pastranafan5
Active Member
It's time for me to order my fuselage. I really don't know which model to get. All of my flying has been in tricycle gear, but I'm going to be flying out of a grass strip, and I love how the 7 looks.
It's time for me to order my fuselage. I really don't know which model to get. All of my flying has been in tricycle gear, but I'm going to be flying out of a grass strip, and I love how the 7 looks.
My choice was easy. Sweetie said, "you can build any plane you want as long as the wheel is in front." Happy wife, happy life, happy husband.
...Then she hit me with just one more 'request': No surprises. Meaning, as much as possible, she wanted me to build out any propensity for the airplane to catch me by surprise during the flight.
"Hmmmmm," thought I. A ground loop counts as a surprise, so an RV-7A it is.
Now, I know, this is a very difficult aircraft to ground-loop, but it certainly has happened. And if there's a way to do it, I'm certain I'll blunder my way into finding the way. That perspective alone has made me quite comfortable with my -7A decision.
I loved the look of the 7 and wanted to be a tail dragger but I wrestled with the decision and self-doubts for a long time. In the end I bought an RV-7 and am SO HAPPY that I did.
I'd bet that nose overs are rather surprising too. I'd rather the airplane go around the vertical axis unexpectedly than the lateral one, but that's just me. The best advice in this whole thread or the many, many others just like it, is to build/buy what you want, not what someone else wants.
I'm about half way through TW endorsement, and if money is a pinchy subject, then maybe go with an A model. When done, it'll be about 2k to get my endorsement in a Decathalon. And of course thats just the endo - insurance company probably wants some other TW time from you as well; in my case, Pitts time as well. Add another 2k min. Just food for thought....
Lots of advice to "Build What you want"
But what do you want? How do you know what you want?
So my advice is to get a bunch of tail wheel time. Not expensive and actually kinda fun. Cub, Aeronca, Citabria, that kind of thing. Actually, I'd get my TW endorsement.
THEN decide.
CC
My choice was easy. Sweetie said, "you can build any plane you want as long as the wheel is in front." Happy wife, happy life, happy husband.
In May I'll be coming up on 25 years as a CFI. I've done a good amount of BFR's in that time as well. I will say that of those BFR's I've seen a fair share of tricycle drivers that flat out really didn't know how to land an airplane or perhaps just completely forgot. If not for the gear design saving them we'd have been in a bad spot had they landed like that in a conventional gear aircraft.
Now I will say that the folks saying build what you want are absolutely right. There have been plenty of situations wherein I was flying a TW and wishing I was in a trike because in a trike I really wouldn't have to think about it and or work as hard or have even the faintest of doubts.
Thing about a TW is - you learn to feel in your butt EXACTLY when that airplane's gonna quit flying. You can land a trike without really ever knowing that. And believe it or not that "aeronautical proprioception" has helped me flying just about every fixed wing aircraft that I've ever been in - to include ones like the Boeing 777 and 787 which have artificial feel modules simulating what I'm supposed to be feeling.
So in summary - in learning to land a TW well you're gaining skill that's truly valuable. Just one man's opinion YMMV.
and I love how the 7 looks.
Do you really need us to tell you the answer?
If it helps you justify doing what you know you want to do already alright:
Build the taildragger, its the plane you want.
As George Patton used to quote Frederick the Great (IIRC) "never take counsel of your fears".