I am now a tail dragger pilot!

After last Monday's performance I was a little bewildered about this endeavor, and was even wondering if I would be able to get comfortable enough to be able to call my self a tail dragger pilot. John had tentatively scheduled us for this past Wednesday, but the entire State was engulfed by heavy rains pretty much all day Wednesday, and the bird needed a new tailwheel as well, so we opted for an early morning flight on Saturday.

Today was one of those days that reminds you why I live where I do. I awoke to a gorgeous sunrise full of pinks, blues, purples and reds filling the cirrus-laden clouds above. THe winds were forecast to remain below 10 knots out of the south - just what the doctor ordered.

We preflighed the plane (the new tailwheel looks great John!) and we were off and running by about 7:00am. WInds were favoring runway 17 L. John had me do two 3 point landings to start with, and these were not super good, but good enough. Then we did the wheel landings - The first one was spot on - just enough power added to allow me to fly the plane all the way down. Then before I knew it, we kissed the runway with that ever familiar "chirp" of the main wheels, without feeling any side load or even vertical load in the seat of my pants. Then it was power off and stick forward to plant the wheels firmly on the surface - could not have been a better landing IMHO. Then I tried one more - probably leveled out a bit too high and did not add enough power to compensate, but the landing was still do-able, so I stuck it on the runway after a bounce or two and finished the landing on two wheels without any problems.

We finished up with a full stop 3 point landing on runway 10 - a rare occurance for Centennial airport, but traffic was light so ATC had no problem clearing us for 10. The last time I saw an approach by an aircraft to runway 10, was the first of two Presedential visits by O-butthead to the Denver area, when the secret service brought their jet in low and fast as I watched in amazement from my office window. Never seen a jet approach and land on that runway before.

Anyway, after .7 hours, John gave me a pat on the back and a well done. Feels pretty good to beat the demons and regain the feeling that you are in total contol of the airplane. John asked if I wanted to take her around solo a couple of times, and told hime I would wait till later. I just wanted to bask in my success for a while I guess.

Here is my endorsement that allows me privilege of operating aircrqft with conventional landing gear (planes with tailwheels for the none-aviation minded folks). I got 'er done in 10.8 hours over about a 3 week period of pretty consisten flying. Your mileage may vary on several factors.

 

As a closing note, all I can say is that I feel very nostalgic right now, knowing that I am now in the company of many other pilots that came before me - from the days of the Wright brothers and the infancy of powered flight, through WWI and WWII, and up to present day conventional aircraft. From Sopwiths to P-51s, to DC-3s, Citabrias, Cessnas, and so on. As John put it to me a while back - you are doing something that not a lot of other pilots know how to do today. I am sure I will continue to reflect on American aviation history as the rest of this day passes, and lazily comes to rest with another beautiful Colorado sunset on a beautiful Fall day.

Now I guess it is time to get back to building an airplane - an RV-8 (that's not an 8A)! Taildraggers here I come!

Will teach you how to fly this airplane for cheap....

Would YOU want to learn how to fly fromTHIS flight instructor? Actually, I would. This is John in a stellar "real life" pose, just prior to our Saturday departure last weekend to terrorize the skies over Erie/TriCounty (EIK) and Longmont Airports (LMO). At that point I had about 3.3 hours remaining to be "eligible" for my tailwheel endorsement. This was a rare late morning/afternoon flight for us, with the majority of the flights thus far being very early morning flights to accomodate work schedules and availability and such.

Then there is even the more rediculous looking student (aka me). Bet you are wondering how a big guy like me can fit in a tiny airplane like that. Well, lets just suffice it to say that John gets a good chuckly watching me maneuver my way into the cockpit. Definitely a tight squeeze, but I manage. So ignore the ugly guy in the below photo - nice plane though, eh?

