I'm scheduled to work on a tailwheel endorsement along with my first flight review next week in Talkeetna with Above Alaska Aviation!
I believe we will be flying a Citabria 7ECA, and flying a tandem seat stick control plane has my interest.

Needless to say I'm excited to fly a tailwheel and get my big boy pants! As my time has only been in my old Cessna150.

I've been researching and reviewing for the flight review and info I can find about flying the taildragger, but I was curious if anyone had any advice for a new tailwheel student! How many hours average to obtain an endorsement for a transition pilot?

Nice to get back in the air for a bit after homebuilding for the past year.

any advice for a new tailwheel student! How many hours average to obtain an endorsement for a transition pilot?

Don't read too much or go into your tail wheel training believing everything you read about flying a tail wheel airplane. Preconceived ideas can get you confused in a hurry when you start the actual instruction.

I would agree.

After flying a TW for years now, I just learned to not get lazy and keep my feet moving. They fly just like a nose wheel, the problem is that a nose wheel lets you get away with poor technique and a TW will not.

Chris.

I received my tailwheel training and endorsement from Above Aviation Alaska almost 5 years ago. It was also retraining for me after not flying for about 25 years and was overall a great experience. I never did get the feel for landing in their champ and never soled in it. It was a real handful (for me) on take off too. In retrospect I've often wondered if it was because the stick was in the right hand and I've always flown with a yoke in the left hand? I had a total of 3.2 hrs and 28 landings to get my endorsement. My instructor said I did fine but I never felt in complete control.

I didn't fly tailwheels again until last fall when I got my biannual in a Pacer from Alaska Floats and Skis in Talkeetna and I was told this Pacer was a real handful since it had 31" Bushwheels. I actually found this airplane easy to handle both in takeoff and landing and even successfully landed at the Talkeetna airport next to the paved runway on a slight slope dodging taxi lights so as not to damage the tires on the pavement.

I since have flown my 170B with no further instruction and find the takeoffs and landing to be something I can keep control of although I am still learning and some have been interesting.

Have fun and I'm sure it will all fall into place for you.

HawkRT wrote:How many hours average to obtain an endorsement for a transition pilot?

It'll be a fun endorsement.

How long it'll take will depend on the instructor -- both how good they are and their view of what "proficient" means. The FARs require the CFI to endorse you as proficient in normal (implied 3pt) and crosswind takeoffs and landings, wheel landings (unless the mfr recommends against it), and go arounds. I've seen CFIs be all over the place in what constitutes proficiency.

A good rule of thumb (stolen from 93kilo on another forum): a good endorsement will take about the time it took you to solo. So figure 10 hrs, plus or minus.

Have fun,

--Tony

PS: aileron, aileron, aileron! (you'll get it during the endorsement...)

Two tips that I unfortunately didn't get when I started in taildraggers.
1) focus on the far end of the runway for airplane alignment, not close up.
2) Don't wait until the airplane swerves then mash down on the pedal-- that's a good way to always be behind the airplane. Keep pressure on both pedals, and increase or decrease pressure on LH / RH rudder pedals as required.

How many hours will it take? Depends on the instructors financial situation

Hotrod 180 is accurate about the need to stay ahead of the airplane on longitudinal alignment with dynamic, proactive rudder pedals. There is no perfect nose alignment; we have to bracket it with dynamic and proactive rudder. By making the nose go just a little left right left right, etc. rather than wait until it goes left or right on its own and applying static, reactive rudder pedal, we stay ahead of the airplane. Don't wait and use static, reactive rudder. You will always be behind. By constantly moving the rudder pedals this way, we also take care of the precession which happens when we raise the tail to level the airplane and the P factor when we first pitch up to get off into low ground effect.

On the approach, this constant rudder movement to maintain alignment, just like on the takeoff roll, helps prevent or eliminate the bad habit of making shallow coordinated turns to maintain alignment. We need to lock the wing either level or in whatever bank is necessary to counter drift from any crosswind. We need to maintain nose alignment with dynamic, proactive rudder movement, always movement.

Click on the signature box below for a more complete discussion of these points.

Have fun with your tailwheel training. It will make you a better pilot in any airplane, because it requires full use of the most excellent longitudinal trimming control in the airplane: the rudder.

Thanks for the advice guys!

I'll give it my best, I keep getting informed from other pilots including my father that "I'll never want to go back".

Take off your shoes... You will get a lot more feedback from bare feet than you will through shoes, and it's all about the feet. If it's too cold then wear the least shoe you can... bedroom slippers or down booties. After over 2000 hours of tailwheel I still fly in moccasins or insulated soft mukluk-like booties, never in hard soled shoes.

