Tail Wheel Endo!
 

Anyone who hasn't tried, go give it a go!

Just got my endorsement over the past couple days:ok:, after a few years of thinking about it.. harder then what i was expecting, and aircraft demands constant attention! keep the stick back, keep it straight! :ok:
looking fwd to another go at it soon!

Good stuff! Citabria or?

Yeah I haven't got mine yet. Still on the "training wheels", although I intend to get my endorsement one day. I'd be interested if people view this list as correct:

Advantages:
- Feel like a "real pilot" (tm)
- 2-5 kts faster aircraft
- No nosewheel to collapse on dodgy strips
- Land on shorter strips (?)

Disadvantages
- Poor visibility in taxi
- More difficult to handle on the ground & takeoff
- Ground looping can f--- your aircraft [my biggest worry]

Yep, citabria. Had enough fun in her that i wann atry some aeros now.
I think i have caught the flying bug again.

When I did mine (Citabria) it was the most fun I have had in the circuit since first solo :}

I agree with propelled.. If you haven't flown a tailwheel yet, get your bum into one!!

Hey shagpile,

Biggest advantages i have noticed during the training was that it makes you to be more precise with general flying/approach speed/stick&rudder etc.. And am sure these new found skills will carry over into regular tricycle types also..
Need to be right on the speed crossing the fence so it stalls just above the rwy for the 3 pointer, cant force it down or it will just bounce of those springy legs it has..
I guess the main reason taildraggers are great for bush strips is because of the prop clearance over the ground?
Still a bit of work to do on the wheel landing technique.. Found that one harder, so thats the next challenge..

Shagpile, your list will need to be refined, depending on what you will fly.
I haven't flown a Husky for years so no longer operate on dodgy fields.
No flaps either so no short strips.
Faster? Faster than what?
Some TW types have good visibility over the nose, if not you deal with it - eg if you can see the runway then you won't be landing on it.
Difficult - not if you use the correct technique and never relax.
Ground loop can ruin your day but nosing over may be a bigger risk.
A "real" pilot - well, I'd just comment that most of the interesting fun airplanes have tailwheels. You could probably wear a flying suit without being laughed at.

Nice - yes it's definitely on my todo list to get TW endorsement.

I guess I've heard just as many nose-over horror stories as ground loops, so you can argue either way. Prop clearance is a definite plus.

I was meaning TW vs NW speed on the same aircraft type. e.g. RV8 vs RV8A.

I've just been signed off to use a Tigermoth, you can add to that list ' not being able to see a damn thing past the PAX head" ,it's almost like a sixth sense that the PAX seems to put their head in exactly the same place as you ,no matter which side your looking out of.
And Yeh, the nasty taildragger has turned me into an aeroplane tragic again, the most interesting aircraft do have the little wheel at the tail end!

Absolutely the way to go!

350-odd tailwheel hours and I am far from mastering it. It can bite you, especially on bush strips or when you're being a bit lazy, but they are a lot of fun. Want a tailwheel challenge? Try a Pitts :ok:

A Pitts is on the to do list, just getting my weight down and in control so I can do a check ride with a mate, who also is doing the weight loss/healthy kick.
Was chatting to a fella with a C185 (and about 300hours in it)and he'd asked a more experienced 185 pilot when he could expect to relax a bit on final, the answer , never! The bitch will bite you the moment you do !
Met

You are all talking of course, about "conventional" wheel aircraft.:) Try a Sonex, (after the Citabria), before you wreck somebody's Pitts.

BTW, the landing's not over until the aircraft is tied down.

you haven't flown! ;)

Can't see me bothering with a sonex, apart from not knowing anyone with one and being 6'3 I doubt I'd fit in one. And yeh , I'm pretty sure we're talking about conventional gear aircraft although no one has used that term ! And I'm pretty sure the owner of the Pitts won't let me loose with it till I'm reasonably in control of his aircraft , but you just never know ! So thanks for the advice frank ,I'll take it on board!

I own a Sonex and I used to be 6' tall before I got old. It will do aerobatics in America, but apparantly Australian air is different so not allowed here. I have full leg room and heaps of head, elbow, room, and some luggage space. Oh and I'm 100KG. 112KTS @ 15 LPH AUW.

The Sonex, being a short fuselage small control input aircraft, I would suggest you think about things like this before strapping on a Pitts.

If you want to fly one, PM me. I also have an Auster if you really want a challenge.

With metalman's experience he won't have any problems landing the Pitts. Of course the two-seater is like a truck compared to the single seater. Normal transition to the Pitts is after some solo in the Decathlon then some back seat circuits where you also don't see much out the front. Phil does tailwheel endorsements in his Pitts.
Glide (we don't normally use that word for a Pitts) approach - on downwind with the wingtip on the runway centreline - abeam the numbers close the throttle and turn.
However, metalman may not like the flat inverted spins etc that I consider a mandatory part of a Pitts check-out.

Tail wheels are fun but you need big wheels to really make the most of it!!!

Sort of right, a little bit bigger wheels (Mebe 800's) are good. The rooly big wheels do have an advantage in extreme conditions but most don't use the advantage. A lot of the yanks fly off tar strips with "Tundra tyres" and think they have to have huge wheels just to land on grass.
You don't need huge wheels to water ski (I'm told).
There is a fair bit of bullsh!t that goes along with the "Tailwheel" thing.
Frinstance in all but the very extreme conditions a 182makes a more versitile aircraft than a 180, lands and takes off in the same distance, more inside room, faster and will work off all but the roughest strips.
Tailwheel flying is good fun but rooly not that hard, girls do it so how hard can it be? What it does do is make you a better pilot by using the footrests on the floor more.
There's something I haven's seen done with a nosewheel, come to think of it I haven't seen it with a tailwheel before either.

Frank, be careful what you offer, I am severely addicted to these damn machines, if you happen to be in Victoria I will take you up on the offer, I'm getting my Kitfox type regoed this month and will be making a pest of myself at airfields state wide so PM me some time !

I recently did my Tailwheel Endo in a Tiger Moth as well, more fun than you can poke a stick at!

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?