mtv wrote:I’ve heard “Skywagon experts” …….

MTV

One of the most dangerous statements on the interweb…

In addition to finding a great Skywagon and Tailwheel Instructor. Practice on long wide runways with little wind to start and work your way up the risk gradient slowly. Be patient with the process it takes time. There is a reason the insurance premiums are high for newbies. Proactive tight rudder control like Jim mentioned is key to being successful. For me - the first 100 hours in my Skywagon were the scariest. It has gotten easier with time but I can never be complacent. Ground loops happen really fast. I agree with all of the responses regarding go arounds - must be practiced regularly.



Josh

I think learning to keep a tailwheel aircraft straight can only be learnt by practice. I can't think of many other things that I have ever done where written technique, or even live advice from an instructor was so irrelevant. You just have to do it. What you really want is someone who can save it when you start to get outside the boundary. Someone very familiar, and current on type is that person. And don't just believe what an instructor tells you abut their currency and ability. Check.

Don't get discouraged, but do get a reliable instructor.

I always wanted to try that tailwheel sofa that was on the intergoogle web a while ago. I think it would be a great teaching tool.

Congrats on your Wagon! I absolutely love mine.

It was a hot spring day in Texas as I sat next to the runway in a friends tree swing. Our local P51 driver came in and bounced his landing. The paved strip is only 30 feet wide and when he touched down again the right main gear got off the pavement and into the dirt, about a 3-4 inch drop. As he fought the start of the ground loop (watch the video closely) he came to the taxiway (also 3-4 inches higher then the dirt), one wheel in the dirt the other on the pavement. He was certain he was going to loose the plane when it bounced over the taxiway. But with some skill and a lifetime of good luck he managed to keep the P51 from ground looping. He back-taxied very slowly, pulled into transient parking and shut down. I walked over and he sat in the cockpit for 15 minutes, not moving, not making a sound, not looking any direction but forward. About that time his mechanic landed in the P51 driver’s 185 (he follows him everywhere). As the 185 taxied in next to the P51 and shut down, the P51 driver turned to look at me for the first time, and uttered his first words since nearly loosing the P51. He said to me “that plane [referencing the 185] scares me, it’s a lot harder to fly then this [referencing the P51 he almost lost]”.

Just for a confidence booster.
My brother in law picked up a C180 with zero hours in his log book. Soloed in 20 some hours with good instruction.
Cheers

Rudder is key for tailwheel aircraft. One way to help make rudder use a reflex is to do repetitive training. Once you are in straight and level flight with plane trimmed and power set. Let go of the yoke and do not touch it unless you need evasive action or a big wing drop use trim, power and rudder to get to your destination. This is best with a mildly bumpy day but a calm day will also work. Directional control and picking up a wing with the rudder will become total reflex. This is also a good read. https://bwifly.com/aircraft-insurance/w ... e-numbers/
DENNY

Yes, it’s essential to touch down with the 185 pointed the direction it’s moving….ie: Straight. And if it starts to diverge, you must fix it, you cant allow a 185 to get very seriously out of whack on the runway. Things happen really fast if you do.

So, best plan is to start on a more forgiving surface, grass, gravel, etc. build your skill and calibrate your sights there, where a bit of swerve is easy to fix. Then, once you’ve got a pretty good handle on it, then and only then, move to pavement.

And there, you’ll find out fairly quick why you started on a forgiving surface.

You may be the Ace of the base, and none of this applies to you. But most of us mere mortals will do well to start on grass or gravel. The airplane can be a little busy on pavement, so it helps to get used to the plane before you go there.

They are great airplanes, no doubt.

MTV

Thumbs up for the confidence boost. Haha. This whole post was actually brought about because of hearing a story about a high time pilot still being scared as hell of his 185. Guess Ill stop watching ground loop videos on youtube..

Denny, I like that idea of flying just on the rudders. It seems like it would really help to unlearn 600 hours of lazy feet.

Mike, thanks for the insight on the grass. Im definitely not ace of the bass and never have been, but with some concentration and solid hours I think I can get it down.

Really appreciate all the input.

