February 7, 2001 Dancing with the Cub |
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Spring will soon be upon us in North America, and with it will come the gentle sounds of tires skimming over newly-mown grass, props quietly ticking over at idle and the muted drumming of doped fabric. Yes, it will soon be time to drag that Cub out of the hangar. Many pilots never look beyond the tricycle-gear
February 7, 2001
 The playful bounce of a taildragger landing on a
grass strip is now a sense memory for me, not just something I have read about
and seen at the airport or on a video. Wood, fabric and all of 65 horsepower
took to the air, and for a few moments, I was a Hurricane pilot slicing
through the air. I did it! On Sunday, August 20, 2000, I flew a Piper J3 Cub,
and things are different now. I finally flew by seat-of-pant and
view-of-horizon, and loved every minute of it.
When I commenced my flight training for the Private Pilot's certificate, I did
it at a busy metropolitan airport, where one cannot stand too close to the
runway. This had always been a frustrating thing to accept. The intimate
moment where aircraft becomes ground vehicle has always been intriguing for
me, especially when I realized I was not particularly good at negotiating a
smooth transition between the two. I have since moved my home base to a
smaller airport, which affords a better view of the air-to-ground proceedings,
and where there are at least a few older aircraft, including some taildraggers.
I had heard all about how these beasts were harder to fly and land, all the
clichés. I was so intrigued, I bought a book, "The Compleat Taildragger
Pilot," before I had even finished my primary training and had no idea where
to obtain taildragger training. I was intrigued. I subsequently learned the
geometry of why taildragger flying is different, and quietly resolved to fly
one, someday.
A couple of years had almost elapsed since my Private Pilot checkride
(which is another story altogether), so I was due for my biennial flight review. I decided to combine my BFR with a little
taildragger instruction. Via the Internet, I had recently struck up an online
conversation with John Tremper, a CFI at nearby Trinca Airport (13N), in
Andover, N.J., so I inquired about getting an intro to flying the Cub. John said
he would be happy to oblige, rolling the BFR in with the taildragger
instruction. I was excited, because in addition to never having flown a
taildragger, I had never even been to a grass strip before. There were lots of
firsts on order for this Sunday.
Just arriving at the airport I was struck by how different things were out
here, compared to the busier, towered airport where I had learned to fly. I
should have known, here's a highlight from the directions John gave me:
"Bear right at the yellow flasher, and follow that road for about a
mile or so. Then you'll see a telephone pole on the left. Get ready, because
that means the driveway to the airport is coming up. With the corn this high,
you'll drive right past it if you're not ready for it."
 Corn? Drive right past the airport?
I'm used to seeing the airport from a mile away, because you can see the
control tower from that distance. Endless chain-link fencing and rows of
neatly parked single- and twin-engine aircraft usually signal the impending
entrance to the airport for me. My visual cues today were a yellow flasher, a
telephone pole and an opening in a cornfield. I made this transition without
incident, and found the airport without a problem. Upon arrival, I was greeted
by "Propwash," the airport cat. Apparently the poor feline was blown
clear across the ramp one day, having been in the wrong place when a Super Cub
performed a run-up. He seemed none the worse for the wear, and his friendly
greeting was encouragement enough for me to feel right at home in this
entirely new airport environment. Looking around, I saw a collection of single-engine
airplanes resting on the grass, ready to go fly. They all seemed to be saying, "Where have you been? See what you've been missing?"
A gentleman in a bright yellow T-shirt and a matching bright yellow Piper
Cub baseball cap strolled up and introduced himself as John Tremper. He was
wearing the team colors of a die-hard Piper Cub fan, and this guy was going to
teach me how to fly all over again. I couldn't wait.