We burned about 2.4 hours on the Saturday flight, and another hour today. The original plan was to travel to Platte Valley as well. Unfortunately I was (and still am) in a bit of a plateau in my ability to confidently handle this airplane in a variety of different conditions, and so I had some difficulties at Tri-county and again at Longmont that I later attributed to mishandling the rollout and flare attitude by raising the nose just a bit too much before allowing the airspeed to bleed off just a bit before executing my 3 point landings. When John told me that the runway at Platte Valley was even less wide than the taxiway at Tri County, there was just no way I was even going to attempt that landing.  I managed to salvage the last landing back at Centennial, but I was just not happy with the landings at all.

So with .9 hours of "eligible"  time remaining, John was gracious enough to schedule an afternoon flight with me this evening. Well, the forecast winds for this evening were supposed to be light and variable, and don't ya know that ya just can't trust a forecast very much. The winds turned out to be direct crosswinds of 9-12 knots, and they pretty much beat me to a pulp tonight.

So what have a learned? I learned why you don't let the tailwheel stay up forever during a wheel landing in heavy crosswinds. I learned that I need to remember to take the power out during my wheel landings (something I seem to keep forgetting to do), and I learned the hard way what happens when you forget to allow the speed of the airplane to build up fast enough to depart the runway smartly on a crosswind takeoff. All very stupid mistakes on my part - and ones that I know better than to commit. The airplane is pretty much kicking my butt during landings at this point. Not very fun lessons to learn, to say the least, but lessons that must be learned to conquer this type of flying.

Personally, I don't think that a private pilot has as hard a time as I am having while trying to nail this down. Once you possess the type of flying experience that I have accumulated over the years, you have a certain degree of very high expectations of yourself. While John is always quick to remind me not to beat my self up too much, the fact of the matter is that I always have hight expectations of myself at this stage of my flying career - both as a pilot and a flight instructor. And when I don't live up to those expectations, it weighs quite heavily on me.

So am I giving up at this point? Nope. Just need to keep getting back on the saddle until I finally get it figured out. My measuring stick of success is quite simple. I just need to prove to myself that I can spend just one lesson performing landings of different types where the outcome of the directional control during each takeoff or landing is never in doubt. I ain't ashamed to say it, but right now I am a little afraid of this airplane and what it can do to me if I screw up too much. I just have to get over that somehow.....

Anyway, here are some more fun photos of our journey to front range a while back.

and finally John calling for fuel.....

Tailwheel Lesson 6 - Shorts and Softs and Sim Engine Failures

First off, I gotta tell all of yas that are checking out my daily survival posts during the adventurous undertaking I have committed myself to, that Ron Duren has pretty much taken the words right out of my mouth in his posts from a year ago during his tailwheel baptism. His descriptions are alos a bit more eloquent than mine, so feel free to travel to his blog and search under tailwheel training if you need more info about this.

As the title implies, today's mission was more pattern work to cover short and soft field takeoff and landing procedures, and to perform a simulated engine failure while in the pattern. We were about the only plane in the sky except for countless numbers of departing jets on the parallel runway this morning. So no traffic to worry about, just wake turbulence from all those heavy jets, which did not turn out to be much a factor.

What was a bit of a factor for me today was the wind situation. Tower reported winds calm, ATIS reported winds out of the southeast at 4, and my weather briefing from flight service indicated that winds were out of the southwest at about 9 knots. SO what is poor tailwheel pilot to do under such circumstances. Answer - feel the airplane's response and respond to what it tells you during each phase of flight.

I also received an intersection clearance on runway 17L that I had NEVER received before after some 27 years of flying out of this airport. Lots of strange things happening in todays airport environments. Anyway, First takeoff was pretty good, and around the pattern we go. First landing was a 3 point and slightly tail low but a gentle touchdown. SO far so good.

Then John wanted me to experiment with the approach speed a bit and hold my altitude a bit longer before descending to the runway. I ahve normally been using 70 MPH on final and this speed works pretty well for me. The specialty landings always call for a slightly slower airspeed. IN this case the Citabria manual calls for short field landing speed on final of 60 MPH. The second approach required a slip which was giving me a bit a problem because of the changing wind directions all over the pattern. On downwind the wind was out of the southwest requiring about a 20 degree crab to hold my line, then on final the wind shifted to the southeast just a bit - very strange. Then on the roll out it would seem to drop to almost nothing or shift to straight down the runway.

