Flying a Tailwheel Airplane: Challenges and Thrills

As I’ve mentioned before, I need to accumulate 250 hours of total flight time to meet the requirements for a commercial pilot’s license. During this time-building process, I am considering flying different types of aircraft to gain variety of experience.

One endorsement I am pursuing is for a tailwheel aircraft. This will not only improve my airplane control skills, but also increase my job opportunities, as I am interested in bush flying in the future.

For my training, I am flying a Citabria, which is an aerobatic plane with a one-behind-the-other seating arrangement for the pilot and passenger. There is no attitude indicator or course directional indicator, but the plane is equipped with a g-meter to display the g-load. The throttle lever is located on the left side, there are no flaps, and a stick instead of a yoke.

Taxiing the Citabria is significantly more challenging than with tricycle-gear planes. It feels like I’m a drunk sailor, and I have to apply the rudder much more precisely.

During take-off, the airplane’s nose initially points upwards, but with increasing speed, we can push the stick slightly and align the airplane almost horizontally. After that, it feels like a typical Cessna take-off.

The ball in the turn coordinator behaves erratically. While I’m used to seeing no more than 1/4 deflection, and at most 1/2 in turbulent weather, in the Citabria it moves from one edge to the other. The airplane is much more sensitive overall.

Steep Turns. The Citabria is highly responsive when entering and recovering from steep turns. The angle of the turn is determined by referencing the g-meter and outside landmarks.

As there was no directional gyro, we had to use the magnetic compass for turning and our knowledge about compass errors.

Stalls. Similar to other aircrafts, we should pull the stick to slow down the airplane, resulting in a stall, and then initiate the recovery procedure. However, when I pushed forward the stick as I would in a Cessna, the Citabria seemed to dive almost vertically. The controls on this plane are much more sensitive.

Sideslips. I noticed a significant difference of at least 30 degrees between my heading and course. And mastering sideslips are crucial on this aircraft due to the lack of flaps.

During my first traffic patterns in the Citabria, I completed them in about 3-4 minutes, which is significantly shorter than my usual 6-8 minutes in a different aircraft. Despite the need for increased control precision and reduced reaction time, I thoroughly enjoyed flying the Citabria. The experience has certainly improved my fundamental ‘stick-and-rudder’ flying skills.


Posted

in

by

Comments

7 responses to “Flying a Tailwheel Airplane: Challenges and Thrills”

  1. Elfreda Brockett Avatar

    I don’t even know how I ended up here, but I thought this post was great. I do not know who you are but definitely you are going to a famous blogger if you aren’t already 😉 Cheers!

  2. Lacy Liston Avatar

    here! Good luck for the next!

  3. Emanuel Koehl Avatar
    Emanuel Koehl

    Glad I discovered this on google .

  4. Maple Meusa Avatar
    Maple Meusa

    I was very pleased to find this web-site.I wanted to thanks for your time for this wonderful read!! I definitely enjoying every little bit of it and I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you blog post.

  5. Funny Picture Avatar
    Funny Picture

    Wow, fantastic blog layout! How long have you been blogging for?
    you make blogging look easy. The overall look of your website is fantastic,
    as well as the content!

  6. Elwood Righetti Avatar
    Elwood Righetti

    BRILLIANT!

  7. website Avatar
    website

    Really Well done on the blog 🙂

Leave a Reply

Specify Instagram App ID and Instagram App Secret in the Super Socializer > Social Login section in the admin panel for Instagram Login to work

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Enter your email for getting notifications about new posts
Loading

airports approaches ATC ATPL BE76 C150/C152 C172 C182 Canada check checkride citabria complex CPL cross-country EASA endorsement Europe exam FAA FI flight time Icaro IFR IR Italy landings malfunction ME medical mood navigation night paperwork plans PPL rating skydiving study resources tailwheel TCCA theory thoughts USA weather

Milestones

04/09/2017: My First Flight
04/25/2017: EASA PPL written exam (6 exams passed)
05/21/2017: Radio Operator Certificate (Europe VFR)
05/22/2017: EASA PPL written exam (all passed)
05/26/2017: The First Solo!
05/28/2017: Solo cross-country >270 km
05/31/2017: EASA PPL check-ride
07/22/2017: EASA IFR English
08/03/2017: 100 hours TT
12/04/2017: The first IFR flight
12/28/2017: FAA IR written
02/16/2018: FAA IR check-ride
05/28/2018: FAA Tailwheel endorsement
06/04/2018: FAA CPL long cross-country
06/07/2018: FAA CPL written
07/16/2018: FAA CPL check-ride
07/28/2018: FAA CPL ME rating
08/03/2018: FAA HP endorsement
06/03/2019: EASA ATPL theory (6/14)
07/03/2019: EASA ATPL theory (11/14)
07/15/2019: FAA IR IPC
07/18/2019: FAA CPL SES rating
08/07/2019: EASA ATPL theory (done)
10/10/2019: EASA NVFR
10/13/2019: EASA IR/PBN SE
11/19/2019: Solo XC > 540 km
12/06/2019: EASA CPL
12/10/2019: EASA AMEL
02/20/2020: Cessna 210 endorsement
08/30/2021: FAVT validation
05/27/2022: TCCA CPL/IR written
05/31/2022: Radio Operator Certificate Canada