Eddie Foy
MEMBER
How to fly a tail dragger
- Thread starter Eddie Foy
- Start date
BC12D-4-85
SPONSOR
Fairbanks, AK.
More L-19 > https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOBUKGDkWgVbWKFftJQptzA/videos
My first instructor was an ex L-19 op from late 60's SE Asia. Tim McBirney thank you for your patience time help. Later he crashed during a mid-air flying a Wright Air Helio floatplane near Fairbanks AK. Never have let it go. Never will. Other C-185 survived and was still hangared here.
Gary
My first instructor was an ex L-19 op from late 60's SE Asia. Tim McBirney thank you for your patience time help. Later he crashed during a mid-air flying a Wright Air Helio floatplane near Fairbanks AK. Never have let it go. Never will. Other C-185 survived and was still hangared here.
Gary
n40ff
Registered User
WV
Brings back some mostly fond but a few not so fond memories. I am not an army aviator but learned to fly at the APG flying club in 1971. Flew Cessna 150, 172 and T41B. All I really wanted was to get my hands on a L-19/O1/C305E. One of my best friends was a Army Aviator who had a couple tours flying them in VN. One day he found one excess down in Va. It was a O1D with CS prop and a fresh factory RM engine. I couldn't believe it when the club managed to get it. I flew him and our chief CFI Jessy Skaggs, who was manager of Ross Aviation at PAAF and a retired AF pilot with lots of L-19 experience, down to get it. Of coarse we had to get it registered and comply with a few STC's to get a civilian AWC. One was to restrict flaps to 45 degrees but we just put a placard on it. Anyway we got it done an Jessy got familar with the back seat and I was first on the list.....Fact is I was the only one who really wanted to fly it. I suspect my experience was normal? Jessy let me try the first TO on my own.(he had been my instructor since PPL) The result was an excursion in the dirt even with a 200' wide runway....just to let me know that I was kinda starting over......
It took me 4.5 hours to get signed off. Jessy told me to ease myself into heavier winds etc. etc. I guess he most of all trusted my judgment. I did alright with it but several times it was right on the edge. I did notice that it required use of brakes to taxi in a X-wind and I almost lost it a few times at slow speed. Turned out that I simply didn't understand tailwheels and our club mechanic didn't either and Jessy didn't catch it either. One weekend there was a local poker run and Marcia and I had been looking forward to it. It was a fairly windy day. long story short, I managed to lose it 3 times out of five. Didn't quite ground loop but left the runway w/o hitting anything. Monday morning I flew it to Aldino to let Jack Poage our IA look it over. I had come to the conclusion that the tail wheel wasn't doing it's job. Jack took one look at it and wondered how I had survived..... I called the club to get someone to come and get me and left the airplane with Jack.
A working tailwheel sure made things better. It was a wonderful airplane and was almost our very own for over two years. A couple other guys got checked out but hardly ever flew it. Marcia and I had some splendid weekends at several fly-in resorts etc. I put just over 100 hours in it and then got stupid and bought a C120.
In the end the flying club went under and the airplane went to the Va CAP and later was sold to a civilian. The civilian restored both it and his J3. His son was a AF pilot. The two of them took both planes up one day....I was told they were going to take pictures but the NTSB report doesn't say. Anyway the had a midair and both died and both planes too. N95495. The O1D with CS was and is a rare bird.
Like I said, fond memories and others much less so.
Jack
It took me 4.5 hours to get signed off. Jessy told me to ease myself into heavier winds etc. etc. I guess he most of all trusted my judgment. I did alright with it but several times it was right on the edge. I did notice that it required use of brakes to taxi in a X-wind and I almost lost it a few times at slow speed. Turned out that I simply didn't understand tailwheels and our club mechanic didn't either and Jessy didn't catch it either. One weekend there was a local poker run and Marcia and I had been looking forward to it. It was a fairly windy day. long story short, I managed to lose it 3 times out of five. Didn't quite ground loop but left the runway w/o hitting anything. Monday morning I flew it to Aldino to let Jack Poage our IA look it over. I had come to the conclusion that the tail wheel wasn't doing it's job. Jack took one look at it and wondered how I had survived..... I called the club to get someone to come and get me and left the airplane with Jack.
A working tailwheel sure made things better. It was a wonderful airplane and was almost our very own for over two years. A couple other guys got checked out but hardly ever flew it. Marcia and I had some splendid weekends at several fly-in resorts etc. I put just over 100 hours in it and then got stupid and bought a C120.
In the end the flying club went under and the airplane went to the Va CAP and later was sold to a civilian. The civilian restored both it and his J3. His son was a AF pilot. The two of them took both planes up one day....I was told they were going to take pictures but the NTSB report doesn't say. Anyway the had a midair and both died and both planes too. N95495. The O1D with CS was and is a rare bird.
Like I said, fond memories and others much less so.
Jack
Last edited:
hotrod180
FRIEND
Port Townsend, WA
Watching how the gear leg folded under during the ground loop at the very beginning of the video was an eye-opener.
I think it was the second ground-looped L19 in the video, there was an intact gear leg laying near the airplane.
With a big side load, it's easy to visualize how the head can just pull right off the bolt, and whoosh-- there goes the gear leg.
One fix is the Pponk reinforcement kit,
but I kinda recall someone (Tailwheel Tom maybe) talking about using a titanium bolt.
Much stronger in tensile strength than the standard bolt.
But unlike the reinforcement kit, it will likely still fail first--
preventing the gearbox from being destroyed.
Which seems to me like a good thing.
I think it was the second ground-looped L19 in the video, there was an intact gear leg laying near the airplane.
With a big side load, it's easy to visualize how the head can just pull right off the bolt, and whoosh-- there goes the gear leg.
One fix is the Pponk reinforcement kit,
but I kinda recall someone (Tailwheel Tom maybe) talking about using a titanium bolt.
Much stronger in tensile strength than the standard bolt.
But unlike the reinforcement kit, it will likely still fail first--
preventing the gearbox from being destroyed.
Which seems to me like a good thing.
Steve Pierce
BENEFACTOR
Graham, TX
Keep it straight and you don't have to beef up the bolt, gear box etc. 
The strong you make one part just loads up another.
The strong you make one part just loads up another.
