Transition Training - No brakes right side..

Hey guys-

Have a student who purchased a 6 and needs transition training/tailwheel endorsement, but he has no brakes on the right side..

I flew with him yesterday, but I flew on the left.

I'm not comfortable giving tailwheel with no brakes available to me.

Any of you guys given training with the student in the right seat?

About a month ago there were moderate winds out of the west. A Cessna student and instructor were landing to the north and they went off the runway to the west. You could see the left tire skid mark on the runway where the student had the left brake on.

The instructor could not prevent the off runway excursion WITH brakes.

Maybe if he was already an experienced tailwheel pilot, but I wouldn't give tailwheel training to someone unless I had brakes as well. I don't fly right seat in my Stinson (one set of brakes) with my pilot friends for this very reason.

No brakes in the back....

I did all my transition training from the front seat of my new to me RV8. Mike, my transition instructor, sat in the back and did not have any troubles. i did have tailwheel experience and endorsement prior to the training but, nothing anywhere near current.

Ben

I can give you my experiences with transition training from the perspective of the trainee.

I did transition training in an RV-6. I did all of the flying from the right seat. As the student pilot flying from the right seat I did not experience any problems when I finally flew my own RV. You might just consider giving instruction from the left seat where you can have all the controls available to you and let the student pilot fly from the right seat.

I did have tailwheel experience prior to this training which I am sure helped put me at ease with flying the RV-6.

It worked out fine for me training from the right seat.

I think I'll either suggest him flying from the right or have right hand brakes put in.

He's a low time pilot, ~120 hours and has zero tailwheel experience.

I had the exact same scenario 1.5 years ago....same airplane. I had the 'student' install brakes for the right seat and wouldn't have done it any other way. Why take a chance?

Tram said:

Hey guys-

Have a student who purchased a 6 and needs transition training/tailwheel endorsement, but he has no brakes on the right side..

I flew with him yesterday, but I flew on the left.

I'm not comfortable giving tailwheel with no brakes available to me.

Any of you guys given training with the student in the right seat?

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I face the same situation when I bought my -6. Relatively low time (~300+ hours), less than 2 hours of tailwheel experience, and no brakes on the right. Alex D. had me start in his -6 until he felt confident that I could manage the brakes. Then, we switched to my plane.

Mike Seager used to give transition training in my -6 (20 years ago!), but I don't know if he worked with realtively low-time, non-taildragger pilots.

Mixed

I took my friend flying in my Chief, and after about 10 hrs I let him fly from takeoff to landing on straight skis and a 3 mile long lake for is birthday. He was hooked, and went out and bought his own Chief, at which time I sat him down with both of our families and said "no solo until a flight instructor signs you off". We had flown a lot together, and I never really worried about who had the brakes because we almost never used them.
The flight instructor had the same misgivings, (pilot only brakes) and while flying off pavement, had two "swap ends",(almost ground loops?). The second one they were so "against" each other on the rudder pedals that it bent parts on the torque tube. He had just about had it with flight instructors until he just happened to meet one at work. Went flying with him and that guy ended up signing him off. The lesson both he and I know is that your not done FLYING until its stopped and tied down. Flying an airplane with what I call "pretend" cable actuated mechanical brakes has made both of us better at staying ahead of the airplane. Furthermore, especially on skis, when your heading for the ditch, what seems like the wrong thing, is really the right thing. THROTTLE OUT and FLY THE TAIL.
If its his airplane and he wants to risk it, give him the brakes, pick your flying days, and go get yourself into a little taxi trouble with it, slowly and on purpose. Find some grass gravel or ice. Help giude him in finding out what can happen, he probably will anyway. I know I did. Or put in brakes.

I also took my RV transition training in a TD 6, I flew from the right seat until the instructor was comfortable with my handling of the airplane, then we switched seats and finished up.

Andrew M said:

If its his airplane and he wants to risk it, give him the brakes..

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It's not his decision to risk my safety and or my tickets.. Serious ground loop turned crash does no one any good, if we live through it, and then when the FAA investigates and they find a 0 hour TD pilot had the brakes, even if brakes were not needed, guess who they put on the spit.