Anyway, the slip and wind and the different airspeed assignment all kind of piled up on me to the point that the airplane touched down the second time and rapidly departed for the runway edge. John let me dig my way out of it, which thankfully I did, but I was fairly disgusted and a bit rattled afterward.  To this moment I still do not fully understand why the airplane did that, but most likely it means that the airplane was probably not aligned totoally down the runway to begin with, or it became that way during my roll out. Either way when the tailwheel contacted the runway off I went. The lesson to learn here was to pay attention to the direction of the airplane immediately adn take corrective action IMEDIATELY to keep it where you want it. RUDDERS RUDDERS RUDDERS!

We did most of these as rolling touch and goes. Next pass I was told to fly at 60 MPH per the manual and aim for the numbers as my touchdown point (a spot or precision landing). On about a quarter mile final we both decided that 60 MPH was way too slow and the controls were way too mushy, so we opted for 65 instead, which was better.

The simulated engine failure was started on downwind. Always love that when the instructor says "you just lost your engine, and I have the throttle!" A quick turn to base and slip and no problem getting down to the runway to land, but the landing went to crap once again. My last landing was interesting in that I executed another 3 point landing but started my roll out a tad too high. The airplane stopped flying and came down on all three wheels without a single bounce. Would ahve been perfect as a carrier landing in a Corsair or something similar. A little to harsh for a Citabria.

So I was not very satisfied with my performance today, nd right now I am still a bit concerned about the occasional problem I keep havng with rapid departures to the side lines. Afterward we discussed this problem a bit, and John reminded me to use my peripheral vision off to the sides of the nose instead of focusing down the runway over the nose of the airplane. 

6.7 hours logged so far, on the way to 10 to satisfy the club checkout requirements, but I may need more if I cannot satisfy myself that I can maintain positive directional control enough to keep from rapidly departing to the edge of the runway every so often.

Anyway, I have a couple of days to mentally prepare, and I expect to overcome my deficiencies on the next flight. All for now.

Tailwheel lesson number 5 - Starting to get the Wheel Landings down

Had a nice break for the holiday and embarked on the annual Dove hunt once again. The weather out there turned out to be much nicer than the weather in Denver, and we had a great time. Saturday was opening day, and almost everyone limited out within  a couple of hours. This hunt has taken place across 3 generations of family over the past 40 years, and has become somewhat of a tradition over the years. I even let junior drive the car on the county roads, and he did great. Top that off with feasts on both Saturday and Sunday night that consisted beef brisket, Dove cabobs marianated in 3 different sauces, potatoe salad, carrot cake, Sweet corn from Olathe Kansas (The absolute best there is in my opinion), and so on.....

I have always had dreams of being able to fly my airplane to and from the hunting grounds, with all my gear safely packed inside. Several builders with similar interests have also outfitted their airplanes to be able to carry hunting, fishing, and camping gear. Mine will have to do all that AND also haul my guitar and the ocassional Radio Control airplane or two, which I plan to enter in various RC competions and fly-ins all over the country when I retire. Hmm. I may need that RV-10 after all.

Anyway - today it was back to flying the Citabria to see if I could get those pesky wheel landings figured out. It was a beautiful cool and still morning, and the airplane just wanted to blast off and fly to the stars it seemed. I initially had a little problem with dancing a bit too much on the rudder pedals after the main wheels touched down, but after a couple more I started to get the hang of it. We mixed in a couple of 3 point landings and called it a day. I am getting more and more comfortable with the plane during each flight.

It was already busy at the airport by the time I was ready to takeoff at about 0630 this morning. A stinson was already up performing close quarter short final slips to landings on runway 35L, and we were instructed to switch over to the alternate tower frequency - yet another sign that aviation may be starting an upswing in activity. I certainly hope so. Centennial Airport used to be a consistent contender for 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place in the number of total operations, and the ranking as the busiest general aviation airport in the nation.

