Tailwheel Training: Lesson 1 HOBBS 670.0 hrs

My trusty steed, 160hp 2005 Citabria Adventure, N214LH

The highlight of this weekend was the fact that I started my tailwheel training. Let me tell ya, it was exciting...adventurous and a hoot! I had a blast!...and was humbled, all at the same time. It became readily apparent, flying a taildragger is a different world.

Throughout this process, I will blog about my experiences of becoming a tailwheel pilot. You can see, much as with my builder blog, what its like through my eyes to take this journey. Strap in, clear prop!...I hope you enjoy the ride. :)

Leading up to this lesson I had spent some time preparing myself with some ground school. Sean Blair loaned me two instructional DVD's that I watched (big thanks to Sean). The first was Tailwheel Essentials, and the second was Tailwheel 101. I considered Tailwheel Essentials to be adequate, but Tailwheel 101 is highly recommended with very useful and intuitive explanations (although I didnt get this one watched before this lesson...I watched it last night). I also supplemented these DVD's with the late Sparky Imeson's book Taildragger Tactics.

Sparky was a 20,000 hr local pilot that specialized in mountain flying instruction, I was fortunate to have met him at one of his seminars, he was a character with great stories and I can only imagine he was a good pilot and instructor, although I never had the privilege of flying with him. But, I will say, as knowledgeable as he is about the subject matter, being an author is not his strong point. Its still a good book just because of the knowledge base...but you just have to get around his writing style and organization, or lack thereof (or maybe that's just me?...I'm kind of picky about such things).

With all of this new knowledge crammed into the ol' noggin, it was a good point to start flying. You can only go so far with ground school...the flying is where it will actually start to make sense. I am taking my training at Boulder municipal airport (BDU) at Specialty Flight Training, my instructor is Lyn Dague. Lonnie, the chief flight instructor (and owner I believe?) are good people and my dealings with them so far have been good.

The plane, as shown above, rents for $128/hr wet and Lyn's time is billed at $50/hr. Maybe a smidge more expensive than some places, but certainly within reason. During our discussions, Lonnie informed me that to actually be signed off to rent the Citrabria solo after I get my tailwheel endorsement, I need to satisfy two of three requirements that SFTI has in place for insurance reasons: 125 hrs TT (which I have), 25 hrs tailwheel and 15 hrs in type.

So, it looks like I will be flying with Lyn beyond just getting my endorsement up until I get 15 hrs in type. I wasn't expecting this and hadn't budgeted for it, but I will squeeze it in. No worries, its still time in the logbook and great experience...and the extra 5 hrs with Lyn (I had budgeted 10 hrs) will only be a $250 cost adder. Lonnie did offer a nice little nugget however, he said I can combine training as I build my 15 hrs. Awesome, I will add a mountain checkout (yes, we have actual mountain flying instruction here in the Rocky Mountains and I highly recommend it to 'flatlanders') and a CFI spin endorsement. These are both items I had planned to add to my training anyhow, so it will work out well.

Now lets talk about the lesson. The original plan was to do some airwork so I could get used to the plane. Typical stuff...slow flight, stalls, steep turns, etc. Well, in a very rare occurrence for us here in Denver, we had 2100 ft. ceilings the morning of my lesson. No stalls on this day...we wouldn't be able to get high enough to safely conduct them. Of course, we did have enough room to do some pattern work so we moved to plan B.

I did my preflight, strapped into the front seat with the 5 point seatbelt harness and Lyn walked me through some of the details of the cockpit. I started her up and she roared to life and purred like a kitten...I was instantly falling in love like only a pilot could understand. :) As the flight progressed I liked this plane more and more. Very responsive throttle and aileron control. The elevator stick forces, however, were quite high--much, much higher than the Diamonds and probably a little more than the Skyhawk as well. If you were severely out of trim, I would guess it would be very difficult to maintain control of the nose because of these high stick forces...I filed that tidbit away in my memory.

Taxing a taildragger with calm winds, such as we had, is not much different than a tri-gear. The biggest difference being that you dont have as much forward visibility in the taildragger (TD). The Citabria has a fairly flat deck angle for a TD, so its not too bad. S-turns were not required. The other big difference is your stick position...full aft (in calm conditions), in your gut to keep the tail down, is the way to go in a TD. Its a new habit that needs to be formed for this type of flying.

We taxied into position on the active runway for takeoff. Now things start to drastically change from the Tri-gear environment. Line up on center line, directional control is everything when flying a TD, and cant be emphasized enough so starting on the center line is important. Gradually apply full power in about a 3-5 second time span. Stick back initially...as we start our roll, relax pressure on the elevator and the plane will gravitate toward the trimmed takeoff position. When you feel the tail wanting to come up...then slowly add forward stick to help the tail up into the air. Continue to accelerate in this position and then pull back to break the surly bonds. Sounds pretty simple eh? And, for the most part, it is.

