You’re right Harry,
Achieving a tail wheel endorsement and spin training is next on my list, was hoping to do that this spring but that didn’t work out.

Tailwheel endorsement? There is such a thing? Guess I should get one at some point. I bought my plane from a helo pilot friend in Anchorage. We cut a broom stick off in the hangar and used it for a back seat stick and I did 3 touch and goes from the back seat with my friend up front. It seemed easy enough so I gassed it up and headed for Fairbanks. I got to Fairbanks in winter darkness and about a half a mile out the engine quit and I dead sticked it in. Ran out of gas on my first solo tail dragger flite! Quite exciting for my first solo landing in it. I think that was my first and last perfect 3-point landing. There was still gas showing in the sight gauges but a very old issue dating back to when the plane was made the gas not as available as it should have been. Once on the ground it started up just fine and I taxied to parking, wondering just what the hell had just happened. The offending issue got remedied eventually.

And that’s where the term “white knuckle flying” comes from... just such experiences.






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Wow Richard,
That sounds like a heck of a first solo tail dragger flight. :shock:

After coming through an experience as that, it has to boost your self confidence as to be able to handle most anything thrown at you?

Yes, there is such a thing as a tail wheel endorsement, or so my instructor has told me when I received my last training. They currently have a Super Decathlon and offer spin training lessons with it and also aerobatics training. Thought I may as well cross the spin training off the list and the tail wheel endorsement.

Stan Hoover

Yep Dean, I've had way more than my share of white knuckle and "time to launder the shorts" flites up here. Fortunately, my plane performs well and gets me out of situations I don't deserve to get out of. Happened just last week actually. Taking off from the ridge I was on in the pics above with a gusting 20mph crosswind I got blown off course and over the edge with a strong tailwind way before I was ready to lift off, ricocheted off a lower bench while sinking in the downdraft and careened over the next edge, still sinking and just along for the ride at that point and with just barely enough clearance to gain just enough airspeed to climb out without gathering some spruce tips with my tail wheel. That day could have ended much differently. I was pretty close to the "wall" on that one.

I would highly recommend the spin training Stan; it's not a particularly fun thing to do, but you should know what leads to them and what the entrance looks like and, most importanly, how to deal with it. It's only scary if you don't know how to deal with it, which is not at all difficult. You should know where "the wall" is and be able to recognize when you're almost there and how to react. Now, snap rolls are a different story! Too fun, and easy as hell. If I had Bruce's Grumman I'd spend as much time upside down as not!! I'd go everywhere in a cork screw flite pattern. Slow rolls in that plane would be a hoot.

Having read "West With The Night" By Beryl Markham one gets the feeling that flying in Africa with it's many up and down drafts can be a bit tricky. I understand Alaska is similar.

My father's second airplane was a tail-dragger and a restoration. A Cessna 140.

Russell,

The Cessna 140 was very similar to their L-19/O-1 Bird Dog. A great plane!

Harry

Stan:

And there's the float plane rating....

The booklet and other flying miscellany of my father's reposes in a foot-locker of his that I keep.

As avid as he was at various times in his life about guns, shooting, hunting, fishing and sailing, I believe he got more pure enjoyment later in life with the flying.

Part of it was that he outlived his hunting and fishing buddies and found a new camaraderie in flying with a group that was largely comprised of men of a younger generation.

You inquired of Richard about distances in a slow plane. My father's farthest trip was from Hanscom Field in Bedford, Massachusetts to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and back.

You're right Russell,

The seaplane rating would be great, I'm just not sure how much I would utilize that where I currently live.
My dream would be to take a vacation to Alaska and take lessons to achieve that while there, there would be no better place to do that in my mind.

Cool items you have from your father there, a trip from Massachusetts to OshKosh is a nice trip. Me and my son made the trip to OshKosh in 2018, it was a memorable trip that I doubt either of us will ever forget.

Stan