There is nothing like watching the sun rise against a lazy, red adn pink colored Colorado sky, while you crank up the engine and slip the sirly bonds of the earth. Fall is defnitely  great time to be in Colorado. I am scheduled to fly tomorrow and again on Sunday - still trying to knock out the 10 hours I will need for the check out. Just need to polish some things up now, and I would like to try to find some gusty or variable crosswind conditions to really test my skill. My instructor John told me today that "your really are a pilot." That made me feel pretty darn good. We'll see if I earn the same praise after tomorrow....

Tailwheel lesson 4 - A bit of a struggle today

So the plan was to introduce me to wheel landings today. I was a little more tired than usual this morning, and I had a rough night after eating something that obviously did not agree with me yesterday. That said, I felt well enough to try to tackle another flight in the Citabria, which I enjoy flying more and more each day.

It started out with what I think was a trainee ground controller on the radio. We had clearance to taxit to the C1 taxiway next to runway 10 to do our engine runup, and then I called back to ground to let them know that the runup was complete and we were ready to takeoff runway 10. He trying to tell me that I cleared to taxi back to the reamp, and then both me and my instructor got into another confusing discussion with him about because he kept clearing us to taxi to park, when I expected him to tell us to monitor toweer frquency. After we finally got that cleared up we were cleared to take off runway 10 and the plan was to remain in the traffic pattern for runway 17R. I was also aware via notams I received during my briefing from flight service that the other primary runway at KAPA (17L and 35R) was supposed to closed,  but apparently learned that this was not going to happen until 7:30, so we had time to get a few landings in.

The plan was to do one or two 3 point landings to get warmed up, and then we would start working on the heel landings. Winds were slightly out of the southeast at a bout 4 knots, so not too bad of a crosswind. My first landing pretty much sucked - landing was OK, but directional control afterward really sucked. THe second one turned out much better, so off we went around the pattern to start working on the wheel landings. The first step was to simply fly the plane level a couple of feet off the runway for a period of time to get used to the sight picture and speeds, etc. Once this was done we proceeded around the pattern for my first wheel landing attempt.

I approached the landing point, leveled out, added a little bit of power to arrest the descent, adn then got the first bounce of the landing gear, followed by power off, adn then came the fun part of pushing forward on the stick to adhere the wheels to the runway and not allow them to come back up. THis is where it all started going not so good. I could not get the muscle motor function down to reduce the power with one hand AND push forward _and I mean WAY forward on the stick to plan the wheels on the surface. I was a bit confused as to how to handle the slight bounce of the wheels - go around? let it settle again nad then apply the forward stick? So I ended up not getting the stick pushed forward quite enough and pretty much did not do that landing very well.

Then we tried another one and I still had the same problem. Then, just before the other runway was about to close, I was on one last takeoff run. the tail was up and I was about 5 MPH from lieft off speed when I saw a hawk from my right peripheral vision flying directly across the runway about 1 foot high off the ground - just high enough to impact the bottom part of the prop - or so I thought.  I had already had a conversation about this with my instructor when we first got started flying several days ago, adn I assured him that I would definitely go ahead and hit the animal and not try to serve to miss it. SO what did I end up doing? Exactly what I said I wouldn't/ I tried to swerve left jsut a bit to buy some time, and the next thing I know I am headed in a controlled manner off to the left side of the runway.. Thanks to John He got the power reduced and kept telling me to lower the tail since we still had enough room to abort the takeoff.

Man what an experience. There were other birds all over the place today - a very hazardous situation to say the least. I was totally unprepared for what happened. I guess it goes to show you that a bird of prey will stop at nothing to get to the morning breakfast poking it's head out of some hole in the ground at some distant location. Anyway, turns out we never did hit the hawk - but it was real close. At that point John asked if I wanted to try one more before we had to come in due to the runway closure, and I said I had had enough for one day. So we taxied her back to the barn. Then, as if to add insult to injury, I went outside to my car in the parking lot, where I was parked right next to a small patch of grass and a tree, UNfortunately the sprinklers was on full blast nad were completely engulfing my car with water. I only have a key to unlock the car - both remotes are toast, and there is only one door lock on the drivers side - you know - the one completely emersed with water.

