Super Cecil you are right there. Tail wheel flying is not that hard, watch where you are going is the big thing I recon.
Like you say a 206/182 will take off shorter than a 185. So will a light 172 for that matter.
We use the big wheels because we do allot of off airport flying in our modified Pacer, other than that they just slow you down!! If you are going on airstrips or airports they are a waste of time. Horses for course I suppose.

As for water skiing we only use the water to land and sometimes take off, not keen on the high speed water stuff, bit pointless and dangerous I recon.

Oh, how naive :=

It ain't really, you just have to do it often enough to be proficient at it.
Practice and consolidation.
It was the norm once.

Just out of interest, what makes them such a challenge? Admittedly Ive never even seen one fly, but there is one in Wollongong and it looks pretty conventional. Always wanted to try one though... ;)

Sure are, although there are nicer aircraft, a C185 for instance would be my favorite ,but the DH82 has got oodles of character

You can't go past a Chipmunk if you want something nice to fly and a bit of fun. Certainly not the most difficult taildragger, but still good for learning basic "conventional gear" techniques.

Sorry, it's a truck. A very efficient one, but a truck nevertheless.

Roundsounds has it spot on when it comes to nice aircraft.

Pilot needs to have the agility and dexterity of a chimpanzee to operate the flaps, power, trim and attitude prior to landing. The flap handle is above the pilots left hand shoulder. The J1B had a stall of 28KTS and you need to get the numbers right to prevent a bounce, which is very difficult to repair and a go around is usually the best option. A long wing makes them prone to lifting the windward wing at low speed and your best option is to believe they have no crosswind allowance. In this case you are probably better landing across the airstrip. (they land in a cricket pitch). You are flying old technology which is noisy and requires care with engine management because parts are not always around when you need them. In closing, I believe if you can master an Auster you can fly anything. Oh, and the term brakes has no reason to be put in any sentence containing the word Auster. The 85KTS cruise may deter some. People have been reported getting nose bleeds.

I hope this helps.:)

Frank, I found it best just to land an Auster without worrying about all that other stuff :8

Also I should mention, they can fly without a pilot and they are difficult to shoot down. (ask The Navy). Indeed I saw one tied down, that was actually flying at the height the ropes would allow, and it landed itself in the three point attitude. So possibly the pilot is surplus to needs.

shiez it all sounds a bit complicated...

Never had any desire to fly em myself but ended up with a couple of thousand hours in all from cubs, 185's, beavers, porters & even a bit in that plane-on-kraik the Pitt's...

I was lucky and never got pushed into em before my time, the 185 I only felt comftable in after 50 hours or so (not a luxury for the private pilot im sure) but with the right training/mentorship/supervision its achievable in a reasnoble time-frame creating a well rounded stick'n'rudder handler...

...bit partial to havin another go in one now...maybe a DC-3...? pm me with offers...ha...:}

Yeh DC3 , that's on the bucket list for sure, pretty expensive for a PPL , and the opportunities are slowly being reduced. There is a couple in Melbourne though, it might happen yet!

50 years ago almost every student pilot would have gone solo in a Tiger or Chipmunk.
Time to solo was typically 10 hours. It seems that pilots who now learn with the training wheel at the front develop bad habits which are hard to unlearn.
Learning from scratch on a tail dragger would be the way to go, but I doubt there are any affordable flight schools that cater for this. Insurance probably kills it.

and pray tell, how many thousands of hours do you have on tail-draggers to make such a statement?

It's all to do with the Centre of Gravity being BEHIND the main wheels as opposed to nosewheel, where the CoG is in front of the mainwheels.

Pretty sure the Furies had no dramas getting it down again. The RAAF Meteors had the trouble.:}

Dogcharlie,
A bit.
Cheers.
185.

I agree that tail wheel flying is not hard. It simply means the pilot of a tail wheel aircraft needs to be actively involved in ALL aspects of the flying the aircraft near the ground. If you are a lazy pilot and relax in the ground environment with a tail wheel aircraft then you may very well get bitten. But actually continue to pilot the aircraft and guess what it ain't hard.

A perfect example is how many nose wheel aircraft do you see who upon landing immediately lower the nose wheel? Answer: The vast majority. Even when flying nose draggers you will see tail wheel pilots and also those who are not lazy pilots keep full back stick/column to aid in aerodynamic braking and to help slow the aircraft. It is simply good pilotage/airmanship. However most pilots at this stage sadly let the nose drop, and just "steer" the aircraft to the ground destination.

I learnt to drive an aeroplane on nose wheel aircraft and it wasn't until I learnt to fly tail draggers that I actually learnt to fly and pilot an aircraft. Those who have made this transition will know what I am talking about. Those that haven't will likely get all defensive.

But back to my first point. Tail draggers are not hard to fly/land or anything else. They just require you, the pilot, to actually be a pilot.

Cheers
CB

I'm with Dora-9....and....
If you really want to learn on a nice Chippy, then RACWA has the last Chippy being operated by an Aero Club in AUS.....
"The Poor Man's Spitfire".... So the book says....
:ok:

Obviously I'm the odd man out ;). I was tail-dragger trained by an aviator who had in excess of 13,000hrs on DC-3's alone. Not to mention Tiger Moths and Chippies. What he taught and instilled into me about tail-draggers I guess has been lost these days. I will now bow out of the conversation and leave it with the young-un's. :sad:

Dogcharlietree,

Yes, but is this any worse on an Auster, specifically?

I have about 350 hours on Citabria/Scout and 15 or so on the Pitts, with the odd few hours in a Tiger. Is the Auster more callenging than any of them?