Taildragger Tip

[Colonel]

See how Juan flicks the tail up at 0:10 during takeoff?



You don't Juan to do that. You want to raise and lower the tail very
slowly on a taildragger with a metal blade prop, to avoid pitch-yaw
coupling caused by gyroscopic precession.

You can maybe get away with bad habits on little airplanes in
good conditions, but this sort of thing can bite you in the @ss.

You don't need to go looking for trouble. It will find you all on
it's own, without your help.

People don't understand the basics, which is why they come to
grief in something as gentle as a Luscombe or Beech 18, then
smear it as some sort of fire-breathing dragon.

[Scudrunner]

one of my former employers got a Cessna 207 and was scared shitless of it.
He called it all sorts of names like squirrely and twitchy.

When he was showing me around before I was signed on I accompanied him on a mission and yes with him behind the controls it was squirrely and twitchy. Rather nice plane if you knew how to load it and could figure out what those brake pedals primary function was.

[Colonel]

Cessna 207

Is that a typo?! 206/207 are docile old cows.

C120/140 can be fun on dry pavement with a ham-fisted pilot, I will admit.

I saw a TC Inspector (Rotten Ronnie) try to land one, once. Another day at
the rodeo.

Note that if you understand the fundamentals, you can cut corners. If you
have a taildragger with a wooden or composite blade prop, the nose will feel
very "loose" and there will be little pitch-yaw coupling, so you can make - if
you so desire - very rapid pitch changes with little resulting yaw.

Most pilots don't yaw quickly, so the pitch change in that scenario is unimportant,
unless you are tumbling and you want the tail to come up and through 360 degrees
of pitch.

Pop quiz: your prop rotates clockwise, viewed from behind (eg Lyc or TCM). Do
you want to rapidly yaw left or right to get the tail to come up?

[Scudrunner]

No typo Cessna 207 aka the Kansas Crowd Killer

[The Dread Pilot Roberts]

Pop quiz: your prop rotates clockwise, viewed from behind (eg Lyc or TCM). Do
you want to rapidly yaw left or right to get the tail to come up?

I’m like gambling with 50/50 odds I choose right.

[Colonel]

Cessna 207 aka the Kansas Crowd Killer

I like that. Let me know when the movie comes out on the Lifetime channel!

[mcrit]

When I was first learning to fly taildraggers somebody told me to hold the stick full forward right at the start of the T/O run. Did that for a little while until one day when I was taking off in a honking headwind. Tail came up super fast as soon as the throttle went forward, nose went super sideways, windshield got super full of stuff that was not runway, I took a super dump in my pants as I brought the tail back down super fast and super stood on the rudder to stay on the runway. Never did that again. Was discussing it sometime later with an experienced tail dragged pilot who laughed while explaining the stupidity of that technique. What can I say? You get experience from mistakes; I’ve got a lot of experience

[mcrit]

Pop quiz: your prop rotates clockwise, viewed from behind (eg Lyc or TCM). Do
you want to rapidly yaw left or right to get the tail to come up?

I’m like gambling with 50/50 odds I choose right.

You are right. Gyroscopic precession pays off once again.

[Colonel]

Another Good Job™



Those fire-breathing Cessna singles will get you every time.

You think things are just peachy and WHAM you're in the Costco parking lot.

Happened to me three times, last week.

[Slick Goodlin]

Frankly I’m impressed that the gear leg was pushed that far up inside the fuselage.