Hi again Rv:
Maybe the problem is you were trying to land it the wrong side up, Down Under??
Thanks for the reply, there are several 150 tailwheel conversions here in this part of canada. Some of them have the same handling problems you described, there are two really signifigant problems with these conversions. The most serious being improper toe in / toe out adjustments. The STC that I have on my Aerobat is the last that came out of aircraft Conversion Technologies in California and it is a superb conversion with the long gear and very explicit instructions for wheel alignment. Toe in and toe out must be done with Cessna wedges.
Anyhow as far as I know I have the only Aerobat Tail dragger in Canada I did the conversion myself and for what I want it for it is a lot cheaper than any other little tailwheel areobatic airplane I can find. ( Aerobatic with limitations. )
The Cessna 170 is as you say an excellent trainer I remember flying one of the first to arrive at our airport in 1954, after the Cessna 140 the 170 was really a leap foward.
When I train pilots on different airplanes such as tailwheel and large flying boats I use a video camcorder to video all the approaches and landings.
After the flight it is worth a thousand words to stop the video just when they start to go wrong in a fuc..d up landing. What I do is give them a laser pointer to point to exactly where they were looking and ask them to tell me what they were thinking at that precise moment.
It is flat out the best training aid I have ever used, I got the idea from teaching pilots to land the PBY without getting into porporsing due to incorrect pitch attitude and been using it for years. It is real easy to set up in the Cessna and I control it with the remote, works like a damn.
Then when they finally get it right I let them watch XXX movies on it as a reward.
Nice chatting with you and may run into you next year Down Under.
Cat Driver:
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The hardest thing about flying is knowing when to say no.