Well, since I was in my work clothes for the day I was not about to dive in to the fray to get the door unlocked, so I just stood there and waited for the water to stop - 5 minutes, 10, 25, 20 minutes later they finally stopped and I was on my way to work. No that I am horribly supersticious or anything, but I ddid notice that there was a full moon out tonight as I was walking the dog - - just another tale tale sign of days that are sometimes better left to the birds.......

Anyway, I am not discouraged and will press on. Just a little disappointed in my performance, or lack thereof. John kind of gave me a boost when he said that with less than 5 hours of flight time I was already at about a 90% completion status for the rating. That made me feel pretty good. He also reminded me that I am embarking on something that not too many people do - becoming a taildragger pilot. When I ahve this under my belt I will be in the company of some relatively exclusive pilots out there. I have to keep reminding myself that I am currently in the process of fullfilling one of my lifelong dreams, and sometimes that is not an easy thing to do. We are both taking a break for the holiday and will hit it hard again next week.

Happy Labor Day everyone. Stay safe and stay sober if you are behind the wheel - or a joystick, or whatever. My training theme to work on for next week is:

Wheels touch tail up
power off
stick forward

Sounds simple, huh?

Tailwheel lesson 3 in the books - crosswinds!

To sum up this morning's flight - it was just plane FUN! Winds were out of the south this morning at about 10 knots, and APA was a bit busy - even at 6:00am in the morning. This means that runway 17 was already in use at APA, so not too much opportunity for good crosswind practice there on runway 28. I was actually encouraged by the amount of flight activity because it means that people are getting out there and flying again.

Unfortunately, we needed to find a good crosswind runway so that John could put me through my paces. So it was off to Front Range airport (KFTG), where the tower let us use runway 26 for a few landings. Crosswind takeoffs were pretty good. I am starting to get the rudder motor skills down a little better. I had also done a bit more reading and learned that the method to counteracting any swerving tendency is to maintain positive pressure on both rudder pedals, and recognize any turning tendency adn apply corrective rudder as soon as possible to arrest the turning tendency. The thing that I did not realize is that once the original turning tendency is stopped, you need to apply opposite rudder pressure to neutralize the possiblity that a turn in the opposite direction may occur. In short, you really have to pay attention to the directional movement of the airplane and take constant corrective action.

Another thing that I did today that helped eliminate the "sudden" left turn was to bring up the tail a bit slower than I did before. This, as far as I am concerned, made a huge difference for me. The airplane wanted to track more of a straight line, and I was able to arrest any turning tendencies fairly easily. The challenging part of today's lesson was that I also needed to work the aileron inputs and outputs during the takeoff roll to handle the crosswind as well. So the rudders, elevators, and ailerons all have to do the right thing at the right time to make it turn out the way it is supposed to.

I made a few pretty good cross landings today - I love touching down with no gear side loads and in a proper crosswind landing attitude, touching down on the upwind wheel first, followed shortly thereafter by the settling of the downwind wheel, with a little chirp or squeak when it meets the asphalt. Always I nice feeling to do any crosswind landing correctly - twice as nice to do it in a tailwheel airplane! I told myself just before my first landing that I would not allow the airplane to fly me, but I would fly the airplane. that is afterall what a pilot is supposed to do. If you end up letting one of these types of airplanes do what they want to do then your tailwheel flying career may indeed be a very short one.

We left KAPA with a slightly lower fuel capacity than usual, so we decided to land full stop and get some fuel from the self service fuel pump at KFTG. This was the first time I have ever used that pump - so it was good to learn how to do that as well. Then we had a cup of coffee and a cookie (the restaurant was not open yet), and then we hopped back in the plane and made our way back to KAPA, where John demonstrated a very nice wheel landing for me.

