Luscombe or Fleet Canuck

[Colonel]

On the subject of heavy Boeings and their drivers ....

The young son (25 yrs) of a good friend of mine
got a job with Atlas, in the right seat of a 747.

Now, he's got good hands and feet.  Specifically
he has thousands of hours of Pitts and Waco
time, operating off a single paved runway with
a frequent strong crosswind.

You know.  He's got lots of that unimportant
tailwheel time.

Anyways, I'm enormously fond of this young
and skilled pilot, but I would not describe him
as a "God", as many heavy Boeing drivers think
of themselves.

I really don't think Boeing makes as bad an
airplane as their pilots would have you think.

A Boeing is not a "fire-breathing dragon".  You
do not have to be a God to fly one.  In fact,
as Peter Martin showed us all, you can have
pretty crappy stick and rudder skills, and do
just fine in one.  It's that good an airplane,
and easy to fly.

I know people think I'm pretty stupid compared
to them, and I don't know much about aviation
or engineering compared to them, but IMHO here
is a real fire-breathing dragon:



A data point on fire-breathing dragons:  I know
of a CEPE F-104 pilot that holds the opinion that
a Pitts is MUCH harder to land than a -104, which
in turn makes an F-18 look like a baby carriage.

Right, Rocky?

[Chuck Ellsworth]

The Luscombe is a real nice airplane and a joy to fly basic aerobatics in.


I got my first intro into aerobatics in a Luscombe in Colorado in 1959 when I was there taking an Ag. flying course.


As far as basic flight training goes though the Canuck is a better choice.

[David MacRay]

I know people think I'm pretty stupid compared
to them, and I don't know much about aviation
or engineering compared to them, 

Who?

[Colonel]

You're kidding, right?

Ok, if you're not trolling, Wayne Foy.  He's
TC's NCC "hot stick".  Tells everyone I am
dangerous.

Shortly thereafter, he hand-props a Champ
with the throttle open and brakes off.  Lied
to the TSB about the brakes.  Completely
illegal.  It catches and he hangs off the strut
as it spins around and around until it hit
something and destroyed it.

He could have killed someone.  No charges
were laid, of course - he's TC.  They can break
all the rules and that's ok - like the TC Inspectors
that bounced a King Air, gear up, off the runway
at Gatineau, and incredibly flew it back to CYOW,
raining parts down over populated Ottawa.  Incredibly
reckless.

Wayne isn't bright enough, of course, being TC,
to comprehend the irony of the situation.

[David MacRay]

He sounds forgettable but I am guessing he has given you too much grief.

It seems a bit recent but there are at least three instructors I read about doing tailwheel training in Southern Alberta now days. The Calgary Flying Club added a Citabria to their fleet. I am not personally farmiliar with most of them. So I can't speak to wether or not they would teach on a plane without brakes on their side or not. Maybe that is still lacking here.

I could most certainly be wrong but I think there has been tailwheel training available in one of the Edmonton schools for quite sometime now. That was where heavy744 said he got his first lisence on a fleet. I have not been to Edmonton since my father in-law moved away. Very few reasons for me to go there now that Carl's Jr is opened here. Maybe they have had tailwheel training there all along.

There are quite a few conventional gear planes around here. I doubt guys like the one that never learned to use rudders I read about here recently, have just been hopping in them and flying away. I suspect there has been someone teaching pilots to fly tail draggers, just not sure how people used to find them. Because for a while there if you asked many FTU instructors about flying tail draggers, you might as well have asked for a type rating for the space shuttle. Just five years ago or so it seemed exotic.

[Barneydhc82]

I really do not know what all the fuss is about with this damned thread.  There is absolutely nothing dangerous about flying the bloody Fleet Canuck if the student is taught to fly properly from the beginning.


I, like Chuck and others on this board were taught to fly in an era when there was no sissy wheel under the nose.  We were taught to use our hands, feet and head so that the next guy could use the aircraft.  Many of us learned our craft on the Canuck then went on to teach others how to fly in the same machines.  The Canuck has been around for 75 years when Bob Noury of Moose Jaw first designed it and serial --1 still flies.  Of the 225 (approx) Canucks built I have flown 39 of them and never had a problem.  The last Canuck in my log was owned by a friend at Delta Air Park and my last two students, Neil and Gary are both doing very well in this business.


When I read crap about some type or another my blood pressure goes up because there is no reason for the bad mouthing of any aircraft.  Each has its own characteristics and people should learn to deal with them.  The whole can of BS goes right back to the dumbing down of the aviation community and that means everyone.  Instructors  included .  Put anyone of todays instructors, with the exception of the few who actually teach tail wheel equipped aircraft, into a Canuck or a Cub or any other similar type and see if they can even taxi the damned thing without bending it.


Buy a Canuck...Learn to fly!


Barney

[Chuck Ellsworth]

Thank you Barney for putting this subject in it's true light.


I often get really discouraged trying to explain to new pilots they are being fed a load of crap by a lot of so called instructors in the flight training industry.


We both learned on the Canuck and we both instructed on them.


We had four Canucks and four Cessna 140's as the basic trainers at Central Airways in the fifties and sixties, of the tens of thousands of take offs and landings that were done when I flew with Central Airways I do not recall even one student losing control of one and damaging it in training.


I get crapped on a lot here by some posters because I keep bringing up the fact that BPF will not give dual on a Canuck because there are no brakes on the right hand side.


I feel that it is very unfair to the industry for a flight instructor to demean one of the best training machines ever built just because he is afraid to instruct on it.


Now if I were stating something that was untrue I would be leaving myself wide open for liable......but there are a lot of posts by him saying that he will not teach on it because of the safety factor.

[Slick Goodlin]

Maybe I have this all wrong (I learned to fly in a 172, after all) but I always figured in order to operate any machine safely you just have to give it the respect it deserves.  This is true regardless of whether you're talking about a vintage taildragger, forklift, hand gun, or mop and bucket.  I've always kept an open mind about new things and have grown wary of sweeping statements spoken in absolutes.


Having said that, for what little tailwheel training I've provided to date, I too would be uncomfortable without brakes of my own.  I expect with experience this will change as I learn to read the signs of what they'll do before they do it but for where I stand now I want brakes too.  Oddly enough, I think I'd be okay teaching in something with no brakes at all, I just want at least as much control as the other guy.  Students can be a creative bunch.

[David MacRay]

Sorry BPF has hurt you so bad Chuck.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

BPF has hurt me?


In what possible way?


Slick G. controlling the Canuck from the right hand seat without brakes is no problem whatsoever.


In the unlikely event brakes are needed you just tell the student to apply them or the left or right brake.


When Barney and I learned to fly there were only tail wheel airplanes to learn on and the PPL course was 30 hours and many students finished in that time frame.


How many hours does the average student get their PPL in today?


By the time the student is ready to fly he/she will already be taught how to use the brakes.


So for any pilot with average airplane handling skills having no brakes on the right side is not a safety issue.......if it was they would not have been used as primary trainers...period.


Like I said I do not recall even one loss of control during student training during all the years we flew and taught on them.




When Barney and I got our pilot licenses there were only tail wheel airplanes to learn on, and the PPL was a 30 hour course which many finished in.


How many hours is the average PPL done in today?