I kinda suck at landing....

[Chuck Ellsworth]

The Colonel's advice is pure gold.


For some reason to many flight schools fail to properly teach the basics of attitudes and movements properly, unless a student understands the basics and can perform these basics they will never be really be able to fly properly.

Also he is correct regarding tail wheel flying.

If the student can not control the airplane on the ground at all speeds including with the tail in the air they are at great risk of wrecking the airplane eventually.

I would never even consider taking them flying until they are comfortable handling it on the ground at all speeds.

[TwinOtterFan]

Thank you all! I will be heading out to the PA to practice all of this soon I hope, and I can't agree more with the taxi thing. It didn't make sense to me that when I started to learn i was all over during a slow taxi, but then my instructor wonders why I come off the center line after a landing. Basically taxiing at 40kias.....

I was actually getting frustrated with him a while back if I was too slow to get to the runway he would take control to speed things up. So one day when the weather was crap I still went in and paid just to drive around the apron lol. Most expensive drive I ever took but I can taxi way better now.

[David MacRay]

It's funny how things like that happen.

It seems like the instructor taking over to taxi would be a bonus. Giver to the runway, save some expensive dual time. Then you never get a chance to practice it.

One thing from flying light singles into big busy airports last century did for me was let me get good at really high speed taxing. Instructors don't like that, so I learned to taxi slow.

Last flight the instructor took over so we could get going.

Can't win,

[TwinOtterFan]

I get that he wanted to get in the air quicker, but I was just starting out, no need to rush pat a bunch of stuff that I need to know, just to show me more stuff I need to know later.

Also I think the instructors are timed at my FTU, and there is a soft requirement to get the plane airborne within so many minutes of dispatch.

[Slick Goodlin]

91384DE4-A065-4BFC-904B-7134EC963701.jpeg

[Colonel]

Ha.

Fast taxiing in a nose dragger can easily lead to nose wheel shimmy. You need
to get the control column all the way back to unload it, if you're going to do that.

Which is pretty much what you do during the landing rollout. Baby that nose wheel,
they are all junk and will all shimmy, sooner or later when they get worn and the
damper dies.

Here is one of the finest sticks in the world, doing some fast taxiing:



One of the finest sticks in the world, you ask?



List the pilots in Canada that can do that.

[Colonel]

Some excellent taxiing:

[Liquid_Charlie]

Some excellent taxiing:

caught me

[Chuck Ellsworth]

That is the beauty of a DC3, it is a dream to fly, it is just a big Cub.

[TwinOtterFan]

Hey all, just a little update... Still no solo, I have been waiting on Industry Canada to send me my Roc-a and it turns out that they put the wrong town on my license so it went somewhere else and I did not receive it and unfortunately I cannot solo without it.

On the upside, I listened to all the knowledge on here and was sent on a supervisory flight with a part time instructor, awesome guy 21,000+ flight hours with something like 15,000 instructing I think he said. Anyway super knowledgeable pilot put me at total ease and showed me things that my instructor I don't think ever would have. Every landing was awesome and he recommended me for solo, I just need the license.

I do want to add that my instructor is very good, but you could still tell that the pilot I went up with the other day was far more experienced. A bit more "old school" if you will, he didn't nit pick me and he really showed me what that plane could safely do I was impressed.