D. Patrick Caldwell on The Joys of Flight

A few days ago, I went up for some tailwheel landings and was really happy with my progress. I couldn't wait to go up the next day and do some more landings to see if I could solidify the muscle memory. So, yesterday, I did go do some more tailwheel landings and boy did it ever suck!

I bounced it around pretty good the first few attempts and got so flustered that I couldn't even read my altimeter (let alone hold pattern altitude). It may have been the worst flying I've ever done.

Now, I know that everybody has bad days, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out how it ended up that bad. Well, the fact is that flying a tailwheel airplane is tough to do. Some very good pilots have been groundlooped by a gusty wind. Everybody goes through this with conventional gear.

I also think I'm at a disadvantage because of my tricycle gear experience. Thing is, at this point, a 20 to 30 knot gusting and variable crosswind doesn't really phase me. In fact, it doesn't even make my palms sweat anymore.

So, when I showed up at my tailwheel school, my instructor asked, "are you sure you want to go? 22 knots is pretty fast." Of course, I thought, "yeah, 22 knots mostly down the runway is no big deal! Let's go."

Well, several really tough approaches and landings later, I gave up for the day. Sitting in the flight school, the owner of the plane said, "I can't believe you tried today. I usually don't fly with wind above 4 or 5 knots." My instructor said when he bought his first taildragger, he wouldn't go above 7 or 10 knots. It helped to know that 22 knots is a lot of wind in a taildragger.

So, I have two tips for the conventional gear hopeful. First, don't get discouraged! Flying a taildragger is really hard. Second, a little wind changes things a lot in a taildragger. It is good to get the high wind experience, but count on some rough times and remember how much time you had to get in your tricycle gear trainer before you were comfortable with a heavy crosswind.

Have fun. Be safe. Happy Piloting.