After a lengthy preflight, there was an actual demonstration on how to
insert oneself into the Cub. This is no small feat for a 6'2" 195-pounder,
and getting out is even more hysterical. Once you're actually installed in the
seat, it's a comfortable place to be. There are tubular objects
projecting from the floor, which are familiar enough to recognize as rudder
pedals. But then there are these aluminum mini-pedals located a few inches in
front of those, closer to your feet. These are the brake pedals, I'm
told. Apparently, we won't be needing those today, and it's best that I forget
they're there at all. Apparently, if the Cub's wing had as bad a track record as the Cub's
brakes, I'm afraid aviation would have taken a sorry turn somewhere in the
1940s.
As I sit in the pilot's seat (which is the rear seat, by the way...), John talks about the
airplane while I stare out the
windshield, trying to absorb the sight picture. Unlike in a trike, where the
landing attitude is vastly different from the static, three-point (level)
attitude, in the taildragger you can sit in the plane, tied down and what you
see is what you get at touchdown. I figure I'll take a good look at things
now, while all is well and calm.
 Now, we get to the heart of the matter. We talk shop, specifically about
this whole taildragger business. Briefly, the reason taildraggers are trickier
to fly than tricycle landing gear aircraft is a simple matter of geometry and physics. The center of gravity in a taildragger is behind the main
gear versus in front of the main gear in a tricycle-gear airplane. Entire books have been
written about why this is troublesome, but the best demonstration I ever saw
was in a Barry Schiff video. He took an ordinary child's tricycle and pointed
it down the driveway and gave it a push. The trike tracked basically straight,
and rolled along happily until it ran out of momentum. Then, he converted it
to a taildragger, by simply turning it around 180 degrees. He pointed the
little pair of wheels down the driveway and gave it a push, the single
swiveling wheel and the center of gravity behind the pair of fixed ones. You
can imagine what happened. The trike became interested in darting off in one
direction, then the other, then back the other way, each time getting more and
more interested in going in the opposite direction. Eventually, this zig-zag
course was too much for the force of momentum, and the trike flopped over on
its side. Now, this all happened in about 2.5 seconds. It's a fascinating
display of how the CG works against you in a taildragger, and can appear to
have a mind of its own.
This is where Taildragger Rule Number One comes up: Never Let An Outside
Force Affect The Airplane. You are the boss, and you MUST keep the thing
straight. If you give the plane an inch, it will take a mile, or at least as
much distance as it needs to perform the ancient pilot humbler, the ground
loop. This is where CG wins the battle and forces the aircraft to
"swap ends," performing a rapid 180-degree turn, much to the pilot's
chagrin.
John has a great analogy for the dance your feet need to be doing when
flying a taildragger. Think of the boxer, who has his hands up, ready to
defend. He makes quick jabs -- left, right, left-left -- whatever it takes. Your
feet should be doing the same thing in the plane, countering the jabs the CG
is making. You don't throw in a footful of right rudder and wait for something
to happen. You make small corrections and "look for trends" as my
primary CFI once told me when I was zig-zagging all across a VOR radial. I
guess the takeoff roll in a taildragger is like the last moments of an ILS
approach, where everything is real sensitive. I sense that my moves will be
largely defensive at first, but by the time I'm ready to solo in this thing,
they should be offensive.
 Convinced he's loaded me up with about 700 items too many to remember, John
decides it's time to get started. After engine start -- the aircraft is
equipped with a human starter, the John Tremper model -- we begin some
taxi practice. My head is hanging out the window, craning around the engine
cowling just to make sure I don't run over the "movable runway
marker" (ground hog) that is frolicking about at the approach end of the
runway. This is definitely crawl-before-walk-before-run time. John adds some
throttle, and gets the Cub going as fast as it can go while still maintaining
a three-point attitude, so I can get a feel for the plane's reactions at the
beginning of the Interesting Speed Range, or ISR. John had told me before we began
that at low speed, taxiing, the plane pretty much will do what you tell it to
do. Additionally, at high speed, in the air, it will do the same. It's just in
that middle range, the ISR, there are all
kinds of things that can go wrong. So that's where we are right now, at the
low end of the ISR (low ISR?) and at the base of my learning curve.
