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.
Leave a Reply