So can you guess what is on tap for tomorrow's lesson? Yup - wheel landings! I finally get to feel like that WWII fighter pilot that I have always admired. Wheel landings are simply landings on the main gear only, leaving the tail up until the speed dissipates enough to allow the tail to come down, at which time I resume control of the airplane via the tailwheel instead of the rudder. Good directional control and crsswind handling are essential for this type of landing, not to mention the ability to "stick" the wheels on the runway without bouncing. This is the landing that creates the WOW factor in all those WWII aircraft you see at the airshows and at Oshkosh.

I currently have 3.9 tailwheel hours logged. Sure feels like I should have a lot more.After every flight I have felt a bit mentally and physically exhausted. I guess I consider that a sign that I must be devoting the right amount of attention to everything while we are in the airplane. You need to operate these types of airplanes with the utmost attention from the time you do the preflight to the time you tie it back down again. You just can't let your guard down very much if you want to fly these airplanes correctly.

Aspen Flying club's insurance requirements are actually quite surprising to me. For folks with no tailwheel time they require 10 hours dual and a checkout in the plane. I have already told John that I won't even allow him to sign me off unless I feel like I have accumulated enough skill to feel comfortable operating the airplane in a variety of flight conditions.

I am gaining confidence with each flight lesson. That, combined with learning the feel and muscle motor skills that are required for such things as operating the rudder pedals and positioning the controls for crosswind handling, is making this a really fun and enjoyable experience. That said, tomorrow is the last lesson for while as we are approaching the long holiday weekend for Labor Day. Both John and I are committed to other plans over the holiday, so we will need to resume the training later next week. We will see how well I retain all this stuff after letting it settle for a few days.

All pilots flying out of KAPA tomorrow, watch out, cuz I will be terrorizing the skies yet again!

Lesson 2 for Tailwheel Endorsement - T-offs and Landings

Having been spoiled by my instructor for the first lesson when he handled the first takeoff and landing, we scheduled the second flight for early this morning. Folks that know me know that I am not a morning person at all, except when it comes to two things: hunting and flying. We met at the club at 6:00am and drove to the airplane. After the preflight and some fuel, we talked through the power and airspeed settings, and also had some discussion about slips, similar to Ron Duren's experience in his first couple of flights, since this airplane has no flaps or other devices to slow the airplane down.

With the runup complete, we taxied for takeoff onto runway 10 at KAPA. The first takeoff pretty much scared the hell out of me. I was going to use words like "humbled" and such, but the truth was I was not prepared for the amount of the left turning tendency due to gyroscopic precession and p-factor, nor was I prepared for how much right rudder is required to correct for it. The most noteable thing I took away from this experience was that the airplane will accelerate nicely and the tail will come up largely on its own, but the airplane will remain going straight down the runway until some point is reached several seconds after the tail comes up, and when it hits, the airplane just wants to go left in a big hurry. After seeing my life flash briefly in front of my eyes as I headed for edge of the runway, I managed to put in enough right rudder to get things going striaght ahead, and then the airplane wanted to fly. As the old avaition addage goes: "Flying is the easy part - its the takeoffs and landings that are hard." Sure wish I would have gotten a bit more warning about that. Oh well, now I knew.

Then we got up to pattern altitude. 2200 RPM adn 75 MPH were the target settings for downwind. Then the CGUMPPP check: Carb heat (if installed-NA for this airplane since it is fuel injected), Gas checked, Undercarriage checked, Mixture set, and finally Pumps (fuel in this case) Props, and Power Settings. Abeam the landing point I reduce to 1500-1800 RPM to start a 500 FPM descent, and trim to keep the same 75 MPH  for the remainder of the downwind. At the 45 degree point back to the landing point, the turn to the base leg occurs, and you trim to slow the airplane to 70 MPH. Then comes the turn to final and you keep it at about 65-68 MPH on a stabilized approach, which basically means that your landing point stays in the same position on the wind screen all the way down. I think for the first one or two landings I found myself needing to slip just a small amount to lose a little altitude. THis is cross controlled condition where the wing is banked in one directions while opposite rudder is appled, This basically makes the airplane fly forward in a sideways manner, and it introduces a whole lot of drag which makes the airplane lose altitude very quickly. Whne you are at your desired altitude, the controls are returned to their normal positions and the airplane straightens itself out for the remainder of the approach.