Many people look at brake use as an act of failure... In other words, if you need the brakes you are doing something wrong. I tend to agree with this, so I teach people to fly my Hiperbipe from the right (no brakes). If they can manage to fly it without brakes, then stepping over to the left seat is easy.

I agree

Tram said:

It's not his decision to risk my safety and or my tickets.. Serious ground loop turned crash does no one any good, if we live through it, and then when the FAA investigates and they find a 0 hour TD pilot had the brakes, even if brakes were not needed, guess who they put on the spit.

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Well said and I agree. This is above my comfort level as a CFI as well.

I'd let him fly it right seat and even after he demonstrates proficiency, I'd still be very reluctant to give up the brakes.

In gusty crosswinds that challenge the rudder authority, the brakes can be a saver when the rudder runs out.

Best,

Student/Instructor switching sides.

Toobuilder said:

I teach people to fly my Hiperbipe from the right (no brakes). If they can manage to fly it without brakes, then stepping over to the left seat is easy.

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That's what my instructor did when I did a bit of TW training. I actually never touched the brakes until the one day he wanted to see how fast I could stop it. This is in a Fleet Canuck.

Flame suit on

Caveat - I'm not proficient enough to do this today, but...

Back when I taught full time, I did tail wheel transition training in the company's '46 Luscombe 8A (bone stock). It only had heal brakes on the left side (they weren't overly effective at that). I put the low total time, no tailwheel time, students in the right seat and only on grass. Once they had the grass figured out. I'd move them to the left seat - again just on grass. After that we repeated the process on pavement - never had a ground loop. Signed off lots of folks in the region.
This was in windy Southern Oklahoma - YMMV.

The point is it can be done with some care and some extra flight time, but as Rick said above, it's probably money well spent to equip the airplane and be done with it...

Toobuilder said:

Many people look at brake use as an act of failure... In other words, if you need the brakes you are doing something wrong. I tend to agree with this, so I teach people to fly my Hiperbipe from the right (no brakes). If they can manage to fly it without brakes, then stepping over to the left seat is easy.

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I totally agree. If you're on the brakes, somethings not right. However, simple things such as stopping the plane to avoid a collision, etc, I need the brakes. With a student, without the endorsement, I am PIC. Not having brakes is a bad idea, imo.

pierre smith said:

Well said and I agree. This is above my comfort level as a CFI as well.

I'd let him fly it right seat and even after he demonstrates proficiency, I'd still be very reluctant to give up the brakes.

In gusty crosswinds that challenge the rudder authority, the brakes can be a saver when the rudder runs out.

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I totally agree.. I'm not 100% comfortable with no having brakes. So, sounds like lots here have learned in the right seat, I think we'll add one more to the list.

Good call

Tram said:

It's not his decision to risk my safety and or my tickets.. Serious ground loop turned crash does no one any good, if we live through it, and then when the FAA investigates and they find a 0 hour TD pilot had the brakes, even if brakes were not needed, guess who they put on the spit.

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I stand corrected

Tram said:

I totally agree. If you're on the brakes, somethings not right. However, simple things such as stopping the plane to avoid a collision, etc, I need the brakes. With a student, without the endorsement, I am PIC. Not having brakes is a bad idea, imo....

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I'm with you- instructor has the brakes. I'm saying that the STUDENT can learn to fly without brakes first (also avoids learning bad habits like a late stomp on the brake rather than an early rudder input).

I can see how my post could be interpreted differently though...

Andrew M said:

I stand corrected

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I wasn't trying to make it sound like that. If it came across as crass, I apologize. I tried to throw the "winky" smiley in there..

I should also change the "my" to "our."

Toobuilder said:

I'm with you- instructor has the brakes. I'm saying that the STUDENT can learn to fly without brakes first (also avoids learning bad habits like a late stomp on the brake rather than an early rudder input).

I can see how my post could be interpreted differently though...

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Yeh, I think they can easily learn to fly without brakes, gotta be better than the heel brakes I learned on.