Aero enterprises

first flight....

• Our first flight lesson begins with a pre-flight, then startup, and taxi. You’ll get reacquainted with where the flight controls should be pointed for different wind conditions—you may think that this may not be very important to the nose-wheel airplane (it really is), but it’s critical to the tailwheel airplane and pilot.

• You’ll quickly learn that to “stay ahead of the airplane” you’ll need to anticipate rudder use before it’s needed. Like much in life, timing is key. Applying timely inputs keeps things under control. It might feel like it’s out of control at first, but I won’t let you break anything (no guarantees on egos). In no time you’ll understand and be able to navigate the ramp and taxiways like a seasoned pro.

• When you’re ready, we’ll do some high-speed taxiing, seeing how the airplane behaves with the tail off the ground. You may have read about some of the forces that grow and are ingredients to the physics recipe once power is applied for the takeoff roll: Torque, slip-stream, asymmetrical blade effect (performance- or p-factor), and gyroscopic effect. All these combine to ensure the airplane does not go straight on its own. Each of these rascals becomes a player at different times during our ground operations. Armed with your new knowledge, you’ll see that judicious use of the rudder at key moments dampens these forces and allows you draw straight lines. 

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• Takeoff!

  If there is any crosswind component, you’ll be compensating with aileron. Full deflection when not in motion, that is, when lined up on the centerline. With the stick full aft, apply full power. A quick glance at the gauges tells us the engine is running fine. Directional control is maintained with rudder.  We’ll allow the airplane to tell us when the tail is to be raised. To do so, I relax stick back pressure  to the a neutral position. As speed increases, the amount of crosswind aileron is decreased, maintaining just enough to eliminate drift and maintain wings level. As the speed increases, the tail begins to rise. Pushing the stick forward to raise the tail effectively “loads” the main gear and can increase takeoff roll distance. With the tail up, we’ll add just a hint of forward stick pressure in the Decathlon to prevent premature rotation. At 65 mph, slight aft stick pressure and we’re off!

• air & Pattern Work

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• Getting to know the airplane and how control inputs affect flight is key in low-speed operations including landing. The Decathlon is one of the easier airplanes to fly. You’ll experience its predictable nature and generous manners up high, thereby building confidence that nothing unwarranted happens down low. We’ll stress rudder work at all times, wakening your feet to that very effective rudder at all airspeeds. After climb out to altitude, we’ll do some slow flight, letting you get used to how effective your new friend, the rudder, is at minimum controllable airspeed. The inclinometer becomes a good reference instrument, keeping you out of trouble.
  Back in the pattern. I’ll stress attitude flying, power, and aircraft performance (you do remember that attitude + power = performance, right?). The key to effective tailwheel landings is controlling the airspeed by adjusting the sight picture (attitude). We’ll find a nice long runway where we’ll fly those stabilized approaches and three point landings. “Why the three point landing?” Good question. Let me quote from Stick and Rudder:  An Explanation of the Art of Flying by Wolfgang Langewiesche (pronounced long-gah-vee-shay):  “The designer is anxious to make the landing of his airplane take place at about the slowest forward speed at which the ship, with its given wing and its given weight, is aerodynamically capable of flying.” And what is that ship’s attitude when it’s flying slowly? Yup, you got it, nose-high, slow flight! The very same attitude at which the airplane sits with all three wheels on the ground and the one we practiced in our air work. So what happens when you don’t put the airplane into the three point attitude, or you do, but don’t maintain it as the speed bleeds off? The dreaded bounce! “But that’s caused by those springy landing gear, right?” Nope. It’s potentially caused by a couple things:  1) The main gear contacting the runway first, followed by that aft-of-main gear center of gravity forcing the tail down, causing an increased angle of attack, creating lift where there was none before. 2) A high vertical rate of descent, left unchecked, will cause a similar response by the airplane; a high angle of attack, followed by increased lift, followed by the airplane heading skyward. Should the bounce happen, we know that we’ve increased the angle of attack and our speed is or will begin to decay. With a small bounce, one just continues to flair adding aft stick. A larger bounce is corrected by adding a little power at the apex of the bounce, thereby preventing the subsequent high descent rate and loss of airspeed; we simply land again (sorry, you can’t log it as two, or three landings). As you bring the stick back and contact the ground in the three-point stance, you continue brining the stick aft until it tickles your navel—and there you leave it, until the airplane is tied down, or until there’s a tailwind during taxi.  Let me repeat this, “…keep the stick full aft after touchdown.” The tricycle gear pilot tends to relax the back pressure once firmly on the ground, and as the center of gravity is forward of the main gear, it won’t get the nose gear driver into hot water. Not so with the tailwheel airplane.

landings

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  Busy feet makes me happy!