Now fo the first landing. I had expected that my instructor was going to demonstrate one more 3 point landing for me, but I guess he was so impressed with my approach that he decided to let me take it down "all the way!" as I reached short final with about 100 feet left to go I think I said something like " are you going to take it or let me do this?" He said - "you can take it all the way down." So here comes pucker factor number two. I focused on remaining on the center line of the runway, got down to about 10 feet off the ground, and started to level out. Then I gradually eased back on the stick as the airspeed bled off, and WOW! before I knew it, all three wheels were nicely on the ground with a minimum of bounce, and tailwheel landing number one was in the books as a huge success. Of course, there was little or no wind at this time..........

My instructor John told me that the landing was the best first landing he had ever seen anyone complete. Oh great, now my head is swollen with pride and confidence, so I will most certainly screw the next one up royally. Well, as it turned out, I think we did about 5 or 6 more takeoffs and landings, and it wasn't until I was good and fatigued and the end, and the crosswind started to pick up, that I royally botched the last landing. At least it wasn't so bad that I couldn't recover, but it was bad enough - kind of a repeat experience of the first takeoff, only this time being blown toward the edge of the runway to the right because I forgot to keep applying my control inputs into the crosswind. Humbled? To say the least -yes. Scared out of my britches for a second or two?Pretty much.

Except for the last one, all the other landings were pretty good. A little over rotation here and there during the flare on a couple of them but otherwise pretty much in the groove for a 3 point landing. I still have some work to do to figure out the correct timing and amount of rudder pressure to keep her flying straight down the runway on takeoff, but I almost had it worked out by the end of this lesson.

As for slipping the airplane, I found that this was not needed very much if you flew the proper airspeeds and power settings, and maintained a proper pattern. Slips are the exception and not the norm, when a loss of altitude is needed in a short period of time, when no other means of altitude loss is available such as power management, or flaps, etc.

As a flight instructor with my fair share of students under my belt, I can tell you without question that those students that go on to pursue a commercial pilot certificate are the ones that will truly understand how an airplane needs to be controlled to achieve a specific outcome. Another old aviation addage comes to mind: Those who are able to do what is necessary to obtain a Private Pilot Certificate are essentially given a license to continue to learn how to fly. They understand the basics of flying and navigating themselves through the air. Those who then decide to pursue a Commercial Pilot Certificate gain a specific understanding of the performance capabilities and limitations of an aircraft, and possess the necessary skills to make it perform exactly the way that you want it to. Those who receive an instrument rating gain the skills to smoothly and precisely fly the airplane with no outside reference to the ground or the air, or in other words, you learn how to fly the airplane with finesse.

If you fly a proper traffic pattern and are able to maintain precise control of your descent rate and airspeed, then you should not have to perform forward slips very often at all. OK - my instructor hat is back off now. Just had to get that out there...

Do I still wish to pursue this journey of piloting a tail wheeled aircraft - you bet I do. Do I now have a much greater understanding of what can happen if you let this type of airplane get away from you - you bet I do. When it is all said and done, all it takes is proper training and maintaining a certain level of proficiency, just like any other facet of aviation, with someone sitting in the back seat that is experienced enough to know how to keep you out of real trouble at any time during the training.

I'll have more about the build in the next post, but  a quick summary is that I needed to do a bit more research on conduit placement before I forged ahead. I was searching for a post on VAF that I was having a very hard time finding, but I finally located it yesterday... More to come..... Oh yeah, so guess what the next lesson is all about? Crosswind t-offs and landings! I can hardly wait!

The Tailwheel Endorsement Adventure Begins!

After some disappointing attempts to find an instructor and a tail dragger plane that I could use to start working on my tailwheel wheel transition training, it all finally came together today. I got my first ride in a Citabria on leaseback with Aspen Flying Club at Centennial Airport. My instructor is also part owner in the airplane - John Good. He is a really nice guy and I am looking forward to completing this next episode in my flying experiences with him.

