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Old 06-17-2004 | 10:04 AM
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Lowlevlflyer
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From: Davis, OK
Default RE: Taildragger as first plane?

OH, lets not even get into the full scale taildragger debate as it applies to R/C, there is no comparison. I've got close to 2,000 hours of full scale tailwheel time, from the Aeronca AC-11 I started out in, right up through radial engined Ag Cats and the 402 Air Tractor. I can tell you from experience that schools dont regularly teach in tailwheel aircraft because of insurance reasons. It has NOTHING to do with them being difficult to fly. It also has to do with the fact that most flight schools today are staffed with instructors that dont have much more time than the students they are tasked with teaching, and dont fly taildraggers themselves. A zero time flight student can learn just as easily starting out in a Super Cub as he can in a 152. Now, you take a guy with two or three hundred hours of tricycle gear time and put him in a Cub for the first time, THAT'S when you better have a good instructor to help him "unlearn" all the bad habits he's developed while flying trike gear. The simple fact is, whether you like it or not, it is just as easy to start out on a taildragger as it is to start on a tricycle gear, AS LONG as both types are trainers, and you have a competent instructor. I think some of you guys are of the opinion that if YOU didnt learn that way, then it just cant be done, and that is what is idiotic.
ORIGINAL: 8178

This subject is getting idiotic! Jeff, just go out to your local full scale airport. Stop at the flight training operations, count the tricycle gear trainers, count the tail dragger trainers and report back.