The Five Rules of Taildragging

[bkervaski]

Great video, thanks for sharing

[Anon455]

Paul, terrible video! You need to do it over until you get it right. There's at least 20 rules to tail dragging.. Explain the first 5 over that beach that's a good start but, the next 5 over the Grand Canyon, 5 in S.E. Alaska, and 5 in the Swiss Alps.

I think you've swung my decision over to TD for my 8.

One of the greatest post I've seen

Thank You!

[scsmith]

I just want to amplify DanH’s point about brakes.

There was a mishap discussion recently in one of the flying magazines. Improper use of the brakes. I don’t remember the details of the mishap, but the gist was that the pilot had been trained to not use them, and then when he needed them, he used them poorly and caused the accident.

I try to treat every landing as if it was a short-field landing so I brake firmly. And yes, if I am a little rusty and I have someone in the back seat, I get a little snakey once in a while as I move my feet up onto the brakes and apply them unsymmetrically. That is good drill-wakes you up right quick.

Despite my frequent firm use of the brakes the pads still last 250 hrs.

In early training certainly the brakes are an unwanted complication. But once basic landing control is mastered it is good to start learning to use the brakes. Once in a while you will need them.

[rv8ch]

Rudder control is like any other motor skill - it requires practice. The challenge is that if you don't have a taildragger yourself or a huge budget to fly someone else's with an instructor, it's hard to practice.

I spent a few aviation money units on a nice VR PC with good rudder pedals and I feel it helped me a lot. I used DCS with the Christen Eagle II, Spitfire, P-51, and a few other taildraggers and it helped train the "foot-eye" coordination. Lots of taxiing, starting down the runway and aborting, and "engine out" with a quick turnback to a landing. I have probably a few hundred landings on the sim. And yes, if you do it wrong, you'll ground loop or end up in the grass or drag a wingtip - but you just start again.

Flying my RV-8, when I think about my feet I'm terrible. When I just let my feet do what they need to do I track straight down the runway. The automatic part comes after lots of practice.

I'm still pretty timid when it comes to braking - something I need to practice a bit more - I had to brake for my landing performance tests, but I certainly could have gone a bit harder. I really don't want to buy a new prop, so I'll work up to hard braking slowly. Also, since all my tests are at MTOW I suspect it will behave differently when empty and the tail is a lot lighter.