During last week’s “test drive” with CFI Dave, he demonstrated – and then had me fly – a take-off procedure in his Citabria with the control stick thrust fully forward. It was about as unnatural an act as your correspondent has been asked to perform since he was in beer bar in Pataya Beach, Thailand back in the late 80’s, about which that’s quite enough for now.
For you see, in any aircraft of my previous acquaintance, placing the control stick full forward at full power on a take-off roll would induce overload conditions on the nose landing gear, the like of which might cause the thing to buckle with all sorts of unfortunate circumstances and no end of answering “what were ye a’thinking of, anyway?” questions at the wrong end of a long green table.
The end with no ashtray, nor water glass neither.
But the Citabria, being a tailwheeled aircraft, is wholly innocent of nose landing gear and their associated failure modes. What with all the emphasis the tailwheel folks spend on placing the control first here and then there while at taxi speeds – climb into the wind, dive away – and especially about hauling aft when you’re into the wind, it did seem to be a little strange to thrust first the throttle forward, and then the stick. Placing the wing at a negative angle of attack did have the effect of putting weight down on to the main landing gear until we were at safe flying speed however, and it was a good lead-in to today’s flight. Wheel landings.
I was half convinced that Dave would call the whole thing off, and the other half hoping, for there were gusty winds today down at Gillespie Field, and right around 80 degrees off the runway heading to boot. The Citabria is a heavier airplane than that old Champ, but it’s nothing like a fighter when it comes to loaded weight and I’m cautiously prepared to believe it will lift and swoop on the proverbial beat of an African butterfly’s wings, not bothering to wait for the associated hurricane.
But no, it was “we’ll earn our beans today!” with a wide grin, and after a brief discussion and even briefer walk-around, hizzoner jumped in the back with a gracious gesture to me to bundle myself in up front and in two shakes of a lamb’s tail we were on our merry.
Took the runway and executed the stick forward take-off, something of the engine noise as it wound up interfering with the automatic noise reducing headsets such that if Dave was speaking to me about technique I was hearing him not. Did two stall landings that went fairly well considering us being tossed hither and yon on final approach, but truth be told my hands and feet were as busy as a helicopter pilot preparing to die executing an auto-rotation.
The tailwheel aircraft objects strenuously to any class of sideload on landing, so drift must be carefully compensated for even before you settle to earth. I don’t know the aircraft quite well enough yet to know when I’m within a few inches of landing, so I’ve a tendency to grope for the runway just a bit, a little nose low, a little more flare, repeat until we’re on deck and then it’s “stick aft, stick aft!”until you slow to a stop, and mind the rudders all the way – ground loops tend to happen not when you’re speeding along just after touch down, but as you’re almost to taxi speed. Almost.
(I’m not a huge fan of personal computer flight simulators for basic airwork, but they are good for procedural training, and the stick aft thing – at least – is something I’ve been practicing.)
Showing every affectation of being impressed with my abilities thus far – Dave’s nothing, if not confidence inspiring – my instructor launched us into the wheel landing phase of the flight, commencing with a demonstration from the back seat. On final we were coming downhill like a son-of-a-gun, the winds were buffeting us and Dave’s visibility over the nose could not have been improved by the Impenetrable Mass What Is Lex blocking a good 30 degrees of his field of view right forward.
Just when I thought we must necessarily dash the machine to bits, along with the hopes and dreams of those that love us, Dave twitched the tail up a bit to break the rate of descent, goosed the throttle, settled her down on the mains and shoved the stick right forward and into the crosswind.
Well, thought I, that isn’t so hard.
Except when you get a bit impatient when your own turn comes.
I flew a passable approach, kept my feet happy on the rudders after having taken the crosswind crab out on short final and then decided that we’d all be better off if the airplane landed now. Which, to my dismay, it wasn’t anywhere near being ready for. We bounced into the air even as I placed the stick forward, and as the nose started coming down from the combined efforts of my forward stick, gravity and our diminishing airspeed, Dave – who in the pre-flight brief had expressly forbad me from trying to salvage a wheel landing after a bounce, in only for the prop strike that’s in it – uttered a resigned, “Squark!” which I took as my signal to run the throttle up to the firewall and give ‘er another look.
All’s well that ends with all the big pieces still attached, and humbled in pride but determined to win through I flew another three wheel landings of an increasingly satisfactory nature, the last one being – if not quite a squeaker – not awful considering the circumstances.
It was a workout right enough, none of your contented plopping down of the tricycle design and the flight not over until we were chocked and chained. Still, Dave said gratifying things and promised that we weren’t so far away from that coveted endorsement.
Which sounds good to me, the Citabria renting out at $114 to the hour and hizzoner’s rates – though fair – non-trivial. Still, there’s much to learn, and a time yet before I make it mine.
But I’m starting to think that this will happen.
You’ll be flying a diesel next.
Or a helicopter…
Reading that made me think of this that I found when wandering the internet. Stolen from http://www.rb-29.net/html/03RelatedStories/03.10.FunStuff/22.RoundEngines.htm :
DEDICATED TO
ALL WHO FLEW BEHIND ROUND ENGINES
Author Unknown
——————————————————————————–
We gotta get rid of those turbines, they’re ruining aviation and our hearing…
A turbine is too simple minded, it has no mystery. The air travels through it in a straight line and doesn’t pick up any of the pungent fragrance of engine oil or pilot sweat.