I'm jabbing away, trying to do my best Oscar De La Hoya imitation on those
rudder pedals. After a few runs like that down the runway without incident, I
have graduated to tail-up taxiing.
Then John raised the stakes. We're now going to practice that transition from
three-point attitude to mains-only. The view out the windshield improves, but
of course now you're traveling faster and so your reactions have to be faster.
Now all directional control comes from airflow over the rudder, as the
steerable tailwheel wheel is up in the air (at least it gets to
fly...).
When you raise the tail, the propeller, in concert with gyroscopic forces,
momentarily throws you a curveball, literally, as there's a slight shift in rudder
pressure required to Keep The Plane Straight. As the tail comes up, I'm
suddenly riding higher, and I can finally see straight ahead. It dawns on me that I'm doing something I've wanted to do for a long time, and I
smile, if only briefly; the rudder pedals need my attention again.
After a few more tail-up taxis down the length of the runway, we're ready
to make a serious commitment. Back at the approach end, we do a run-up, and
now I know we're really going to do this. Compared to the Piper Archer I've
been flying, there's less to check here, but the real important things are
still present. Dual magnetos, carburetor heat, oil pressure and temperature
gauges - the givers and maintainers of thrust -- so we check them. They all
seem to be operating, telling us good things. Control surfaces are free and
correct, the pattern is clear. John reviews pattern altitude, traffic flow and
local procedures with me. We review the hand signals he'll be using during
flight. Communication will be relatively simple, since there is no electrical
system and no headsets. No radio for that matter. No VOR, DME, or
GPS. The compass will tell you you're flying any heading within a
60 degree arc, depending on where the control stick is placed, because of
magnetic deviation. There is no turn coordinator, no attitude indicator, no
directional gyro, no curtains on the side windows, no strobe, navigation or
landing lights, yet everything you need is here. We're about to fly stick and rudder, and I can't wait.
We swing it around, and line up. "You ready?" John asks. "Let's
go!" I respond. "Okay; remember to keep it straight, keep it level. After about
two Mississippi you can raise the tail. Keep it straight. You'll know when it's
ready to fly," John reminds me. A push of the throttle lever and the 65 horses roar to
life.
Waaaahhhhhhhhhh, right, right, one Mississippi; left, two Mississippi; right, right, bumpitty-bumpitty, stick
forward; left -- whoops -- right-left-right-right-left, bumpitty (wow, this is so
cool...); whoops, left,
stick coming back, right, stick back more, more, right, left aileron, we're
crabbing ... we're, we're FLYING!
The smile on my face at this point would have been painful had I not been
having too much fun to notice.
 The grass fell away, and that right main was right there, where I have
become accustomed to seeing it. A thumbs-up comes into view over the seat in
front of me, and I realize I have not broken anything yet. The altimeter
begins its painfully slow crawl clockwise, and now I realize that I have yet
to look at the airspeed indicator. The plane talks to you, you know when it's
time to act. Maybe the consequences for not listening are so great that it
makes you listen better, but in this aircraft I felt much more in tune with it
than in the other trainers I have flown.
And the view! The view! The Cub has a little door that folds down and a
window that hinges up, creating a large opening in the right side of the
fuselage that you pull yourself through to enter the aircraft. Once inside,
one can elect to leave these open, making for a nice-sized air vent on a
hot day. But once you insert a few hundred feet between this opening and the
ground, it becomes this fantastic interface between what you are doing (in the
plane) and where you're doing it (the sky). I was
so much more aware that I was hundreds of feet above the ground, yet I was
also able to view the ground with much greater freedom and clarity. The wonder
of flight just got a little bit more wonderful.
