Originally Posted by
markkal
If I could give you an advice, go take some tailwheel training, it will develop your skills, finesse and give you a sense of control boosting your confidence. In all aspects of your handling scenarios. The proper reflexes will replace mneumonics, no need to think before doing.
If you could progress to the point of doing your solo flight on a tailwheel aircraft, after say 10 hours you will reach a level of proficiency impossible to equate even with 1000 hours of flying with nosewheel trainers. Tailwheel handling imposes you to master handling skills at the very beginning of your training. It requires an awareness of speed, altitude, energy and flight path, possible only with coordination an a soft smooth touch at the controls.. Failing to master even one of these elements will end up in bent metal, countless bounces, or and a groundloop.
This is a post from a while back but as one who started
ab initio more than sixty years ago on an Auster J/5, I regard the advice as particularly sound. Of course, much will depend upon whether you wish to learn to fly or whether you wish to attain a degree of competence sufficient to obtain the PPL. They are not at all the same things. Without question, the taldragger will equip you not only with skills not to be gained from nosewheel stuff but will enhance your overall capability and competence and these equate to additional safety.
With quite a few hours on the Beech 18, I was amused by Markkal's reference to groundloops!