Tail-wheel training advice
Hi Udder 38,
I hung my headset up about ten years ago. So what follows here is based on a reply I wrote for a Ppruner back then. I don’t know how or whether the flight training milieu will have changed since I last flew, but the advice I give here always applies.
In the early 2000s there was a surprising amount of poor tail-wheel training on offer, and I suspect this may still be the case, so first of all definitely read 'The Compleat Taildragger Pilot' by Plourde as this may be the only means you will have by which you will know in whether your tailwheel training is being adequate.
My greatest area of concern is that many flying schools/flying clubs then just didn't teach ‘wheeler landings’. You might well need this skill to pull off a cross wind landing in a strong cross wind. (Some places didn't even teach cross wind landing at all then, which was disgraceful)!
For landing cross wind, most then would teach you to do a two-point landing instead. This is where you stall the aircraft on with your into-wind wing down, putting down your into-wind main wheel and tail wheel first. This is O.K. for a mild to moderate crosswind in a high wing aircraft, but if you have to land a low wing monoplane or bi-plane with a crosswind close to the crosswind limit for your aeroplane, then in my view two-pointing it is hazardous.
I learned to fly fifty-eight years ago at a time when we were all tail-dragger pilots; (‘conventional undercarriage’ was the correct term then. You had to be posh to fly a tricycle in those days). My instructor was a man who had flown heavy, multi-engined taildraggers, (while carrying several tons of high explosive and incendiaries) during much of WW2, so I tend to regard him as having been a considerable expert on the tail-dragger and still regard what he taught as best practice.
He taught me to do both methods of landing approach, the 'crabbing' approach and the 'wing down' method. He said that I should be able to do both and be ready to use either method, according to the characteristics of the aeroplane and the conditions prevailing.
One thing, however, never varied. He taught me to do a wheeler landing whenever landing cross wind. This is where you allow the main wheels to brush the runway while you still have flying speed. You then move the control column forward to remove any positive angle of attack causing the aeroplane to roll along the runway on her main wheels while you keep her tail up with the elevators.
You allow the speed to fall off while holding the tail up and the aeroplane straight and as close as possible to the centre line of the runway. As the speed falls off, you will find yourself moving the control column further and further forward to keep the tail up, while applying more and more into wind aileron and more and more away-from-wind rudder to keep her straight. Eventually, you will be unable to hold the tail up any longer and it will sink gently onto the runway and the aeroplane will roll to a halt with the flying controls now very crossed - the stick fully forward with full into wind aileron and full away from wind rudder.
In 2005, when I made a return to flying (after a break of forty five years!) and after getting my PPL back I decided to get my taildragger skills back also. Obviously, I now had to re-learn cross wind landings.
I was now taught to land cross wind using the method of stalling the aeroplane on putting down the into-wind main wheel and the tail wheel first, (a method which incidentally I had never even seen, or even heard of, before). I asked my instructor if I could relearn my accustomed wheeler landing, and the instructor, (an ex-military pilot who had spent his entire air force career on jets,) just walked away without replying. So, I did as I was told and used the method I had now been taught. A few weeks later, I had my very first ever ground-loop!
I am not saying the sole cause of the ground-loop was 'two pointing' the aeroplane, as other factors were at work on that occasion also, not least of which was being hit by a gust of wind funnelled between two nearby hangars, but I certainly believe the two point landing method contributed to the development of the ground-loop by removing some of the rudder authority, as with the tail down part of the fin would have been masked by the forward fuselage because the aircraft was now in a landing attitude.
I believe that if that gust had caught me during a wheeler landing, while my nose was still level it would have been that much quicker, after getting full power back on, to accelerate to flying speed, and do a go-round.
I have the clear impression that many present day instructors, (both ex-military and civil trained,) lack the ability to teach the wheeler landing, perhaps being afraid to teach low-hours private pilots, to brush the ground with their mains and then push the stick forward, while still having flying speed during the resulting ground roll, for fear of grounding the prop.
Whoever you go to, make sure you are trained properly. You need to come away feeling confident about landing cross wind using a wheeler landing. I suggest you should ask, before commencing training, whether the wheeler will be part of your training: if not, or if they try to tell you it is not necessary, walk away.
Good luck with your training.
BP.