  When the airplane is not on the ground, we fly conventional gear airplanes just like we fly tricycle gear airplanes. On final, I teach and use the side slip, that is, the upwind wing low. The rudder is used to align the longitudinal axis of the airplane with the centerline of the runway. The ailerons are used to correct for lateral drift. Depending on conditions, you may be a “busy beaver” on final, constantly correcting for alignment and drift, capturing your airspeed with pitch. When the “rubber meets the road” your feet will be making small, quick corrections to maintain that directional alignment. Small, timely corrections ensure you’re ahead of the airplane, and no part of the airplane wants to depart the runway until you say so.
  

• Three point landing

•  “Can I use the three pointer to land in a crosswind?”   You bet! The upwind wing is lowered appropriately to eliminate any lateral drift. This drift correction is maintained throughout the flair and landing rollout. As the airplane’s speed decreases, more aileron deflection is required to maintain drift control (subject to local wind conditions). If wind conditions warrant, you’re touching down on the upwind main gear and the tail wheel and as speed bleeds off, the downwind wheel slowly lowers to the runway surface. Crosswind control inputs are continued as are rudder inputs to maintain directional control. You’ve heard the expression, “don’t stop flying the airplane until it’s tied down”? It’s so true for the conventional gear airplane.
  

• Wheel landings

  Because touchdown speed during the wheel landing is a wee bit higher than that of a three point landing (note I wrote “touchdown speed” and not approach speed), the aileron remains more effective and we can deal with stronger and gustier crosswinds. Remember that we’re very close to or at stall speed on touchdown on a three point landing—not so much for a wheel landing. Instead of landing on the upwind main wheel and tailwheel, were landing on just the upwind wheel. As soon as our main wheel(s) touches down, we add a small amount of forward elevator, all the while maintaining directional control with rudder, arresting drift with aileron. Forward stick at landing  goes against much you were taught during your primary training in a tricycle gear airplane. In the tailwheel airplane, we want to maintain our best steering capabilities in that crosswind, with the tail up. If we’ve things under control, gently lower the downwind gear to the runway with aileron. As our forward speed decreases with the mains on the ground, you’ll add forward stick (nose down elevator), maintaining the desired aircraft attitude. Before we go any further, let me say that the longitudinal axis of the airplane in a wheel landing does not need to be parallel with the ground. The only requirement is that the tail wheel be off the ground. It will be easier to land with the longitudinal axis relatively parallel to the runway, as any bounce will be met with less of an angle of attack increase, a la three point landing bounces, and therefore less of a tendency of departing terra firma only to have to put it back on the ground. As our speed bleeds off, more forward elevator is required to keep the tail up, and more into-the-wind aileron is required to keep our wings level and prevent any drift. As we run out of speed and tail drops, we add full after stick, keeping it there until taxiing conditions dictate otherwise.

go-arounds...

As part of the landing process, we’ll perform some go-arounds. If you’re perfect, I’ll insist. If not, we’ll do them as the situations require. Knowing when to abort the landing and go-around is key. Unstable approach; go-around. Loss of directional control; go-around. Runway incursion or other hazard; go-around. A review from primary training indicates that one must apply full power, establish the proper flight attitude, and making the necessary configuration changes (not much to do with a Decathlon for this since we have no flaps and the gear is bolted in the down position). And by all means, we’ll continue to use those feet in the go-around.

We’ve covered it all

Normal and crosswind takeoffs and landings, wheel landings, and go-arounds. If you have a look at the Federal Aviation Regulation (FAR) §61.31(i) Additional training required for operating tailwheel airplanes one notes that the FAA identified the elements of our discussion on this page.

Is there more to know?

Heck yeah. Lots. We’ve scratched the surface. If you’d like to do a little reading on the subject, you can navigate to the FAA’s web site (faa.gov) and download, free of charge, Chapter 13 Transition to Tailwheel Airplanes in the Airplane Flying Handbook (FAA-H-8083-3A).  A good book on the topic I like is Harvey Plourde’s The Compleat Taildragger Pilot. As noted earlier, Langewiesche’s Stick and Rudder is a favorite; Part V Getting Down, covers much of our topics.

How long will this take?

Everyone is different. Figure anywhere from five to ten hours. Good motor skills, honestly using your feet on all your landings already, good depth perception and judgment, able to think ahead of the airplane, see things happening in real-time, did your studying before strapping on the airplane, you’ll have that endorsement at the bottom of my estimate.