All this talk about rudder! It all goes together. It's not rudder alone.

I'm a recent convert, not an expert, but my experience was that I needed to get better control of everything. Ailerons, coordinated or crossed with rudder as applicable, and accurate pitch (speed) control.

I learned in my own 185, transitioning from a T210. I needed to learn to fly a better approach, move my eyes from the aiming point on the runway to the end at just the right time, and trust my eyes to judge that my pitch and flare were precise. Overall, I had to raise my standards, and strive for accuracy, because the airplane is not as forgiving. It's been quite satisfying. I haven't actually accomplished a wheel landing. I'm happy with the three point so far. I'll likely get to it this year, but spending time on floats takes away from my time on wheels. What a great situation to juggle and balance!

Look out the windscreen, make small and constant adjustments, and trust your eyes. If the picture doesn't look right, it probably isn't. Correct.

Bought a 170B as a student with 12 hours almost 40 years ago. The old guy, who was younger than I am now, who ran the airport and had 20,000 hours in single engine airplanes, including lots of time in tailwheel airplanes when they were new, gave me an invaluable piece of advice. "Only push on one rudder peddle at a time" THAT DOES NOT MEAN NOT TO HAVE BOTH FEET ON THE PEDDLES, but if you push on just one you will feel how much pressure you are applying. This is important because as the airplane accelerates or slows the deflection of the rudder will change as an inverse of the speed but the force you put on the peddle will stay close to the same and the force the vertical stabilizer/rudder airfoil exerts on the aircraft will remain constant. This will result in the aircraft maintaining alignment.

Now this thought of dynamic proactive rudder where you "walk the rudders" drives me up the wall if I am riding with someone or watching them on approach. It is the same as pilot induced oscillations in pitch. IF NOT ALIGNED MAKE A CORRECTION, if not enough of a correction make more of a correction, if to much make a correction in the opposite direction but not all the way back to the starting point. Airplanes are designed with dynamic stability. That is why there is more side area aft of the center of lift, and often times auxiliary vertical area is required aft when floats are added, which by design add area forward. Why would you choose to destabilize something that if you remove all control inputs is required to return to stable flight after a few diminishing oscillations? The trick is, and this is important make your corrections when the deviation is small and the required correction also small. Do not wait for the airplane to do what you want it to do, make the airplane do what you want, DO WHATEVER IT TAKES.

Have fun, flying tailwheel airplanes is addictive. Except when working I have no interest in flying nose wheel airplanes. Nothing like a grass strip, a taildragger, and a hour of shooting landings on a nice evening.

Tim

Bracketing or rapid dynamic proactive movement is common in many activities in life. A tennis player or short stop will shift weight from foot to foot, rather than stand flat footed, to be already spring loaded to the oncoming ball. The basketball player, who actually plays defense, will bracket the potential movement of his man so as to already be moving when the man moves. The dozer operator will constantly move the hydraulic blade lever fore/aft to already be moving when the blade sinks in and tries to kill the engine. Same with backhoe, combine, and so many other machines. We constantly move our automobile steering wheels to bracket the middle of our side of the road. We all do this, more or less. We just don't always know that we are doing it. I taught Quick Kill, or point and shoot, on my firing range at Ft. Knox many years ago. As the Sundance Kid said, in a movie, "I'm better when I move."

The airplane is designed to fly. In flight, it weathervanes, tries to maintain the trimmed pressure airspeed on the wing, tries to stay level, and generally takes really good care of us. The designers made a little control issue mistake with conventional gear when really rough landing sites dictated no nose gear and therefore and unbalanced airplane on the ground. That makes a tailwheel airplane continually attempt to ground loop on the ground. We're better when we rapidly move our feet. We're better when we dynamically and proactively move the rudder left right left right to stay ahead of this continuous attempt to ground loop. We move the rudder a lot when slow and make smaller movement when fast. We thus dictate how much left, how much right, how much left, etc. the nose is allowed to go.

We can wait on the airplane to start around and then correct. That would be static, reactive control movement. Of the two techniques, I know you will like the former better.

@ Contactflying

Wow. Really good stuff & well summarized. You did a great job.

Thanks for the GREAT link.

Contactflying wrote:
Download my free "Safe Maneuvering Flight Techniques" e-book.

Alright, I figure this new skill is something that will feel second nature after a period of time. Just takes practice. I remember feeling awesome the day I realized that I was flying the plane, not it flying me. I was enjoying the ride now and flying was becoming an instinct, somehow different than when I started.

Thanks for the advice guys!

