D. Patrick Caldwell on The Joys of Flight

I got to fly a little yesterday after almost 3 months without logging a single hour. I'm about 12 hours shy of being able to solo the Super Decathlon. That, of course, is not the only benefit of doing some tailwheel work.

Every time I fly a conventional gear airplane, I notice that all of my landings improve (even my tricycle gear landings). Taildraggers give you much less leeway in your landings so every landing is either a good one or it is not a landing at all. In a tricycle gear plane, however, you can bounce that thing onto the runway and walk away just hoping nobody noticed. If you screw up in a taildragger, you'll end up (as my flight instructor said), swapping ends.

So, how'd it go?

Well, I made 14 landings. I had 2 really good wheelies and 2 really good three point landings. It hasn't clicked yet. So far, it is still really cognitive. I very effortfully make each landing and I think that I may be over thinking it. I've gotten into the habit of making smaller control inputs in the hope that I won't over correct so much.

With the wheel landings, I level off a bit too high and I keep holding it off instead of letting it settle so I get too slow and my rate of descent starts increasing again and sure enough I touch down and that tail drops and I'm flyin' again.

With the three pointers, I tried to nose it over to get it to land (which is obviously wrong) and I wasn't quite in three point position so sure enough, I touched down, the tail dropped and I was airborne.

I want to make sure it becomes subconscious so I'm going to go do landings again today. Hopefully, it won't be quite so windy. That was another factor. Landings are harder with the wind and at a busy airport so I suppose with this much effort spent in unfavorable conditions, when I do have good weather, it'll be a piece of cake.

I'll keep you posted :).

Have fun. Be safe. Happy Piloting.