
Last night I had a couple of hours to escape and get to the airport. I didn't have much daylight so I just did some touch and goes. I decided to focus on wheel landings, something I only muddled through in my endorsement years ago and have avoided since if able.
I managed seven touch and goes where my tail wheel never touched the ground. Because they weren't full stops I can't count them for currency but I don't need them either. I am going to say it sure made me more proficient in doing them.
For this practice I set power to 1400 rpm abeam the numbers and varied my glide to avoid power changes. They turned out to be some of the better landings I've made in the plane yet.
On the last one I decided to add power and try this hover taxi thing that Contact talks about. So I got down into the tail low position and added enough power to carry me down the runway to a much later turn off (closer to parking anyway).
When the Citabria gets into ground effect you can really slow it down. Wow, it really did feel like hovering in the 9 knot headwind I had. I was surprised at the control effectiveness and kept moving the flippers like it should be mushing badly and kept over controlling a bit as a result. It was obvious I had more reserve buoyancy than I expected.
It was fun. The pic above was at the gas pumps where I put 11 gallons in my tanks to cover the pattern work
and my trip to PAE over the weekend to see the Mosquito fly.