I was in the same boat as you last year, learning a tailwheel, still learning and no expert, although the 170 might be easier than the 185?, I practiced a lot on grass fields, snow, and gravel bars, all are more forgiving than pavement, also landing at slow speeds helps.
There is a new grass airstrip in Santa Teresa, that one will be perfect for you.

I did my tail wheel rating in a 68’turbo normalized 185 on tiny little wheels about 20 something years ago . Wanted to get my private in the Porter we were using at the drop zone but was talked out of that for good reason. Just go fly the the thing a lot .Fly when it’s calm for a bit until you feel like you can go out in the wind and give that a try . It’s just an airplane . Lots of people have done initial training in all kinds of tail wheel planes and lived to tell about it. Might take a bit more time to undo some nosewheel laziness after flying one of those for awhile though, enjoy figuring it out and have fun with it ........I don’t think the 185 is as bad as all the rumors.

I'm still new to the 180 so I'd mostly defer to the experience here. At any rate, only thing I'll add is we sold the Pacer for the 180 this past year, and after a hundred some odd PA20 hours the 180 feels a fair bit easier to fly(knock on wood).
The main sensation I noticed is the bigger plane just feels ... stable. Certainly you don't want to let it get it out of sorts as there's more inertia to let you know you screwed up, but it's been pretty honest so far.
So - from my little bit of experience I'd say if you're having any trouble get some practice in a PA20/140/small squirrely short coupled bird. I've not flown a Citabria, might fit the bill - Cub is too docile relatively and you're not on the ground long enough either TO or landing.
After that the 180 will feel pretty nice. Kind of like learning to parallel park in a suburban, then hopping in a Mini.

I believe a GoPro, or similar camera, attached near the tail wheel, is a huge help for post flight understanding of exactly what all is happening with your landings. I found it very helpful when trying to understand what all was going on with my 180.
Chris

Had my 180 for 21 years
4000+ hours
Still learning

mtv wrote:Yes, it’s essential to touch down with the 185 pointed the direction it’s moving….ie: Straight. And if it starts to diverge, you must fix it, you cant allow a 185 to get very seriously out of whack on the runway. Things happen really fast if you do.

So, best plan is to start on a more forgiving surface, grass, gravel, etc. build your skill and calibrate your sights there, where a bit of swerve is easy to fix. Then, once you’ve got a pretty good handle on it, then and only then, move to pavement.

And there, you’ll find out fairly quick why you started on a forgiving surface.

You may be the Ace of the base, and none of this applies to you. But most of us mere mortals will do well to start on grass or gravel. The airplane can be a little busy on pavement, so it helps to get used to the plane before you go there.

They are great airplanes, no doubt.

MTV

I learned on pavement because there was no grass available (Minnesota in the winter) and it was so difficult, I started thinking of giving up on tailwheels 5 hrs into training.

The first time I landed the 185 on grass this fall, I was shocked how much easier it was. It’s almost like a normal airplane on grass.

Hours don't really mean much in a 180 or 185. The number of landings/takeoffs is the important part.

Tim

ington6

Congrats on the new to you 185!

The only things I would add to all the info given here is make sure your check out includes as many different weight/CG and density altitude
variations as possible. Run a bunch of landings and take offs light as possible, do a bunch at max gross, and everything between.

I got my 185 November of 2020 with about 85 hours total time in my logbook. Had 13 hours in a 7GCBC.
It took me almost 35 hours to get thru my check out. Some of the best time and money I've spent in aviation so far.
Not sure of how much gusty wind you will be dealing with down in Costa Rica. I fly in and out of the TX panhandle and up into WY quite a bit where it can really howl so I had to choose my days carefully at first.
Now that i have 140+ hours in her im much more comfortable. Not complacent by any means though!
Throw 30 ish pounds in the tail on those gusty days will really help.
Have fun these planes are a blast!

Ross4289 wrote:

ington6 wrote:H
I went from thousands of hours in nosewheel planes straight to a 185 with zero tailwheel experience about a year ago.

It was really tough for me. The plane was (and still is) a total beast on tailwheel gear..

I thought you did real good on that shallow snow! Seemed old hat to you.

Pavement is a bear. Flying heavier metal taildraggers is a different game from flying Cubs and Pacers and lightweight stuff. There's just not much margin for getting squirrelly because of all that mass.

