Congratulations!

Way to go Tony!! What a rush. Now for picking up that bird. Trikes seem easy now right? How about trading time when you get her home. C195 vs stol plane when you're comfortable and I get to touch that car... I gotta come down that way to harass Aubie and JGG anyway. Have fun, it's a whole new experience!

Certainly, always welcome here ! I'm about to post in Trip Talk for tips and airports Colorado to Ga.
I guess I'm headed out there Tuesday morning to fly it back.

I'll be in Goodland KS, KGLD, Monday and Tuesday at least getting transition training(195). Stop in. My trip home I'm going to stop south of KC for BBQ, K81. If you'd like to see some aircraft being restored you might stop at my wife's cousins airport 2A2, Holley Mountain in Clinton AR. I think he's got several in process. One or two are Staggerwings . His name is Tom Westfall. It's on your way to the ATL area.

Aubie shared this site with me the other day. Grass strips in KS. Easy peasy in your new TD and lots less wear and tear on tires and PIC...
http://grassairports.com/state/ks/
I'll bet there are sites with this type info for other states on your way home too.

We will have loads to talk about when we get them home... Have fun Fly safe,

I will probably leave Grand Junction Thursday morning. I shipped a supply package out yesterday and it will get there Wednesday......if I'm lucky it will show up Tuesday and then I could leave Wed. I don't like it but that "will" give me a day to go hit some local strips for practice and get familiar with the airplane.
I'll check that website out. I know that just around my house there are at least five grass strip that are not on the charts.

Congratulations Tony. Tailwheel is where it's at. Don't believe those that say that there are two types of tailwheel pilots; those who have ground looped and those who will ground loop

Come up to Collegedale airport sometime (KFGU) & we'll go flying the Decathlon.

Get "The Compleat Taildragger Pilot" ( Harvey Plourde )

Read it with a highlighter and post-it notes

Read it again

Pull it out once a year

Lots of tricks & cheats just mask solid understanding.
Make it a passion to be better, very rewarding.

Ha, this makes me laugh, remembering my tailwheel checkout 30 years ago in a piper vagabond. Short-tailed humble master. My instructor was showing me how to wheel land, and slammed it on so hard the bench seat broke and we ended up on our backs looking up at the roof. He managed to power up and fly out of it, but it was close. That plane ended up getting wrecked when someone ground-looped it. I managed to get through it without damaging it, but it was a bear. Good times.

Congratulations! I love flying taildraggers, but given that I was mostly self-taught as a teenager (still have an endorsement, obviously, I just didn't have a rigorous training program), I could stand to go through the wringer with some good strong crosswind practice. I'm good for 10-15kt...I don't like it, but I feel I can land as well in that as I can in light and variable most of the time. I hear some guys talking about landing in gusting 35kt winds, and I'm left scratching my head. Did it once, but it didn't really count as by the time I got below the tree line, the wind was mostly sheltered.

I have not yet read the Compleat Taildragger pilot. I was hoping to pick a copy up at the VAA bookstore at OSH this year...but apparently it's so good, nobody has donated a copy! Adding that to my list of titles to buy.

Lastly, regarding the two types of tailwheel pilots, I waffle between whether I believe it or not. There are guys with 15,000 hours tailwheel time with thousands and thousands of landings that have never scratched an airplane. There are others that have wadded several up. I guess knowing one's personal limits are key, and always respecting the airplane, even below 30mph.

I've been lucky since about 1997; hoping to continue my streak for as long as I can.

Enjoy your newly-honed skill! You're much richer for the experience.

Ha, know just what you mean. The thing was trying to make me look bad. Somewhere about the 75th landing, things started to click. Another few dozen landings and I was ready to land on the green dot. No problems.

--paul

Someone who thinks they can get away with it ask Craft how he knows?

Hi Paul-

I have to say that here is a great deal of valuable insight in the above comment.

Regards,

Bob

This is why when you asked I suggested a 152 or some equivalent tri-gear airplane. I have been down the the tail-wheel road and did not enjoy it and found it not worth the stress factor to competently fly one. Fun flying should be fun, cheap and your sphincter should not clench every time you line up on short final. The old 152 ect., isn't sexy but it is super easy to fly, cheap and safe.

I just flew my Legend Cub from Fort Worth to Port Lavaca, Texas and back for a fishing weekend. I spent the entire trip at low altitude with the door open (except when I was in the rain). Multiple times through out the trip, I would circle back on a curiosity or slow to 40 mph for a closer look. A 152 is a fine airplane, but it just does not compare to the joy of stick and rudder flying a taildragger.

If you're stressing out landing a taildragger, you need more (or better) instruction, and/or more practice. Before I finally did the tailwheel endorsement, I thought all tailwheel pilots must be super-men, based on all the old wive's tails about those "vicious tailwheel planes". There may be some "vicious" planes out there, but certainly not the Cubs, Champs, and Citabrias that most of us learn in, or I wouldn't be able to fly one!

I flew with an older (79 year old) CFI who has literally thousands of tailwheel hours, and he helped me learn to be both relaxed AND vigilant whenever the wheels were on (or near) the ground. The trick is to get comfortable enough that you can relax your muscles while keeping your mind alert and attentive to what's going on. We started off in dead calm conditions, and gradually worked out way up to flying with a decent cross-wind (typical day here). By the time we got to the insurance-required 10 hours of dual, I had a pretty solid basis of understanding. (Probably helps that I read everything from "Stick and Rudder" to all of the more recent tailwheel and bushplane flying books before even starting the training.)

Now I thoroughly enjoy flying the Citabria. There is something kind of magical about flying an airplane where "low and slow" is its natural habitat. You not only see the fields, you can smell them. Sometimes that's not so great, like when you pass a feed lot, but for the most part it makes it a pure delight. Nothing like the smell of new-mown hay or grass as you putter over it.

And after several years of flying a high-performance, retractable geared, turbo-normalized airplane, the simplicity of the systems in this plane just adds to the experience. There's nothing between you and the airplane, and you begin to almost feel the wind over the wings.

I'm sure there are some tricycle-geared airplanes that can impart a similar feeling, but most of the planes that can do this are taildraggers. I'm loving it!