G'day Fiz

If your Taylorcraft is anything like my Decathlon it will not be all that easy to fly. I think it is a relative of the Decathlon and the Auster that I also have. Their layout is certainly similar.

My Decathlon can be very easy to ground loop on take off. Being a tail dragger it suffers from the P effect and wants to go to the left when the power is applied. It needs a very steady hand on the rudder to keep it straight. Once it is running straight and lifts its tail then it needs the power to be added gradually and it just floats into the air. If I apply a lot of power all at once it becomes a real handful and has snapped over and cartwheeled. Luckily it is quite tough as it took me a while to work out how to get it off the ground neatly.

Then once in the air, it will not turn just on ailerons and elevator. It DEMANDS that rudder be used as well or is skids wide in the turn with its tail hanging down. This is typical of high wing planes with little dihedral and long wings. Cubs do it, my Auster does it and so does my Decathlon. All these "short coupled" planes with relatively short fuselages and longs wings tend to do this. The cheat's solution (that I use) is to mix about 30 to 40% aileron into the rudder. I make it switchable as if you leave it on and you try to do a roll, the result is not pretty.

So go slowly with it. A little negative exponential to dumb down the centre part of the rudder travel may help too. And not too much power initially too. Once in the air, don't forget the rudder or you may be all over the sky.

Oh and have fun. I do with my Decathlon.

Mike in Oz