Lose the Training wheel!
Sure you can limit yourself to flying planes with a training wheel on the nose…but why limit yourself? Kidding aside, if you want to learn how to control an airplane better, tailwheel training is an excellent option. The training will help in several ways. First, you will become more aware of you rudders and the longitudinal axis of the aircraft. But second…there are a lot of cool airplanes that happen to be taildraggers. And if you want to fly them…here is the next step!
Meet your instructor
Nathan Davies
CFI, CFII
Why Tailwheel?
Plenty of plane now days have tricycle landing gear…so why bother with conventional gear?
There are several reasons why tailwheel aircraft are being built and flown regularly. Here are a couple of the main ones:
- Fly faster. For a fixed gear aircraft, having one less wheel going through the air means less drag while avoiding the complexity of a retract.
- Larger range of landing speeds. Because you have the option of a wheel landing or a 3 point, you can land faster or often slower compared to an aircrafts stall speed. This is especially evident when you was a STOL competition where most aircraft competing are tailwheel.
- Simpler build. Especially in the experimental world, you can avoid having to build a more complex engine mount/landing gear.
- More aircraft are available to fly or own. Many aircraft, especially older aircraft have a conventional landing gear. You can see a P-51, Midget Mustang, Luscomb, and RV-7 on this website, all of which are taildraggers.
Currently Northbase has an agreement for training in a Cessna 140 taildragger aircraft. Due to this there are some size limitation.