One of the guys that flew for the feds up here used to say that until a pilot had 200 hours in the airplane type he wasn't much use in that airplane. After having transitioned into a few different airplanes here at work, I can say that working anything other than the easy spots seems to feel like it corresponds to his analysis. Not very scientific, but a good thing to keep in mind, the 10 hours that makes you insurable makes you think you are more ready than you likely are.

My only other contributions are two things: Every landing is just an aborted go-around. So get really good at go-arounds, including balked landings, which are go-arounds from the landing roll. As others have said, the control forces can be a real challenge, so best to practice until safe management of a go-around is not surprising or hazardous. Avoiding go-arounds because they are challenging is a terrible risk management plan, you need to be totally happy to punch the go button at any point. Second, the list of 3 things that are critical to landing a tailwheel airplane. 1. Keep it straight. 2. Keep it straight. 3. Keep it straight.

I've never understood the fear of a go-around in a 18X series airplane. I've also never understood the instructor mentality to cobb the throttle in a go-around. If there was an STC to add a 1000hp engine to the 18X airframe would these instructors still light the afterburners?

Unless you're landing in a one way strip carved in 200' spruce trees with the end coming quick, all you really need the airplane to do is start flying again. And the above scenario is probably not somewhere a 10hr pilot needs to find himself in.

If you land as Contact suggests (and if you are not flying a glider, I'd highly agree with his techniques) you will arrive at the go-around point almost flying (it actually will be flying with the aid of ground effect). Just make it fly again.

Every emergency procedure I have ever visited always begins with aviate, that means fly.... that's it.... just make the thing fly, no need for a grand tail stand aiming for the moon, no need to compete for the highest VSI reading, just fly.

Easy on the throttle will be kinder to your engine, kinder to your airframe, and kinder to your arms. You can always add more if you're not at the stop, and you can do it as you clean the thing up. Somebody's probably going to mention the carb enrichment circuit for cooling on the go around... what ever... that's because they have failed to realize that if you haven't cobbed the throttle and let the nose point itself at the moon, you really haven't created a bunch of heat

Don't invent boogey men, to come up with scenarios that have you training in ways that leave more risk, than the returned benefit. As an example I see we've offered deer as a reason to unleash every inch of horsepower or mighty beast can muster . Deer? Landing in the sticks for a living, I can't even begin to guess at the times I've turned the lights on to find deer, javelina, coyotes, and the odd mountain lion, crossing in front of me. I've probably had to go around once or twice in all those events, usually a minor blip of the throttle, a nudge on the stick, we play leap frog, and life goes on... This is in a TW airplane that weighs 5000 lbs, and has a 'few' more ponies than a 18X. I am not Bob Hoover, but it seems to me that giving a P-51 all she has in a go around is just trading one hazard for another. Just make it fly.

I'd train for the go around. I'd train for it at full flaps and full power, because that's where you'll be in an inadvertent runaway trim (not terribly uncommon in the 18X series planes) and then I'd learn what the airplane really needs to get the job done, in the real world go-arounds.

I'd give up the touch and goes...In fact if I were king for the day, I'd ban them. Why rush training? you get more of what you need with full stops, at speeds that are going to do less damage if you lose it. Incidentally, the slow speeds are more likely to be where you ground loop, so why not practice there?

I am of the opinion that 'balls to the wall' stems from training with an A65 J3, and then advancing to an overweight bomber etc... Outside of aerobatics, very few are the incidents that control inputs on the machines such as the OP's need to be like light switches... far more are the scenarios that prefer smooth, linear inputs.

Training like this, you will discover soon enough that even if you need to go 'balls to the wall' in the 18X, it really is going to be a non event. Regardless of where the trim is... you just need to burn some gas (safely) to get to that point.

Take care, Rob
Not an instructor

Bingo. What Rob said.
These airplanes are not the bugger bears that they are made out to be.
I got in my first C180 with 400 TW time in Maules and one trip around the pattern.
Never had much problem.
3000+ C180/185 time later, and lots of other big TW aircraft later, I still think they are one of the nicest flying, most overall useful single engine airplanes around.
I still fly one for pipeline patrol 25-30 hours a week.