---------------------------------------------------------- Lightning-List Digest Archive --- Total Messages Posted Sat 08/18/07: 4 ---------------------------------------------------------- Today's Message Index: ---------------------- 1. 04:47 AM - Re: Taildraggers forever....... (Bob Haas) 2. 04:48 AM - Re: Taildraggers forever....... (Kayberg@AOL.COM) 3. 05:21 AM - Re: Taildraggers forever....... (N1BZRich@AOL.COM) 4. 09:39 AM - Re: Lightning Tailwheel Pic (Rick Bowen) ________________________________ Message 1 _____________________________________ Time: 04:47:58 AM PST US From: "Bob Haas" Subject: RE: Lightning-List: Taildraggers forever....... You are absolutely right Brian. I fly my Pt 19, WW11 open cockpit trainer park it and bust off in my Alpi, the funny thing is the flight numbers are all most the same, except the PT is in MPH and the Alpi is Knots. But in both cases you must pay attention and feel the aircraft. Thanks for all your comments. Bob Haas. -----Original Message----- From: owner-lightning-list-server@matronics.com [mailto:owner-lightning-list-server@matronics.com] On Behalf Of Brian Whittingham Sent: Friday, August 17, 2007 9:12 PM Subject: Re: Lightning-List: Taildraggers forever....... Laurie, Here in the United States, you don't have a liscense for a tailwheel airplane, but rather an instructor sign off that says that you had ground and flight instruction. Liscenses in the United States are Private Pilot, Commercial Pilot, and Airline Transport Pilot. Ratings, in which you recieve an addition to your ticket are Instrument, Multi-Engine. All your instructor ratings are on a seperate ticket and are also considered ratings. Sign-offs include high performance (greater than 200 hp engine), high altitude for anything with a cieling that is rated higher than 25,000 feet, Tailwheel, spins (not that you can't do them, but spin awareness is required before the checkride for flight instructors), and complex aircraft with constant speed props and retractable gear. As far as if taildraggers are safer than nosedraggers.... I think that we can only compare apples and oranges here. Basically, it's not a hot topic anymore since most new aircraft have nosewheels. It's not a major killing point of pilots like weather is. I think that the only thing that we can really say for sure is that a tailwheel version of the same aircraft with the same pilot will cost more in insurance. It is because of accident rates, but the way that insurance works is simply saying, ok, there's more accidents. This doesn't take currency into account, total time (not saying that won't make it cheaper on you), or anything like that, but simply more landing and takeoff bumps & bruises. My wife's grandfather was in the Army Air Corp in WWII. They would typically solo tailwheel airplanes as little as 1-3 hours, that's total time, not just tailwheel! Sure, there was a fair share of accidents, but I think you'd find after they had about 10-15 hours of tailwheel time those accident rates nearly disappeared. The key here is currency, military currency, which most of us don't know how nice that is. It also depends on the plane. Planes that have a long distance from the CG to the tail, planes that have a high horsepower and low weight, or a lot of side area to the tail. For instance, a DC-3 in a 15 knot crosswind is just too much, in a citabria I can handle it all day long. In summary, Pilots should either, Be Good, Be Current, or Be Lucky, and that goes for both tailwheel and trigear pilots. Brian W. From: Laurie Hoffman Subject: Re: Lightning-List: Taildraggers forever....... Hi All, There have been excellent overviews of tail dragger vs 'nose dragger' posted by buz, nick and others which really summarise everything important about the comparison. Horses for courses really as has been so well outlined. Thats the great thing about flying...you can select from such a huge range of types, performance, configuration and operating and construction costs. In one post there was reference to the increased risk posed by taildraggers at the end of a long day due fatigue. Reading the comments about how tail draggers require the pilot to think more, work a little harder and remain at a higher level of conditions awareness near the ground, brought back memories of some thousands of tows in Super Cub, Pawnee and Calair glider tugs. As most often the only rostered pilot for the day it was not uncommon for that to entail 20-30 flights and on rarer occasions 30-40. This tended to hone one's focus on each and every approach. Even though increasingly tired as the day progressed it was surprising at how little the quality of the landings deteriorated. I put this down to the currency and recency aspects but more so to the heightened awareness of wind conditions and preparedness for any cross wind influence. in other words, the taildragger extracted a high level of performance from a very average pilot. I dont know about licencing in the US but in Oz, sperate licences are required for the two configurations. Having experienced that challenge, nose draggers tend to land more automatically and just dont provide as much satisfaction. Actually achieving a comfort level in tail draggers by getting enough consolidated experience under your belt is the greater challenge. Once there though, its great fun. On nother matters, Brian was kind enough to email me the flight manual (June 06) for the Lightening that Buz developed. Conratulations on such a highly readable, informative and logically set out piece of writing. Also, now that there are quite a few Lightnings airborne, would operators mind posting some achieved data on cruise economy and performance? Laurie Sydney --- N1BZRich@aol.com wrote: > Doug wrote - "Somehow looks, lighter weight, > slightly better performance can > seem less important when you have lost control of > your bird and are awaiting > an impact with a non-runway environment." > > Ops, sounds like you might be one of those "half > empty glass" guys (verses > half full) that has already decided he is going to > ground loop eventually. > Kind of like those that say if you haven't landed > gear up, you eventually will. > I am more of a positive thinker and believe that > "PPPPPP" - prior planning > prevents piss poor performance. At any rate, > differences of opinions is what > makes horse races - and my horse is faster than > yours. :-) > Blue Skies, > Buz > > PS: No, I don't really have a horse, but I do have > 400 of them under the > hood. Did not stay at a Holiday Inn Express last > night. > > > > http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour > Laurie 02 46531233 0425 703226 Park yourself in front of a world of choices in alternative vehicles. Visit the Yahoo! Auto Green Center. http://autos.yahoo.com/green_center/ _________________________________________________________________ See what you're getting into.before you go there http://newlivehotmail.com/?