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After some more tail-wheel training with Bill down in Palo Alto this morning, I drove up to San Carlos and picked up the Diamond Star (N504DS) for my flight to Santa Rosa. I had beautiful weather and a picture perfect flight. First, I crossed over to Half Moon Bay, because I didn’t want to have an in-flight emergency right over San Francisco. Your emergency landing options are pretty bleak over the city, but if you’re over the ocean you can at least turn to the coastline and land on a beach. Flying along the coast was beautiful, as the sun was just starting to fall on the horizon and the entire Northern California coastline was glowing in the sun.

After staying under the SFO Class Bravo airspace I set myself up for an entry to the Bay over the Golden Gate. The picture speaks for itself, but it was spectacular. Being able to fly over that majestic structure is truly one of general aviation’s best selling points. I had to recall the pictures my grandfather had taken of the bridge on his visits to California.

After flying past Alcatraz, I turned north and on my way to Santa Rosa’s airport (KSTS) and the one closest to Sebastopol, where Joan, Dan and Hanna live. Since I was listening to ATC and receiving VFR traffic advisories I heard that there was another pilot, who had also left San Carlos’ airport (KSQL), who was on his way to Santa Rosa. Popular destination! The weather was absolutely perfect and after less than an hour of leisurely flying up north I contacted the tower and was cleared to enter the downwind to runway 14. I hadn’t intended to do this, but as I turned onto base, I rounded out both my turns to a perfect half-circle to final. That’s really not a good thing to do, even at a tower-controlled airport, because you don’t get that extra bit of time to scan for unannounced traffic on final, but it must have looked super elegant to the folks watching on the ground.

After I landed I taxied towards the APEX FBO. Since it had already gotten a bit dark the FBO had sent out a cart to guide me to the tie-down. I could already seen Joan, Hanna and Dan watching me from the side of the tarmac. No sooner had I shut-down my engine and opened my canopy, that I saw Hanna running towards me. Without any hesitation she climbled up onto the wing and crawled into the cockpit behind me as I was still sitting in the front seat. She wiggled her way to the back seats and started exploring the aircraft.

After I got out, she jumped into the front seat, and without any que she grabbed my headset and put it on her head. I don’t think she had even seen me take it off, she just knew that’s what pilots did. Then she pulled down the mic and started talking to ATC, well, that’s what her uncle would like to think anyway.

Hanna was still a little frightened of the plane and didn’t want to go flying quite yet, but Joan was all gung-ho. We hopped in, I went through the pre-flight and we taxied out. After take-off we flew over the town of Sebastopol, over Joan’s house and then out to Bodega Bay. The sun had already set, so it was getting dark and by the time we returned to Santa Rosa it was already night. Joan had a really good time and even mentioned the next day that she was still high from the experience.

I too had a wonderful trip and it was a real joy playing with Hanna and seeing Joan and Dan in Sebastopol again.

I started my tail-wheel training today. The title of the post says it all. Let’s just say I managed not to ground-loop.

For those of you unfamiliar with tail-wheel airplanes, let me explain. When you learn to fly a typical airplane, you know the ones that look like really tiny versions of a 737, they have what’s known as a tricycle gear. That means there’s one wheel under the nose of the airplane, and one wheel under each wing. The two under the wing are called the mains and they have larger tyres than the nose-wheel. To take off the pilots lifts the nose-wheel off first and then the mains. On landing, the mains touch down first, followed by the nose wheel.

In a tail-wheel airplane, like the DC-3 or almost any classic aircraft, the mains are still under the wings, but the plane has a tail-wheel instead of a nose-wheel. For all intents and purposes the airplane still flies like a normal airplane, all aerodynamic laws still apply, and the cabin service is just as lousy. What’s different is that the plane handles differently when on the ground.

During taxi operations there’s actually a bit of an advantage because the plane can be spun around on a dime, but take-offs and landings are much harder. You’re probably wondering why. If the pilot knows what he’s doing, the center of gravity in the airplane is always between either the nose-wheel and the mains or between the mains and the tail-wheel. In a nose-wheel aircraft this means that the center of gravity is in front of the mains, and this has the positive characteristic that the weight of the aircraft helps keep it rolling straight down the runway centerline. (The nose-wheel and proper steering help too.)

In a tail-wheel aircraft, however, the center of gravity is behind the mains, so as the airplane begins to drift from the centerline one direction or the other, the weight of the aircraft will help exacerbate the problem and push the plane even futher in the direction of drift. If not corrected, the plane will start to turn so far that it spins around on the runway. This wouldn’t be too bad a problem if it didn’t lead to the outside wing striking the ground. Therefore, a tail-wheel pilot needs to be very quick in his or her application of the rudder to correct for any deviation from the centerline.

So, there I was sitting at the end of Palo Alto’s runway 31 (KPAO) in one of West Valley Flying Club’s Citabria’s (N75SE) with my instructor Bill Hightower. The tower cleared us and I started accelerating down the runway. First the plane swung to the left, then more to the left, I applied right rudder (or was it Bill), then the plane swung to the right, I applied left rudder, and so on. It’s a good thing this particular Citabria had 160hp because we took off before I had a chance to give myself a heart attack.

Bill told me later that it’s that way on every tail-wheel pilot’s first attempt, making me wonder why any instructor would ever want to put themselves through that kind of ‘learning experience.’

A couple of touch-and-gos later and I started to get the hang of it. There are very few things you can do after you get your private pilot license, no matter how many hours you have as a tricycle gear aviator, that really show you how incompetent a pilot you are than trying your first tail-wheel take-off.

But it sure is fun!

I gave a presentation on the Internet in China to my class. This is a hefty 2mb Powerpoint. Contact me for links to sources, this was an in-class presentation.

After letting my web site disappear for many years, I finally installed WordPress and am working to start making it presentable again. Stick around and I’ll try to make it interesting.

In the meantime, feel free to check out my photo gallery.