Anybody can start a turbine. You just need to move a switch from “OFF” to “START” and then remember to move it back to “ON” after a while. My PC is harder to start.
Cranking a round engine requires skill, finesse and style. You have to seduce it into starting. It’s like waking up a horny mistress. On some planes, the pilots aren’t even allowed to do it…
Turbines start by whining for a while, then give a lady-like poof and start whining a little louder.
Round engines give a satisfying rattle-rattle, click-click, BANG, more rattles, another BANG, a big macho fart or two, more clicks, a lot more smoke and finally a serious low pitched roar. We like that. It’s a GUY thing…
When you start a round engine, your mind is engaged and you can concentrate on the flight ahead. Starting a turbine is like flicking on a ceiling fan: Useful, but, hardly exciting.
When you have started his round engine successfully your crew chief looks up at you like he’d let you kiss his girl too!
Turbines don’t break or catch fire often enough, leading to aircrew boredom, complacency and inattention. A round engine at speed looks and sounds like it’s going to blow any minute. This helps concentrate the mind! Turbines don’t have enough control levers or gauges to keep a pilot’s attention. There’s nothing to fiddle with during long flights.
Turbines smell like a Boy Scout camp full of Coleman Lamps. Round engines smell like God intended machines to smell.
Pass this on to an old WWII pilot (or his son who flew them in Vietnam) in remembrance of that “Greatest Generation.”
You don’t start a round engine you wake them up. Most times they act like a bear in hibernation being stirred – don’t much like it and can bite if you’re not careful.
When the starter whine begins and the first cylinder fires you’re not there yet as you need to coax the rest into joining the chorus by not getting too aggressive with the throttle while being ready to stroke the primer if it seems to be lacking enough go juice to get everyone in sync. Of course you are watching for oil pressure to rise so you can move the prop forward to lessen the load on the engine while not wanting to, as the engine engines stumbling, get the manifold pressure too high as, if the temperature is at all on the cool side, the engine oil will be still thick enough to blow a hose off as the oil pressure surges past red line.
But soon all the elements are aligned and the cough, wheeze, hack, BANG, settles down into a full-throated rumble that you experience with all your senses. It always provides another dose of satisfaction that everyone within earshot has come to look, the starting of the mythical beast being unable to resist to most airport rats no matter how many times they’ve seen the spectacle.
God I miss it. You feel like you are performing a scared ritual.
And if (when) you do it wrong, scared is the right adjective.
As Ensigns in Beeville, Tx…Ziggy and I purchased a 3 time owned 7ECA…N90968…for $10,500…orange and white starburst paint scheme…figured we didn’t need lessons as we had 20 traps on a big steel (and wood…Lex) deck in Buckeyes and Scooters and were certified CNATRA IPs.
After skipping out of a TRACOM safety standdown, we drove out to Refugio, put Ziggy in the front as his 1 landing in our taildragger was better then my 1 landing. Interesting takeoff, but 2 hours of fun, ended up with Ziggy having us skid off the left side of the runway into the newly cut grass…thought I was going to die…didn’t care about Ziggy. 2 weeks later, with full lessons by someone who really knew taildraggers, had us on our way. Bottom line: you have never flown an aircraft till you have mastered a taildragger.
Good stuff, Lex; few things are as humbling or rewarding in aviation as learning to fly conventional gear. I learned years ago in a Citabria 7KCAB, and it’s a great tool for the purpose.
Reading this reminds me of my first time in a Citabria
(or any other small plane I did no later jump out of)
as well-I never had any flight instruction at all,
instructor (my best friend’s brother-in-law)says
“Taxi us out of here, the plane is yours”,
and off the cliff I went-did not ground loop it however.
reading your words, brought me back to that feeling
on takeoff like we were going to scrape the runway with the prop,
but it never happened. An hour of zipping through canyons
barely wide enough to fit the plane, loops, rolls, spins,
a desert field landing and a takeoff, were a gas!
I will never forget that day.
I hope you are having as much fun as I had-
it sure sounds like it!
That there is a sweet little machine!
pic for you:
http://www.avweb.com/newspics/potw/large/potw04_1544.jpg
All well and good, but back to that Pataya Beach thing–you don’t get by without some elucidation as to what well and truly happened there…
One of these days, perhaps I too will to the tailwheel thing…
OK – in the things to look forward to category: Next time that SNJ sitting on your weekend employer’s ramp takes off observe how extended the oleo gear drop from their resting position on the ground. So, as you return to terra firma in same the gear reaches out for you as you attempt a wheel landing and caresses the runway and then absorbs any hamfisted efforts you have made to get her to bounce. No tendency to bounce like that Spring Steel gear on the Citabria.
So wheel landing an SNJ is easier to do well than in a Citabria in my opinion. Three point, due to the lack of forward visibility, not so much. Now the SNJ will scare the hell out of you if you don’t have it aligned straight at touchdown but if you have it aligned straight with no drift its no big deal.
But from the sounds of things the biggest hole in your aviation resume is about to get filled.
Lex:
My turn int he barrel with Sundog (8GCAA) comes this week, mushy oleo gear and all. I look forward to the adventures in future humility.
Don’t gloat, it’s unbecoming.
VR,
Comjam