Small wheel controversy!
Joined: Jun 2004
Posts: 208
Likes: 0
From: Dubai
Taildraggers offer operational advantages in certain very specific environments (undeveloped runways, ski flying and flying boats) , and are great for improving one's piloting skills. However, the majority of aircraft operations do not benefit from these characteristics, and are sensitive to the reduced directional stability during certain phases of ground operations. Its great that pilots might become proficient in taildraggers, they will be better pilots for it. Similarly, they will be better pilots for receiving aerobatic/instrument/multi engine/night/rotorcraft training too! Learn and practice every type of flying you can!
P-51 with a nosewheel? Nah.
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 1,434
Likes: 0
From: Scotland
Thread Starter
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 4,777
Likes: 9
From: Blighty
Tailwheels are very good indeed - for those skygods that can master them. Which was all the purpose for creating this thread, I reckon.
Avoid imitations
Joined: Nov 2000
Aviation Qualifications: ATPL
Posts: 15,116
Likes: 1,091
From: Wandering the FIR and cyberspace often at highly unsociable times
I was interested to find out why, when a club has such an experience available, why so few pilots want to try it.
About twenty five years ago I was offered a ride in a tail dragger, a Beagle Husky, by a private pilot with his own aircraft. He took off, then handed control to me. We flew around for a while (he wanted to take some photos) then he said it was time to go back and land. He told me I could land it, which I did. Due to a non-working intercom, I just got on with it. I three pointed it on the 400m grass runway.
He complimented me on the landing and asked me when I'd last landed a tail dragger. I told him the flight we'd just done was the first one I'd done. But I'm certainly no sky-god; I was instructing on military, nose wheel equipped SEPs at the time. Perhaps I just knew no better but I had been taught from a very early age that main wheels are for landing on and nose wheels are only for steering with after the landing is finished
Joined: Sep 2011
Posts: 359
Likes: 0
From: Vienna
I was interested to find out why, when a club has such an experience available, why so few pilots want to try it. There is an aircraft available, for the same cost as the PA28 which requires a slightly different set of skills, can fly aerobatics and spin. Yet, only a few people feel the need to try it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23NE8mushvc
Also, a PPL friend was/is in a similar situation: badly bitten by the tailwheel bug and delighted to have the opportunity to be one of very few to regularly fly a Cub. Then another not-so-regular user recently had a groundloop and scraped a wingtip (no real harm done though, apparently).
Joined: Sep 2016
Posts: 3
Likes: 0
From: Yorkshire
At the risk of sticking my head into the hornets nest I must agree with the original poster, as a relatively new pilot about (1 year/100hrs) I am already thoroughly bored of the standard club aircraft, they are simply dull to fly, to slow to take much further than a few hundred miles, a tail wheel at least takes work to fly.
(obviously before someone suggests it i'm most certainly not claiming to be anything above a distinctly average pilot)
(obviously before someone suggests it i'm most certainly not claiming to be anything above a distinctly average pilot)
Fleet Manager
Joined: Aug 2006
Aviation Qualifications: CPL
Posts: 7,090
Likes: 2,952
From: Ontario, Canada
Welcome Mav,
Generally, tailwheel aircraft offer a type of flying not so common for tricycle types. Sometimes it's speed, sometimes it's actually superior slow speed capability, or off airport, or alternate landing gear. But rarely is it more than one or two of these characteristics!
But, happily, every tailwheel aircraft will demand more of you as a pilot, and reward skillful flying with a greater sense of achievement, and simply fun!
Generally, tailwheel aircraft offer a type of flying not so common for tricycle types. Sometimes it's speed, sometimes it's actually superior slow speed capability, or off airport, or alternate landing gear. But rarely is it more than one or two of these characteristics!
But, happily, every tailwheel aircraft will demand more of you as a pilot, and reward skillful flying with a greater sense of achievement, and simply fun!
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 2,517
Likes: 0
From: Vancouver Island
It is a generational thing.
When I learned to fly there were only tail wheel airplanes to learn on so we had no idea they were so difficult to fly and thus they were not difficult.
By the way the PPL was a thirty hour minimum flying course then ...1953....a lot of us finished in the minimum thirty hours and went on to fly for decades with no problem.
However today's generation of flight instructors look on tail wheel airplanes as some kind of black magic machine and are afraid to fly them.
It is called " Ignorance "
When I learned to fly there were only tail wheel airplanes to learn on so we had no idea they were so difficult to fly and thus they were not difficult.
By the way the PPL was a thirty hour minimum flying course then ...1953....a lot of us finished in the minimum thirty hours and went on to fly for decades with no problem.
However today's generation of flight instructors look on tail wheel airplanes as some kind of black magic machine and are afraid to fly them.
It is called " Ignorance "
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 1,290
Likes: 289
From: Poplar Grove, IL, USA
Things have really gone downhill since they ditched the skids and put a wheel on the back. Pilot skill has generally degraded with the addition of the training wheel. We still have a few skid equipped aircraft here at C77- the way it should be.