Denali,

John Wooden wrote, "Be quick, but don't be hurried." I never even got quick with computers. Zane put the signature box at the bottom of my posts for me. You will have to explain what @Contactflying refers to. If the link below, OK. Is there, however, something I don't know about? Wait! There are lots of things I don't know about.

Contactflying

I honestly think the only way to learn this is to do it. It is hard to describe that once you "get your feet working" you will unconciously make lots of small adjustments really early, and maybe not even realise what you are doing. To begin with you feel like you are constantly chasing the plane.

Mileage helps.

Pinecone wrote:All this talk about rudder! It all goes together. It's not rudder alone.

I'm a recent convert, not an expert, but my experience was that I needed to get better control of everything. Ailerons, coordinated or crossed with rudder as applicable, and accurate pitch (speed) control.

I learned in my own 185, transitioning from a T210. I needed to learn to fly a better approach, move my eyes from the aiming point on the runway to the end at just the right time, and trust my eyes to judge that my pitch and flare were precise. Overall, I had to raise my standards, and strive for accuracy, because the airplane is not as forgiving. It's been quite satisfying. I haven't actually accomplished a wheel landing. I'm happy with the three point so far. I'll likely get to it this year, but spending time on floats takes away from my time on wheels. What a great situation to juggle and balance!

Look out the windscreen, make small and constant adjustments, and trust your eyes. If the picture doesn't look right, it probably isn't. Correct.

You'll get wheel landings no problem. I probably do it wrong, but it works. With my 180 I fly the same approach, but just before touch down I roll nose down and keep the tail up. Works really good.
Great advice from all. To the OP, after a long flight I always like to do a little foot dance to make sure my feet are awake before landing. That's about the only advice I can add to the long list of great advice posted already.

contactflying wrote:Denali,

John Wooden wrote, "Be quick, but don't be hurried." I never even got quick with computers. Zane put the signature box at the bottom of my posts for me. You will have to explain what @Contactflying refers to. If the link below, OK. Is there, however, something I don't know about? Wait! There are lots of things I don't know about.

Contactflying

Jim,
This will probably be the only time in my life I get to pass on knowledge to you, so I'll take this and run with it. I owe you a few.

@Contactflying is just a way of pointing out that he is referring or responding to you. It would make more sense to say To:Contactflying, but the @ is a cooler symbol.

Bill White of Bill White Insurance wrote a very good article 10 or 15 years ago on wheel landing a Skywagon. I'm not saying it's the perfect technique, but it's a good place to start. It's on his website but that's not working fro me now so I didn't try to post a link, maybe you can google it for the complete article. But meanwhile here's the core from it, from my pdf:

The Technique
Get established on final. At 1 mile out you should be at 60 knots IAS (depending on
wind conditions), 500 feet above the runway and descending at 500 FPM carrying
about 13"-14" MP with full flaps. Trimmed to hands off. The aircraft should come
over the threshold almost level. When the aircraft is on short final and about 20 feet
agl, you should apply slight back pressure on the yoke (don't touch the power), but
only for 3 to 4 seconds then released back to neutral until wheel contact. This
will slow the decent down to around 200 fpm until contact. The aircraft will contact
the runway in a perfect decent rate eliminating bounce. Remember, do not flair and
do not pull your power until you feel the wheels touch (resist the temptation). This
has to be learned because your natural instinct is always to pull power. Almost
simultaneously when you pull power at wheel contact, come on with as much brakes
as you need and hold neutral yoke, The torque from braking will help keep the tail
up. Then as the speed is reduced and the tail settles come back with the yoke.
Remember, power controls rate of descent, if you reduce your power your descent
rate will increase (even at 2'), then you'll have to flair to compensate and you'll be
chasing the airplane. You want as few changes to correct as possible. This
technique takes out the guess work - if you're low add power, if high reduce. Never
change attitude or trim, ii's simple. A full stall landing has everything changing at the
same time which includes: power, speed, attitude, yoke, visibility and pitch. This is
not as predictable because you're waiting for things to happen, you're chasing it.
This wheel landing technique is near bulletproof if learned correctly. lt is being used
all over the world by pilots much more knowledgeable than l. "MAF" uses wheel
landings at all the airports in ldaho they fly into. That includes Soldier Bar, Allison
Ranch, Bernard, Krassel and more. All you do is cut power, brake and turn off the
runway. Until you learn it correctly, stick with the technique you're most comfortable
with if it works for you. I recommend you practice this with a CFI that really knows
the technique. He can better see your mistakes. I took several hours of training from
"MAF" a few years ago. lt really improved my proficiency. Once correctly learned,
you'll wish you'd known about this years ago. Happy flying!