We flew for 1.4 hours after an additional hour or so just spent getting familiar with the plane, prefight procedures, etc. This airplane has basic configurations that are similar to the RV - tandem seating for two, throttle on the left side, and a joystick in the middle. I believe it has a fuel injected IO-320 engine in it, and it is aerobatic capable. It is a tube/wood/and fabric covered airplane. After that, most everything else is just a bit different than anything else I have ever flown before. There are also no flaps on this airplane, so you have to work with power, pitch, airspeed to get this baby back on the ground correctly. The panel is anything but conventional, and there is no attitude indicator on this airplane (not required for VFR flight). From left to right, there is a VSI, Altimeter, Airspeed indicator, G-meter, Tachometer, and then the engine instruments. The fuel guages are in each wing root, and are float-based (not electric). It has only one comm radio and a transponder. It has a plugin for a handheld or portable garmin GPS, but no VORs. In short, this is really a VFR day, local-area airplane, which is just fine with me.

All of the avionics switches are are on the left sidewall behind my left shoulder, and some of the switches are very hard to reach from the front seat.  The mixture control is a push/pull knob with no verneer adjustment, and is located on the instrument panel. The startup procedure is the same as other fule injected lycomings, but it involves a rather awkard arm/hand positioning exercise where the right arm drapes around the joystick to hold the elevator in the up position during start, and then the left hand goes on the mixture control. The right hand crosses over the left arm to push the starter button (yes, I said button) - no keys needed to start this puppy.

So your arms are crossed up to get the thing started - a bit strange, but the procedure worked like a charm. I got her started with no trouble at all. WE then performed som basic taxi drills on an open part of the ramp with no other airplanes so I could get the feel of the throttle, power, rudder authority and braking action. That all went fairly well. The instructor did the takeoff and landing on this first trip, but I am already scheduled for  a next flight early tomorrow morning, and I imagine it won't be long before I will be performing those actions as well.

The plane was very tight to get in and out of. I will have to keep working on my technique for that. It has one of the smallest transponder control heads I have ever seen in any airplane. It has a multi-strap harness (not sure if it is a 4 or 5 point harness). Either way, it takes a bit to get all the straps hooked up and tightened down properly. This will be the same as the RV, which will also have a multi-point harness for each seat.

I can't even describe the feeling as we took off. WOW! The last time I had this experience was when I flew in the back seat of John Loretz' RV-8. The difference is that this time I was in the front seat. While the Citabria did not necessarily push me back in my seat when we began the takeoff roll, it accelerated cleanly and quickly to flying speed, and the tail came up in very short order after the takeoff roll began. One of the most amazing things I experienced on this flight was the way in which the instructor needed to manipulate the trim lever, which is right next to my left hip. He used his left foot to move the trim lever wherever he needed it while he as controlling the plane. I can't even imagine the amount of work it would take to train someone from the very beginning in an airplane like this. I have a newfound respect for those that instruct in these types of airplanes. No wonder they are so hard to find in a local flying club setting. If you have to work a bit harder adn stay a bit more proficient to fly one of these types of planes, then to instruct in one must require at least twice as much proficiency.

 I gotta admit - right now I am still all about building and flying a taildragger. Part of my dream is to come as close as possible to flying a WWII fighter airplane, and so the taildragger element is obviously a very important part of that. I may have to make some concessions about certain wind and weather conditions if I maintain that direction, but in my older years, being a chicken and waiting for the "better weather" days to fly is not such a big deal for me. Especially after already experiencing some of the most difficult flying there is while serving as a Civil Air Patrol Search and Rescue pilot for 26 years.

So now the hard work begins. I must be able to practice taking off and landing in a variety of cross wind conditions during this training to determine once and for all if I will continue to build my RV as a tail dragger or a nosewheel airplane.

I will provide pictures and maybe some video later on after I get a few more flights under my belt. The plan is to have my endorsement completed by mid September or sooner - time, weather, and airplane permitting. Sure felt good to get up in the air again!