if memory serves.

[Eric Janson]

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

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

Loss of control on take-off = abort. If they'd just closed the throttles this would have been a runway excursion. Probably no damage to the aircraft either.

From what I understood about this crash is that they'd never flown a loaded aircraft before.

[Liquid_Charlie]

It is amazing to watch it unfold, wtf was going on and the end result was they managed to screw the pooch just about as deep as you can go. Dumb pilots destroying perfectly serviceable aircraft.

[Colonel]

Dumb pilots destroying perfectly serviceable aircraft.

You know, that's the best description of tailwheel flying in the 21st Century
that I've ever read.

People think it's weird or egotistical that I am the caretaker of four
tailwheel aircraft. No, it isn't. If I sold one, the @sshole that bought
it would surely wreck it and quite possibly kill himself or anyone else
unlucky enough to be in it, or underneath it, at the time.

Those people are what TC calls "good pilots". They get to live in Canada
and not have their property stolen. TC doesn't run around, telling people
they fly coke up from South America.

I hate to tell ya Neil, like a stray cat that you fed, that S1 is yours forever
unless you do something horrible. I had a stray cat that I fed. Got to kind
of like it. Ex-wife drove over it with her car.