Middle Aged Man Flies Tailwheel, Laughter Ensues

[mcrit]

Well done on the tailwheel time DeflectionShot!  I would have added my 2 cents earlier, but work had me out of the country for a while.  Did you make progress on the other front we discussed earlier in the year?

[Slick Goodlin]

[quote author=mcrit link=topic=8901.msg24762#msg24762 date=1537378826]
Well done on the tailwheel time DeflectionShot![/quote]
I second that.


I also just got in a weekend of embarrassing myself with a tailwheel.  The good news is my wheelies suck less than ever.

[DeflectionShot]

Thanks, I am still at it believe it or not. Training has been sporadic but worth it. Observations for anyone interested in tail wheel training:

1. Do it when you’re 16 years old, not 58.
2. It shouldn’t be a struggle to get TW dual time – but it is.
3. Forget about Canadian flight schools for TW training.
4. Go to the US when COVID is over and book about one week off to train every day with an instructor who is a TW fanatic. It's all muscle memory.
5. Find the simplest TW aircraft you can, preferably with an ASI, an altimeter and an ashtray. That’s it.
6. Better yet, buy your own tailwheel plane and hire MCRIT to train you in it.

As a personal anecdote: toughest part for me was not rudder control. I rarely had trouble keeping it straight. For me it was it was getting the correct sight picture over the cowel to pin the tail wheel in a three-point landing. I tended to bounce the plane back into the air by pulling the stick back prematurely…or too late.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

Learning to fly a tail wheel airplane is not all that difficult.

For the average licensed pilot it should not take any longer than two to five hours of flight time.

As long as the person teaching you understands the subject and can teach it properly.

[Colonel]

I rarely had trouble keeping it straight

go out and buy a bigger hat.

pulling the stick back prematurely

Don't fish for a greaser. Freeze the stick once the aircraft is in the landing
attitude, preferably 6 inches above the runway. Then, the stick does not
come back, until the airplane comes down. After all three tires are on the
pavement, of course stick back all the way to get weight on the tailwheel
tire which can float.

Unless the tailwheel shimmies, of course. Then you need to learn to do
wheelies until you fix it.



The quality of a tailwheel landing is not the descent rate (unless you bend
the aircraft). Fuck the four-bar greaser sh1t.

Objectively, the quality of a tailwheel landing can be measured by the
degrees of yaw after touchdown.

A perfect tailwheel landing requires that the aircraft be exactly aligned
with the direction of travel at touchdown. A perfect rollout does not
require the pilot to disturb the rudder pedals, and it rolls out perfectly
straight.

Ideally, you should learn to fly a taildragger with a very slow stall speed
on grass. The slow stall speed means you can keep up with the aircraft,
and the grass allows you to land a little crabbed.

Remember, the most dangerous landing surface for a taildragger is
dry pavement. This guy was used to only landing on grass. Then one
day, he tried to land on dry pavement. Wind was 45 degrees off at maybe
5 knots.



I'm a big fan of the Air Cadets, but I had to do some fast talking with the
TSB to cover for them, because they picked it up and carried it off the runway
right after this happened. You're not supposed to disturb a wreck unless
it's necessary for life saving, or to extinguish a fire. You wouldn't believe
how many pilots don't know that.

[Colonel]

Here's a tailwheel landing for you:



I use 180 mph on long (5nm) straight-in final, then 160 mph,
then 140 mph, then 120 mph short final. Jet speeds. We
are fast, in order to see the runway on a straight-in final,
and because I get bored easily.

Watch my landing in TPS - tailwheel actually touches first,
then the mains. This is best, because it decreases your AOA
and makes a bounce/skip less likely. This is a technique
recommended for both the Pitts and Maule, that virtually
no one utilizes.

A true short-field landing should be slow in a taildragger,
with the nose high in the air for AOA. Tail touches first
then mains. Firmly. Grass is best for this. Braking is
stupid in a little airplane. All it does is flat-spot the tires
on pavement. If you get the speed down, you should be
able to land in 500 feet on grass with little headwind, using
the tailwheel first / mains second touchdown technique.

Fuck the greaser. Keep it straight.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

I like to land with a constant angle of bank and airspeed curve to touch down instead of a straight in final approach, and it is easier to judge your height above the runway right to contact that way.

And for sure wheel landings are easier than three point, and I generally wheel land all tail wheel airplanes because it is easier. and I have better control of the machine that way.

( The Pitts is a bit more difficult to wheel land than most little airplanes because of the visibility over the nose. )

Hey Colonel , you should try and find a Grumman Turbo Goose and try three pointing that sucker with a X/wind on dry pavement.

[Colonel]

Grumman Turbo Goose and try three pointing that sucker with a X/wind on dry pavement

Hell no! I don't need to go looking for trouble ... it finds me quite easily by itself!

wheel land

I tell pilots, do whatever you prefer. Wheel or three-point, it doesn't really matter.

Pitts does a great wheel landing. Kind of fast - you want a bit more runway - and
completely unnecessary, but great fun!



I would estimate he was perhaps 200 mph turning final. That solves the visibility
problem. Or, you can be ridiculously high on final and sideslip at perhaps 10,000
FPM, a technique employed and taught by some very senior Pitts instructors such
as Gerry Younger and Rich Perkins.

It's tremendously subjective, but if I have to fly a straight-in final - Tower often
insists on it, with parallel runways - I use a 3 degree glide slope and jet speeds.

When those three blades of the constant speed prop go flat, the deceleration
is so strong, it throws your shoulders forward into the strap belts. Bueno.

Like you, given the choice, I prefer the Corsair curved carrier landing approach:

[Colonel]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vought_F4 ... uitability

Royal Navy aviators found landing accidents less of a problem than they had been to U.S. Navy aviators, thanks to the curved approach they used:

British units solved the landing visibility problem by approaching the carrier in a medium left-hand turn, which allowed the pilot to keep the carrier's deck in view over the anhedral in the left wing root.

This technique was later adopted by U.S. Navy and Marine fliers for carrier use of the Corsair

Note that neither the Corsair nor the Carrier is curved - the approach is.

Don't laugh about the curved Carrier. During WWII they were all straight deck,
and it wasn't until much later they figured out the advantages of an angled deck
and it became the standard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_de ... light_deck

[Liquid_Charlie]

I've said this before but coming out of a world of Norseman one gets use to only seeing half the world and actually looking to the left during the flare and landing. This holds true for any old radial single except for DH Canada, none of which I particularly liked. I get funny looks when I tell people that I never really fell in love with a beaver, otter or 2 Otter. I guess it's a Canadian thing - haha - some how I just never warmed up to DH Canada products except for the tiger Schmidt.