Hi Eliacim and all, Don't be afraid - if I can do it, you can do it!
I got My tail wheel endorsement. It took a little over 9 hours and was a lot of fun.I have about 33 hours now and still enjoy the challenge...although I must admit x-winds still make me a bit on edge. I have been flying a Citabria 7ECA which is a fairly easy plane to fly. It is true what they say - you fly conventional gear all the way to the tie down! I, like you, learned to fly in my two control coupe. However, I did switch to a Cessna 172 to finish my pilots license. I didn't want to be restricted to Ercoupes. Part of the fun and much of the challenge of flying for me is developing a real 'seat of the pants' feel for flying. With a an Ercoupe, you more or less steer it in the air - not much of a challenge or opportunity to develop those skills. I have been working toward my Glider Pilot rating too. After two years of flying, I feel like I am just starting to get a feel for stick and rudder. Perhaps I am a slow learner. Ercoupes are great - I miss mine, but I am happy I went down the path of the Gliders and Taildragger. Just think of all the cool planes you can fly! Cheers, Scott ----- Original Message ----- From: heavensounds To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, December 25, 2007 9:00 AM Subject: [ercoupe-flyin] First flight on taildragger Merry Christmas to all! My A&P / IA, who is also a CFI and a personal friend, gave me a surprise Christmas gift yesterday: 1/2 hour of dual in a Champ (Aeronca) 7EC. It was... a humbling experience... In flight, I had to work hard to keep the plane pointing where I wanted, but believe it or not, the hardest challenge (excluding takeoff and landing - which I did not attempt) was to taxi the plane. I was all over the place taxiing, and barely able to control the thing. (I have left out the most embarrassing details...) I am a Sport Pilot with 220 hours, but nearly all of them are in my two control Ercoupe, in which I took primary training and my checkride. Therefore, I have two huge learning curves to contend with: (1) No significant rudder pedal experience - All my reflexes are set to work only with the yoke... (2) The whole taildragger thing. We agreed that I would need more than 10 hours of dual before even considering soloing, because I would have to learn from scratch how to use rudder pedals, which most pilots learning taildraggers already know how to do. I realize that the learning process I need to go through is rather unique (learn rudder pedals and unlearn two-control) and not a common one CFIs face when giving primary training. Any advice on how to learn rudder pedals after having the old brain hard wired to use only the yoke??? Eliacim N87071 61TE / GKY __________ NOD32 2747 (20071225) Information __________ This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system. http://www.eset.com
