Wild idea for tailwheel training

[Ed_Wischmeyer]

It was eight weeks ago today that I had spinal fusion surgery (L1 - L5), a debilitating procedure with a truly glacial recovery process. Two weeks ago, however, I was cleared for PT -- two weeks ahead of expectation -- and today's PT session gave rise to today's wild idea.

One of the PT exercises involves a kind of teeter-totter for the feet, a square piece of wood about 18" on a side with a beam on the bottom, down the middle, so that you can stand on both feet and practice balancing, either laterally or longitudinally.

While embarrassing myself with lateral balance, the exercise reminded me a lot of landing a tailwheel airplane in a gusty crosswind:
* Immediate response to a perturbation is necessary, and if you're slow, you've blown it (control engineers call this phase lag)
* Managed response to perturbations -- sometimes you need a small correction very quickly whereas the normal response is that fast correction means big correction (gain margin for the control engineers)
* You're looking straight ahead for visual cues, even though I suspect that most of the teeter-totter cues come from the ankles.

So the idea is that for people with no-, little-, or no-recent tailwheel experience, the teeter totter will at least add the muscle movements to the pilot's repertoire of known and controlled motions. This way, when the pilot is on the rollout, s/he can focus on controllability without having to be concerned with unfamiliar muscle movements.

Post-surgery progress report: Did two, 15 minute walks today (a new daily record), and the one on the treadmill was the first post-surgery exercise that required extra breathing. Started driving two days ago, but do not have enough energy to drive outside of the neighborhood or in traffic. Self-assessment for flying also applies to driving, and real driving won't start till physical endurance has improved a lot. Flying the Cessna will be another order of magnitude beyond that, first flight with a CFI, of course. Flying the RV-8 will be another step beyond that, but hopefully the teeter totter will help.

Ed Wischmeyer, ATP/CFII, about 400 RV tailwheel hours

[esco]

Ed:

First, good on you for keeping a positive attitude as you go through this challenge.

Appreciate the tip; this will be useful to me in lots of other areas. I have to continually vary my workout, 'cause if I keep doing what I did, I'll keep getting what I got.

Thanks!

[wirejock]

Originally Posted by esco

Ed:

First, good on you for keeping a positive attitude as you go through this challenge.

Appreciate the tip; this will be useful to me in lots of other areas. I have to continually vary my workout, 'cause if I keep doing what I did, I'll keep getting what I got.

Thanks!

2nd that. Be well soon.
I used to use a balance tool. It's a round flat plate with 1/2 ball on the bottom. I would stand on it while doing something unrelated. Really required a lot of practice to stand on it. Not for your recovery but also mat be useful for training tailwheel.