Tail high spins on ground with a tailwheel

[Sam Rutherford]

Any tips on how to learn this without going through a few props?


Can't find anything online (perhaps for a reason!).


Fly safe, Sam.

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

Tail high? Never risked that!

I used to sometimes spin the Chippy round and round in almost its own length (pivoting around a main wheel), a few turns one way, then the other. The joys of a fully castoring tail wheel! But I always held the stick hard back while doing it.

What aircraft do you want to do it in? Are you happy doing tail-up fast taxys? I used that a lot at Liverpool if there was a fair way to go on the ground. Tail-down taxying with associated weaving to see ahead is so much slower. I'd imagine what you want to do could be developed from tail-up taxying.

[Flyingmac]

Lift the tail on the brakes. Ease off on one brake. Rudder it round.

Practice in nil-wind conditions. On grass.

Replacement props are widely available.

[ETOPS]

Here's a vid of a guy who seems to have it sorted..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOZTzQrz014

Fast forward to the 3.00 minute mark :D

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

ETOPS, that's just a 180, not a spin (or 'twirl'?).

[Small Rodent Driver]

I used to park my cub by taxing into a space, holding the brakes and simultaneously feeding in power whilst pushing forward on the stick. As the tail lifted, I would slacken the brake in the direction I wanted to rotate and merrily pirouette to the desired heading. Never brave enough to lift the tail to a horizontal position against brakes though but given a larger pair of cahoonas and a larger bank balance I may have been tempted :)

[Mach Jump]

Saw someone do this in a Pitts once. Did a lovely twirl, and as he put the outside brake back on to stop it on the heading, tipped it onto it's nose. Couldn't have happened to a nicer bloke. We didn't laugh! :E


MJ:ok:

[ETOPS]

Hi V

Having watched a few of his other videos - I'm sure he could give us "twirl" :ok:

[9 lives]

I was trained to do this in the first Tiger Moth I used to fly, as it had only a wooden skeg, instead of a tailwheel. Just a co ordinated jabbing of nose down and power, with the rudder held. But that was a Canadian Moth, which has the main gear canted further forward. I did it a few times on the Piper Vagabond, but it really was not required, and a little un nerving...

A few times I have done this on skis in the 180, just to get the tail out of the deep snow, but no more aggressively than needed.

[Sam Rutherford]

Thank you for all the replies.


No 'keep it chocked and tie a barrel of cement to the tail' suggestions then?


That was my thinking to start?!


Part of the thinking with buying an Avid or Kitfox 'toy' is for maintaining (and creating) pilotage skills (if the new machine is going to be more of an AP IFR tourer then I think skill-fade in hand-flying will be pretty rapid).


Cheers, Sam.

[Piper19]

One of my taildragger instructors was so experienced that many times he was taxiing, the tail was in the air. Whether he was going straight or turning. It gave him better view looking over my shoulder, but he warned me never to try this. I followed his advice. He only let me do it while teaching takeoff; apply brakes, apply throttle, stick forward... got rid of the turning tendencies during takeoff roll.

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

Tail-up doesn't eliminate tendency to yaw on T/O. You still need that rudder!