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_migration_HM_viral_preview_0507 ________________________________ Message 2 _____________________________________ Time: 04:48:15 AM PST US From: Kayberg@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Lightning-List: Taildraggers forever....... In a message dated 8/17/2007 8:16:42 PM Eastern Daylight Time, lozhoffman@yahoo.com writes: This tended to hone one's focus on each and every approach. Even though increasingly tired as the day progressed it was surprising at how little the quality of the landings deteriorated. I put this down to the currency and recency aspects but more so to the heightened awareness of wind conditions and preparedness for any cross wind influence. in other words, the taildragger extracted a high level of performance from a very average pilot. I dont know about licencing in the US but in Oz, sperate licences are required for the two configurations. Having experienced that challenge, nose draggers tend to land more automatically and just dont provide as much satisfaction. Actually achieving a comfort level in tail draggers by getting enough consolidated experience under your belt is the greater challenge. Once there though, its great fun. Just an opinion, but this writer brings up a point I have been thinking about but not communicating well. We hear from Buz and his 29 years of flying a Pitts (not to mention a career in the US Air Force as a pilot!) and from this writer who flew many missions in a taildragger. I agree that if you have good to exceptional pilot skills AND fly frequently, the taildragger can be a no-brainer. But what about a Private Pilot trained in Cessna 150's, who has a taildragger checkout in a Cessna 140 but only 140 hours total time in nice weather? Suppose he buys a Lightning, discovers how easy it is to make 500 mile trips, loads to aft CG and launches into a trip at dusk into gusting crosswinds on a grass strip? Would you rather see him in a taildragger or a trigear? Due to excessive busyness, I havent flown much in the last couple months. I took off in a SkyRanger the other morning for a bit of fun and games. I noticed I gave no thought to the landings. I just pulled the power off at the bottom of a mild wingover after a high speed pass down the runway, did a full slip one way and then to the other to loose a bit of speed and since I couldnt decide which wheel to land on, I just landed on both mains! I am so familiar with the airplane, I just dont think about it much. When I parked it, a student pilot remarked how easy I made it look and that he was having trouble with his landings. I had little to say to him. It just seems so simple to me. But I only have 600 hours (Commercial, IFR) not the thousands that Buz has or perhaps this writer. Perhaps I am concerned about nothing. But a low time or low skill pilot in a taildragger Lightning would worry me more than that same pilot in a trigear. Doug Koenigsberg http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour ________________________________ Message 3 _____________________________________ Time: 05:21:42 AM PST US From: N1BZRich@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Lightning-List: Taildraggers forever....... Bob, Tell us more about your Alpi. I assume it would be a 200 model based on your comment about comparative speed (kts vs. mph) with your PT-19. It is a good looking aircraft, but I don't recall seeing one (other than perhaps at OSH or LAL). How does it fly? And speaking of the Ryan, did you see the red Super Ryan with the 220 HP Continental at OSH this year? That would make a fun airplane. Blue Skies, Buz http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour ________________________________ Message 4 _____________________________________ Time: 09:39:49 AM PST US From: "Rick Bowen" Subject: RE: Lightning-List: Lightning Tailwheel Pic Brian, Your "TD Lightning" drawing sure looks sharp! Nice to have an idea what a taildragger Lightning could look like.... Rick N727RB _________________________________________________________________ See what youre getting intobefore you go there http://newlivehotmail.com/?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_migration_HM_viral_preview_0507 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Other Matronics Email List Services ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post A New Message lightning-list@matronics.com UN/SUBSCRIBE http://www.matronics.com/subscription List FAQ http://www.matronics.com/FAQ/Lightning-List.htm Web Forum Interface To Lists http://forums.matronics.com Matronics List Wiki http://wiki.matronics.com Full Archive Search Engine http://www.matronics.com/search 7-Day List Browse http://www.matronics.com/browse/lightning-list Browse Digests http://www.matronics.com/digest/lightning-list Browse Other Lists http://www.matronics.com/browse Live Online Chat! http://www.matronics.com/chat Archive Downloading http://www.matronics.com/archives Photo Share http://www.matronics.com/photoshare Other Email Lists http://www.matronics.com/emaillists Contributions http://www.matronics.com/contribution ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- These Email List Services are sponsored solely by Matronics and through the generous Contributions of its members.