New Private Pilot looking to get into taildraggers!

dgapilot said:

The real key is to be able to visually detect when things start to stray as early as possible, then apply the appropriate control to correct it. Think less is more! If you detect a deviation sooner, the required correction is much less.


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Thank you!
This forum has given me so much information and great tips thank you everyone!

-Nick

As DGAPilot says, detect when things stray and stop it from straying. I absolutely cannot claim to be an expert (though many people on this site ARE experts), but from the experience I have, flying taildraggers is sort of like riding in a canoe or kayak-- once it begins to turn in one direction, it will keep turning until you stop it. However, when you stop it, that can set the plane drifting in the opposite direction so the drift must, once again, be arrested... Its not the hardest thing in the world, but it requires more "active participation" than a nose dragger. It is also super addictive. Flying any plane is fun, but taildraggers increase the fun factor.

Hi Daryl!

I’m sorry to bump this thread after a year. If you recall we talked briefly last winter as I was on a gap year. I made it down to Embry-Riddle Daytona for my freshman year finally. If your offer is still on the table I would love to come fly with you! I hope 2022 is treating you well so far!

-Nick Kellogg
410-714-3335

My primary instructor CONSTANTLY drilled “make the small corrections so you wont need to make the big ones”

I taught him to snow ski…so i got to return and return the favor!!!!

Just a touch of power/thrust on landing seems to help keep the nose pointed in the right direction.

I'm a long way from being the most experienced tail wheel pilot here but what I told my students was - "Never think you have mastered flying tailwheel. A tail wheel airplane is always waiting to bite you in the arse and it will when you least expect it."

frequent_flyer said:

"Never think you have mastered flying tailwheel. A tail wheel airplane is always waiting to bite you in the arse and it will when you least expect it."

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Especially on pavement with strong crosswind gusts around mountains. Can happen in 2-3 seconds… Stay on grass.

DavePA11 said:

Especially on pavement with strong crosswind gusts around mountains. Can happen in 2-3 seconds… Stay on grass.

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Unless you HAVE to land on the paved runway... In which case, stay on your TOES!

(My home airport doesn't have a grass runway, and Tower will not allow landing on the grass between the runways. Airport manager says "It's not safe." (Which probably actually means "Our liability insurer told us not to allow it...")

Years ago a group of pilots convinced the airport manager at Poughkeepsie to establish a grass runway. Once established, the tower wouldn’t let us use it. It was a part time tower, 7am to 11 pm. We started going out at 6 in the morning doing T&Gs on the new grass runway. When the tower opened at 7, they wouldn’t clear us to land on the grass, only the pavement. We would do our last landing just as they opened, and when clear of the runway asking to taxi back to our hangars or tie downs, we would simply say, “that’s X number of aircraft movements you can’t count”. You see, tower operator pay bands are based on traffic count. After about a week or two, they started letting us use the grass. There is always more than one way to skin a cat. I moved from NY back in’97, but runway 7/25 still is on the airport diagram for POU.


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In the case at the airport I was discussing, I kind of understand their point. There is pretty significant slope to allow for drainage, and there are some drains that would be pretty hard to see until you're right on top of them. The drains are concrete "french drains" topped with steel bars running across them. Not to mention all the runway and taxiway lights...
It's OK - I resolved the issue (for myself) by moving to a different airport. LOL