I have gotten many responses in my conversations about whether or not it matters if you learn to fly in a tail wheel airplane... I am a few hours in at this point in a 172 but may have a solid lead on an instructor that teaches in a J3.

What say you?

I learned in a TW plane and glad I did. Lucky I had a Dad that wanted me to learn to fly so he bought a PA 16 and when he was spraying crops I was learning at the same airport.

TW is a sign-off. I wouldn't make major changes to getting a rating based on the landing gear.

But, real-men (and real-women) fly TWs.

If you have the option, and it doesn't create undue financial/time stress, learn in a tailwheel, you'll be a better stick and rudder pilot from the outset. Learning in a J3 would be excellent. You'll get a good appreciation for energy management and it will be a heck of a lot of fun.

Absolutely if a taildragger is available, do it at least up through solo. Transition to the nosedragger to finish up. You will be a MUCH stronger stick and rudder pilot with better skill sets, if you begin In the tailwheel airplane. Tailwheel airplanes don't tolerate sloppy flying very well. When at work flying with a new guy in the jet, I can tell if he has a background flying taildraggers within a few minutes.

Real men learn to fly in a taildragger! Real men with brass balls learn in a Pacer!!!!! The number one thing is to learn to fly. I think you will be a better pilot once you learn to fly in a tailwheel. On a side note it will take a few extra hours to get the hang of ground work but it will pay off quickly once you learn what your feet are for.
DENNY

It seems that those that learned in a tail dragger are more adamant about it being that way when guys that learned in a trike say it's just a certification IMO

Nose wheels ruin pilots. I transitioned to tail wheel after learning in and flying a Cherokee 300 hours. I had a hell of a time figuring the tail wheel out.

A 172 is so much easier to land nicely than a J3. J3 are very docile handling planes, but having that nose wheel allows you to get away with so much more. It breeds sloppy handling of the plane. Especially since the 172 requires so little rudder. Learning on the J3 makes you an all around better pilot.

In my experience, finding a TW airplane available to rent for primary training and a competent TW instructor are rare commodities in this glass panel world. If you have a bead on both, I'd jump at the chance to learn fly in a J-3! As others have pointed out, the J-3 is a docile bird but won't let you off the hook for being sloppy, which is what makes it a great trainer.

No brainer for me. If you get the chance with a good instructor that you click with go with the taildragger.

Go for the J-3. It's what I learned in and I'm glad I did.

Another reason to go for the J-3....you may not ever get the chance to fly one again. They are very hard to find these days to rent or train in. There's plenty of 172s out there.

MORE than worth it, even if it's just for the memories.

But there are some instrument and night requirements for the Private that you may not be able to do in the J3, so have a plan for that.

Also, no matter how great the plane is, it's the instructor that makes or breaks the experience. I'd rather train with a great instructor in a Piper Tomahawk than a crap instructor in a Pilatus Porter, even if the cost was the same. There's no fix for bad teaching.

It kinda depends on what you're trying to do-- learn to fly, or get your PP certificate. The two are not mutually exclusive, but they're not necessarily the same thing either. A buddy of mine once told me that "I got my license in a 150, then I learned how to fly in a Cub". I'll the be odd man out and suggest that maybe the 150 would be the better way to go, for now. Then after the ticket, do some post-doc flying in a J3 or whatever. You're probably gonna need something other than a J3 to get through the PP course anyway, to do under-the-hood work, radio work, and radio nav work (unless you're just going for a sport pilot license). .

FWIW I got my license in a 152, then bought & flew a 150 for a couple years & couple hundred hours. Then bought my 170 in 1997, and it's been taildraggers ever since-- the 170 (1700 hours), a C150/150TD (600 hours), and now a C180 (110 hours and counting).

Hammer wrote:Also, no matter how great the plane is, it's the instructor that makes or breaks the experience. I'd rather train with a great instructor in a Piper Tomahawk than a crap instructor in a Pilatus Porter, even if the cost was the same. There's no fix for bad teaching.

This is the truth. I'm as big of a tailwheel fetishist as the next guy -- 90% of my time is tailwheel and I haven't flown a nose gear plane since my IFR check ride in 2001 -- but I don't agree with the idea that the airplane you learn in makes you a good stick or a sloppy pilot.

Keeping things straight while doing one-wheel runs down the runway in a crosswind with the nose wheel off the ground in a beat up 150 is just as challenging as doing one-wheel runs in a tailwheel airplane, for example. It's more about finding an instructor who will make you do those kinds of exercises and expect you to do them well.

All that said, I would have loved to do my primary instruction in a J3. I didn't get the chance to fly one until after I got my private, but it really wasn't a hard transition.

Tailwheel all the way. If you can learn in a TW do it. I learned in a 170B transition to trike took 5 minutes. For those that say landing a trike is just as much of a challenge in a x wind I have to respectfully disagree the landing gear is in totally different places trikes want to stay going straight ahead, TW go where ever they want ( into the wind). GO for as much tailwheel as you can although you will have to do some flying in something else to get your IFR time and possible to take your check ride. Tailwheel DPE's are getting hard to find. when I took my ride there wasnt a single one in the state of OK that would do it, so I had to go to Ks.

Learning in a TW is a lot of fun and I without a doubt would do it again. That being said, I went flying in a J3 for my first time last week and I would not want to be crammed into that front seat for 20hrs of dual. If I were you I'd schedule an hour with the guy in the cub and see how you like him and the plane.

Oregon180 wrote:

Hammer wrote:Also, no matter how great the plane is, it's the instructor that makes or breaks the experience. I'd rather train with a great instructor in a Piper Tomahawk than a crap instructor in a Pilatus Porter, even if the cost was the same. There's no fix for bad teaching.