We pointed the plane away from the airport, toward the practice area, and
waited a while. Eventually, we arrived at the practice area, where we did some slow
flight, stalls, steep turns and lazy eights. I had never done a lazy eight
before, and John was explaining the maneuver to me in flight, not the best of
classrooms. He did a few, and then I tried a few, as John added some hand
signals to move the proceedings along. After a few of these, I was starting to
really feel like the plane was more of an extension of me, rather than a
machine that I was pointing around the sky. I was a bird! For a brief time,
the wire fuel gauge in front of the windshield became a gun sight, the Cub became a Hawker
Hurricane and I was defending London against the
Luftwaffe. I just pretended the swimming pools were oil refineries or
something. The visibility was spectacular that day as well, and I could see
the Manhattan skyline clear as a bell, from 2,000 feet and 40 miles
away. I felt like I could reach out and grab the Empire State Building.
But I had yet to attempt a landing. I was anxious to head back and try a
few, so back we went. We
pointed the plane at the airport (which never got too far away), and waited
some more. A
little while later, we were closer to the airport. A little while after that,
I contemplated setting up my 45-degree entry to the pattern. A little while
after that, we were in the pattern. Nothing happens fast in a Cub, I thought
to myself. Of course, I had yet to attempt a landing.
 Settling in on the downwind leg, I thought, "Okay, I can do this."
Most of the stuff is the same as I had become accustomed to. Abeam the touchdown point,
it's carb heat on, throttle back. Fly the remainder of the downwind, base and
final legs, slow, flare, bleed airspeed, land. John helped me out with the
sight picture and the revised pattern that needs to be flown. You keep it
tighter, and stay high until you're almost home. Again, instruments have not
been too much of a factor here. Except for monitoring the altimeter on
downwind and the tach at the power reduction, they have not been looked at.
The windshield gives you pitch (and therefore airspeed) and bank information
quite nicely, thank you very much.
Leveling out on final, the windsock enthusiastically points across the
runway. John tells me to think like Luke Skywalker in the final scenes of
"Star Wars," where he's piloting his craft through those canyons of
the Death Star. Keep it straight; use the force. At least no one's shooting at
me. As we near the surface, John does a great job of protecting his aircraft with a few choice, well-timed words and hand signals. With them, I get advance
notice on such Nice Things To Know as:
- We're about to impact at a high descent rate;
- We're about to head off
into the corn; and,
- We're about to impact at a high descent rate (again).
Somehow, I translate these gestures into actions on the stick and rudder
pedals. Surely, John provided some assistance on the controls, but I was too
busy to notice. The wind noise dissipated, replaced with that
bumpitty-bumpitty noise again, and as we bounce along on the grass, slowing, I
realize we're safely back on the ground, and I'm holding the stick full aft,
as I was told. I've become conscious of that grin I've been wearing for the
last 30 minutes.
 We did a few more circuits, and I tried a few more landings. The last one
was particularly jarring, but I'm told that it was my first three-point
landing. The only problem was it began 18
inches above the grass. Okay; next time
I'll do the same thing, but lower. If only I could remember exactly what it
was that I did that time...
John tells me I'll be able to pick this up fairly quickly and I want to come back next week for another try at the C.G. hustle.
A friend of mine holds his
Commercial certificate and an instrument rating, and his response to my telling
him I was going to go fly a Cub was, "Why?" What can I say? I just
used a bunch of words to give you a blow-by-blow
account of how I spent a few hours at the airport and to try to answer his
question. I hope that I was able
to instill a sense of wonder about these taildragging creatures in those of you who have
not experienced this type of fun.
Flying a taildragger is only slightly more difficult than
flying a tricycle-gear airplane because it makes you pay attention. But this
is a valuable skill that translates nicely into any aircraft you choose to
fly. As pilots, we can always be a little bit better. Going back in time,
flying an aircraft that is less-forgiving and less well-equipped, forces you to
clarify your relationship with these lovely machines. And, you get to take
that heightened awareness with you into the cockpit of your regular aircraft.
What are you waiting for? Go find yourself a taildragger and a CFI and do the
dance: Do the C.G. hustle!
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