However, be beware, when you raise the tail (if you do it too quickly it will be pronounced), the gyroscopic forces from the prop will give you a left turning tendency so you need to feed in some right rudder to counteract this. Much different and pronounced than a tri-gear. I, of course, forgot this on my first takeoff and swerved to the left before catching it. Doh! This was my first indication that things are gonna be different in a TD. I was now introducing myself to the rudder pedals for really the first time in my aviation career...by the end of the lesson we were well on our way to developing an intimate relationship. ;)

We would be doing full stall, 3 point landings for this lesson. Although the POH lists approach speeds of 60-70 mph for the 7GCAA, Lyn wanted me to come in at a conservative 75 mph. That seemed a little fast to me for 3 point landings as the plane stalls at 51 mph according to the POH. But hey, what do I know? So, 75 mph it was, although I still think it was too fast.

I soon learned that, to actually nail a 3 point landing is plenty difficult as all three gear should touch at exactly the same time in a full stall to be perfectly executed. That, my friends, takes some good aviating as your pitch attitude and the timing of your level off are crucial. I kept hitting my main gear first in what would've actually been a good landing in a tri-gear, only to find out that wasn't good enough in a TD. The touchdown of the mains was followed by my tailwheel kerplopping down shortly thereafter. Followed by ballooning back into the air because of the increased angle of attack and then settling back down again...bounce, bounce...to do it all over again! Woohoo! It reminded me of my rodeo days, it was like sitting on the back of a mean ol' bucking bull with a bad attitude! :)

And, there again, was that rudder thing. The first few landings, as we started to slow down the plane on the ground roll, it would start to veer one way or the other like it had a mind of its own. I was too subtle with my rudder inputs to stop the drift before Lyn helped me. I was allowing the aircraft to control me instead of the other way around. One side of the runway to the other it seemed! Poor Lyn was probably scared to death!!! haha! Or maybe he's seen this hundreds of times over the years? I soon learned, and Lyn reinforced (as did my DVD's), that as the plane slows down, you will need bigger rudder inputs because of the decreased amount of air going over the rudder. It took me a couple times to get this through my head...my rudder inputs were too small to change course as needed. But be careful, as you accelerate, its the opposite...smaller rudder corrections are needed.

As we progressed through 1.1 hrs of HOBBS time and 10 touch and goes, I was steadily improving. Although I never managed an actual 3 point landing, I was getting much better at wheel landings as I salvaged my botched 3 point attempts. My directional control was markedly improved by the end of the lesson. Toward the end I was actually doing a tap dance with the rudders on short final to kind of get my mind ready for...rudder, rudder, rudder. Small rudder inputs...left, right, left, right...all the while flying straight. It reminded me of running in place during my HS football days...same motion. That little exercise was a huge help (and described quite nicely in 'Tailwheel 101'...I hadnt watched this video before this lesson darnit) and I highly recommend it. I think I inadvertently had stumbled upon the famed, "rudder dance", when I did this exercise. It was the lightbulb moment of the first lesson.

One other thing I wanted to bring up. The 7GCAA Citabria has no flaps, which took some getting used to. In light of this, forward slips are an essential tool to have in the aviators toolbox. I am actually a big fan of slips and feel pilots nowadays don't use them nearly enough. Its an 'old-school' tactic that should be revived. Being cross-controlled close to the ground scares a lot of today's pilots I think. But a slip is nothing to be afraid of when done properly...always keep the nose down and never use bottom rudder (skid), always top rudder.

So, anyway, I do slips quite often in the Diamond and thought I was fairly good at them. The first one I attempted in the Citabria wasn't a very good one to put it bluntly...with its much bigger fuselage, it behaved quite differently than the Diamond. Consequently I quickly aborted my feeble attempt as I didn't feel comfortable with it. As we came back around on downwind I mentioned this to Lyn in the backseat that I wanted to practice some slips at altitude on the on next lesson to get a feel for it in the Citabria. He said, "well let me show you one." He instructed me to purposely come in high on final and then let him have the controls...which I did.

He then proceeded to do a left slip that was so drastic it actually made me uncomfortable! :) I was looking out the side window at the approach end of the runway and it seemed like we were crabbed at a 45 degree angle! haha! "Dang" I said to Lyn, "now THAT is a slip!" He kinda chuckled from the backseat and said "yep." Did I mention that Lyn is "old-school"? I don't want to guess his age, but suffice it to say, he has been doing this awhile. He probably learned to fly in a time when slips were second nature to pilots because of non-existent or marginally effective flaps on the planes of that era. He must've had full rudder deflection or nearly full rudder fed in to get that flight attitude. I have some learning to do when it comes to slips...dont be shy, I had never experienced a slip like that....wow!

To sum it up. I really enjoyed the crap out of this first lesson and cant wait for the next one. But as I said at the outset, it was humbling, I have a lot to learn. A tri-gear aircraft will let you get away with sloppy aviating, a TD will not. There is no way anyone can argue that becoming a TD pilot doesn't make you a better aviator. If someone clings to that argument, I would guess they have never flown a TD? It doesn't take super human skills by any means, it just takes much more precision and attention. Exactly why I wanted to become a TD pilot to begin with....I am not disappointed in my choice.