This is the truth. I'm as big of a tailwheel fetishist as the next guy -- 90% of my time is tailwheel and I haven't flown a nose gear plane since my IFR check ride in 2001 -- but I don't agree with the idea that the airplane you learn in makes you a good stick or a sloppy pilot.

Keeping things straight while doing one-wheel runs down the runway in a crosswind with the nose wheel off the ground in a beat up 150 is just as challenging as doing one-wheel runs in a tailwheel airplane, for example. It's more about finding an instructor who will make you do those kinds of exercises and expect you to do them well.

All that said, I would have loved to do my primary instruction in a J3. I didn't get the chance to fly one until after I got my private, but it really wasn't a hard transition.

Ditto to both above and Hotrods comment as well. Fly a 150 with a great instructor, and the transition to tailwheel will be easy. Fly a J 3 with a bad instructor and you'll hate it and may never get there.

I once signed up to fly a Pitts at an outfit that specialized in aerobatic training. My instructor was a 19-20 year old, ball cap on backwards, bleary eyed from being out late with his girlfriend kid. That first flight convinced me that young man was far more courageous than my skills warranted. The next flight, I realized just how good an instructor he was. Late in the week, I was lined up to do two flights with a literal legend of the aerobatics world. The first flight started rocky, and I quickly realized just how bad an instructor that person was. About fifteen minutes into that flight, I turned back to the airport, landed and informed the "legend", who got very defensive, that the 19 year old kid was twice the instructor that the "legend" would ever be.

Then I told the kid I wanted to fly with him, not the "legend". The kid was stunned when I told him the same thing I'd told the "legend". He shouldn't have been.


Find a knowledgeable instructor who knows how to fly and how to communicate, and teach, and the airplane is just another tool.

MTV

mtv wrote:

Oregon180 wrote:

Hammer wrote:Also, no matter how great the plane is, it's the instructor that makes or breaks the experience. I'd rather train with a great instructor in a Piper Tomahawk than a crap instructor in a Pilatus Porter, even if the cost was the same. There's no fix for bad teaching.

This is the truth. I'm as big of a tailwheel fetishist as the next guy -- 90% of my time is tailwheel and I haven't flown a nose gear plane since my IFR check ride in 2001 -- but I don't agree with the idea that the airplane you learn in makes you a good stick or a sloppy pilot.

Keeping things straight while doing one-wheel runs down the runway in a crosswind with the nose wheel off the ground in a beat up 150 is just as challenging as doing one-wheel runs in a tailwheel airplane, for example. It's more about finding an instructor who will make you do those kinds of exercises and expect you to do them well.

All that said, I would have loved to do my primary instruction in a J3. I didn't get the chance to fly one until after I got my private, but it really wasn't a hard transition.

Ditto to both above and Hotrods comment as well. Fly a 150 with a great instructor, and the transition to tailwheel will be easy. Fly a J 3 with a bad instructor and you'll hate it and may never get there.

I once signed up to fly a Pitts at an outfit that specialized in aerobatic training. My instructor was a 19-20 year old, ball cap on backwards, bleary eyed from being out late with his girlfriend kid. That first flight convinced me that young man was far more courageous than my skills warranted. The next flight, I realized just how good an instructor he was. Late in the week, I was lined up to do two flights with a literal legend of the aerobatics world. The first flight started rocky, and I quickly realized just how bad an instructor that person was. About fifteen minutes into that flight, I turned back to the airport, landed and informed the "legend", who got very defensive, that the 19 year old kid was twice the instructor that the "legend" would ever be.

Then I told the kid I wanted to fly with him, not the "legend". The kid was stunned when I told him the same thing I'd told the "legend". He shouldn't have been.


Find a knowledgeable instructor who knows how to fly and how to communicate, and teach, and the airplane is just another tool.

MTV

I learned to fly in a 150 and didn't fly a tailwheel until I took aerobatics lessons in a Decathlon, after I was already a CFII. In addition to 3 different Decs, I also flew a T-Craft with the same outfit. Precision flying is precision flying, whether in a TW or a trike, so I had no difficulty "learning" the TW at the time. Both my aerobatics instructor and the young woman instructor I flew with in the T-craft were smooth, gentle-on-the-controls pilots, which fits my style well.

Fast forward many years, with no TW time at all in the interim. I decided I'd like to get comfortable in a TW again, a local flight school had a lease-back on a Citabria which required a checkout with their TW instructor who was the airplane's owner. After all 10 minutes into the first lesson, I could tell that he wasn't much of an instructor--nor was he much of a pilot. I have flown with some ham-handed, rough-on-the-controls pilots, but he was among the worst. I'm accustomed to flying smoothly, regardless of whether I'm on the controls or someone else is, but I don't think he knew the definition of "smoothly". He was also a stick grabber--if it didn't look like he wanted it to look like, he grabbed the controls. I figured that once he OK'd me to solo his airplane, I'd practice smoothly flying it without his interference, but after my second "lesson", another of his "students" cartwheeled it into the weeds and effectively destroyed it, leaving me without any option to rent a TW nearby.

So I think you can learn effectively, either in a TW from the start, or by transitioning into one with an endorsement after you get your private. Since a J3 isn't likely to have the necessary equipment for the checkride, you'll need to fly both, anyway. And the real issue will not be the airplane, but your instructor(s)--not everyone who has CFI or CFII on the back of his/her name is all that good as a teacher.

Cary

Barnstormer wrote:If you have the option, and it doesn't create undue financial/time stress, learn in a tailwheel, you'll be a better stick and rudder pilot from the outset. Learning in a J3 would be excellent. You'll get a good appreciation for energy management and it will be a heck of a lot of fun.

What he said.
Exactly what he said.