I am looking to get back into flying after a few years inactive. I have an airport within 5 minutes of my home but no access to any Tailwheel aircraft there. I ultimately want to fly a tailwheel aircraft but for right now its not feasible to get any consistent time in conventional gear. While I am getting back up to speed (most likely in a PA-28 on an 8,000' runway) are there things I can work on to build proficiency that will help when transitioning into tailwheel. I did get a TW sign off in a Champ nearly 20 years ago. Can I do things now to help my learning curve later? Questions, comments, protest statements??

There is no way to simulate the CG differences between a trike and a dragger, and that difference is what's most important between the two.

Landings are where the greatest potential for damage exists. Trikes let a pilot get away with sloppy landings and sloppy directional control, draggers do not. That seems like a great place to start.

Make your landings precise, absolutely straight with zero drift. Land with the nose wheel off the ground and keep it there as long as possible.

Only use a forward slip to control drift on approach and with crosswind landings, no crab approaches. Even though you can crab a dragger on approach, you'll have to transition to a forward slip before touching down. You don't need crab practice.

Of course you have to take off before you can land. Treat all your take offs, in the trike, like soft field. Get the nose wheel off immediately and complete the takeoff roll on the mains. Like the landings keep the takeoff roll absolutely straight with zero drift.

While taxiing keep 100% of your attention on taxiing, don't adjust trim, fiddle with radios, iPads or anything else. You might be able to get away with that in a trike, but in a dragger, especially one with a high deck angle, you'll dart off the taxiway or even ground loop.

Hope this helps, and welcome back to aviation!

If you are thinking about actually buying a Tailwheel aircraft, I would check out how much the insurance will be with your level of experience. This can be a real deal killer for some with limited Tailwheel time.

If you really want some quality experience, I have heard nothing but great things about Rick Geiger in Montana. You could fly in for a few days and get back up to speed.

http://www.montanabyair.com/index.html

Here's one method to try.

With either tail or nose wheel, we need to use dynamic proactive rudder to keep the center line or distant point between our legs. Rather than wait until it gets off center and then correct, we need to push the longitudinal axis just a little too far left followed quickly by just a little too far right, etc. etc. Never stop moving the rudder. Make the nose (bad term, not under the prop unless you are in a tandem, between your legs) keep moving just left of the target, just right of the target, etc. On approach with any aircraft, we don't want coordinated turns, wagging the wing with aileron. We want to move the longitudinal axis just left, just right, etc. of the target (center line.) Aileron is used only to keep the wing either level or at a bank that will correct for crosswind drift.

A tail wheel airplane is no different than a nose wheel airplane. It will just let you know very quickly, with a ground loop, if you don't stay ahead of it.

Hard to add much, except to emphasize to aim for perfection with your trike landings. If you find yourself landing even the slightest bit crooked, the trike won't care, but most TDs will. There are some which are amazingly forgiving, like all the Champ versions, but even they won't take much whopper-jawed touchdowns before you'll find yourself mowing weeds.

Cary

I learned to fly in a nosedragger by a taildragger pilot in Alaska (Heidi Ruess - see article about her in the latest Alaska Magazine). She would constantly tell me to "walk your feet" which was her way to get me to do what contactflying explained about dynamically and constantly pushing the direction of the airplane centerline back and forth across the intended path by use of the rudder, and hence the "walking your feet" because it is like walking when you put one foot in front of the other.

In the middle of my primary flight training, I flew with another pilot down in the states who was headed for the airlines. I remember taking off one day, and as soon as I rotated I was walking my feet as usual. The instructor yelled at me to put my feet on the floor and to not touch the rudders because it would make my passengers sick. He could not believe what I was doing with the rudder.

Now that I'm flying a 185, rudder control is second nature. The 185 can be an absolute handful with a gusty crosswind, and you need to be constantly on the rudders...and sometimes differential brakes and power when you run out of rudder.

Just goes to show you the difference between tricycle and tailwheel instruction. Some tailwheel skills can be taught even if the instruction is in a tricycle.

I suppose it's possible to overdo the rudder thing, but for most pilots, it's under-doing it which is the problem. That's why trikes were invented, because so many pilots under-use the rudder, and ground loops result. Why do you think the T-28 was made? It wasn't because the T-6 is a bad airplane, but because it's a lot harder to ground loop a trike than a TD. Similarly, 172s and 182s are popular, and 170s and 180s are no longer made, for the same reason. The vast majority of pilots never need the improved backcountry capabilities of TDs.

On the other hand, for any CFI to tell a student to put his feet flat on the floor and not use the rudder pedals is ridiculous. If I do that in my airplane, the ball is mostly out of the cage on climb out, and half out of the cage the other direction on descent. Flying sideways intentionally is one thing; flying sideways because of sloppy piloting is altogether something else.

Cary

Thanks for the feedback, i can get some sporadic time in a Super Decathalon so I'll see how it goes.

Take a nosedragger and add weight to the back so that it takes very little effort to make the tail touch the ground. Then go out and practice taxi work holding the nose wheel off the ground and the tail off the ground. Once you are comfortable with that then do the same with a good cross wind. This will give you the practice at throttle/rudder and brake control and make the transition to TD much easier.