After a **lot** of web-surfing, I found various recommendations for the Texas Taildraggers flight school at South West Houston airport (AXH). As the name suggests they specialise in airplanes that sit back on their tailwheels, though they have at least a couple of regular Cessna's in addition to the Citabria's / Decathlon.
Lesson 1 - April 20 2001
About an hour before my lesson, David, my instructor phones and asks me what I think about winds gusting 15 knots from the South. This is about the weather I expected and my first instinct is that I want to get in the plane and get some time in. However, commonsense prevails, and I venture that "Well, you probably won't be able to teach me much today." I figure this is the sensible thing. No inexperienced pilot is probably going to try flying with 15 knots right across the E-W runway at AXH.
I suggest that this is a good chance to go through a preflight and get familiar with the procedure, Vspeeds etc. Also a chance for me to get to know the people a little better. I drive down at the appointed time and we do a preflight on the Citabria I'll be flying. It is a tailwheel, fabric-covered airplane, in a tandem configuration, with a stick instead of a yoke, and throttle on the left. This is excellent. The only slightly worrying aspect is that the rudder pedals look a long way away, but my instructor isn't any taller than I am, so it should all get worked out. I'll fly, even if I have to wear platform shoes (!!).
After the preflight, I am issued with a Citabria handbook and I work through it, copying the Vspeeds onto another sheet. After some chatting, and a quick run through my two logbooks, I schedule a further lesson for next Wednesday and promise to read the Citabria handbook. From experience, I had better have a pretty good handle on all the airspeeds and emergency procedures.
Lesson 2 - April 25th 2001 (An Airplane Named BS...)
Heh, well after all that, the Citabria was in the shop (not an infrequent experience. as I was to find out) and I wound up sitting around talking waiting for the other Citabria, which didn't appear. I suggested taking Bravo-Sierra (Cessna 172) up so my instructor could at least check my flying, as he must be at least a little curious as to whether I can fly or not, and I was pretty interested in what my reaction to flying a 172 again would be.
After a preflight, BS fired immediately and we taxied to runway 9. Runup went fine, and I performed the first of two nice takeoffs. We departed the pattern and flew south for some exercises. My flying was actually pretty good, though I could use some bodybuilding on my left arm for pulling the yoke back. Stalls, slow flight, steep turns were ok, though not as good as I can do, but nothing went badly wrong. This guy could distract at the Olympics and be a gold medallist, but I proved that I could ignore at the Olympics and continued flying the plane. After about 30 minutes of showing I really could fly and not get too distracted by any single task, I managed to get oriented and head back to Houston SouthWest. I flew quite a nice pattern and lined up nicely into a very slight crosswind. The approach was good and I flared ok, but my usual fault of not quite being able to continue flaring struck again. However, I stayed calm during the approach and never got flustered, and did a nice takeoff, once I had been given a little help keeping the nose up at touchdown. The second pattern was ok, though I adjusted the power a little on base as it felt a little low. Second landing had the same good and bad points as the first, and I am pretty happy that I will 'get' this holding off stuff pretty soon.
All in all, a pretty successful 0.9 hour. The gliding has definitely helped my flying generally, and nothing felt rushed, aside from my slightly ragged radio calls. My confidence in flying the airplane and managing the engine was also a bit better than I remember. Trimming for 90 knots / 2200 rpm in level flight, and remembering the settings, also really helped getting leveled out after climbs / descents. My previous instructor was complimented for teaching me good habits. I feel quite lucky that I managed to put most everything I've been taught to good use, and I definitely felt quite good after getting out of the plane. A good safe flight.
Lesson 3 - April 27th 2001
5N was ready to go today. I managed to work through the preflight quite happily, having done it once before. Once inside, pre-start checklist and starting went really smoothly.
Now, the bit I was a little scared off. Taxiing the Citabria... Ohh-errr, it was a little bit slow to respond but wasn't as bad as I was expecting. Not much worse than the usual school standard 172s with beat-up nosewheel steering. Definitely needed a bit of differential braking occasionally.
After finally reaching runway niner, I did the runup and checked for traffic. Then it was some fast taxiing down the runway. I already practiced a bunch of this in X-Plane, but the Citabria really responded nicely on the rudders, and although it felt a little squirrely as the nose moved around, it just needed to be kept on top off. Luckily, the L-23 Blanik Glider I also fly handles a bit similarly on the ground. Eventually, and not a moment before time, I was allowed to increase to takeoff power and we left the ground nicely.
First impression of the Citabria in flight: This aircraft is wonderful. It just feels great to fly. Nice reponsive ailerons. Nice pitch reponse. Plenty of rudder effectiveness. If you want it to do something, it will do it. This is quite a powerful plane, so it needed quite a lot of right rudder at most times. A coordinated steep left turn required no left rudder, just **no right rudder**, if you know what I mean. Did lots of maneuvers, lots of turns, flying straight and level, ground reference maneuvers. This plane is awesome, if you throttle back in a crab, it twists itself in to maintain the correct crab if you slow down, actually it was probably me not quite coming off ther rudder enough, but that's what I thought at the time.
After all this flying around, we headed back to the field for a few touch and goes. Once again, I flew a decent pattern and ... lets cut to the chase ... bounce ... pattern ... bounce ... a couple of bounced / helped landings.
But the last landing I made really count. With some downwind rudder and flying mainly by rightward stick deflections to line up, I flared and pulled the power. Then just tried to hold altitude a foot or so off the runway. And kept holding. And smoothly pulled. Then I felt something happen that only happens in a taildragger, a very gently bump from the back of the plane, then we were down. If anybody's flown a taildragger into a perfect three-pointer, you'll recognise what I just described. I will be praying to the middle-ranking gods of GA that I can make a few more like that !!
Awesome way to end a lesson.
Oops -- Big gap here, which I will update as time permits...
Friday 13th July -- Solo
Well, today was the day !!! After about 50 minutes of dual, Tom asked if I wanted to fly a few patterns by myself. I said yes, and he explained that although he thought I could probably fly a bit better than I had been doing, I was certainly ready and had the right number of tailwheel hours (>10) to be permitted by the school insurancem but more importantly, by him, to solo the plane.
Of course, we had this conversation on the downwind leg, and I still had to fly in and make a decent landing... I managed this, despite all the thoughts flying around my head, and as we taxied to a halt, he opened the door, secured the rear belts and closed the door. After a quick radio check, I taxied back to the takeoff point and after checking for traffic, I was off...
I made three patterns, with the first landing being a bit bouncy, but I kept it straight and rode out the couple of bumps, and I also managed to click the radio and say I was fine, and everything was ok... The next landing was fine, and the third and final one was fine.
After taxiing back to the school, I shut the plane down and got out, just a bit dazed from the experience. Awesome. Of course, I got my shirt cut, and it is now pinned up in the office.
Saturday 21st July 2001 -- 2nd Supervised Solo
We flew up to Sugar-Land today, but the weather was a bit rough and my landings were similarly rough, unfortunately. It was quite fun being in controlled airspace again, but I hope no one was watching my wheel landings...
After shooting landings at Sugar Land, we headed back to Houston Southwest and I soloed again. First landing turned into a go-around as a x wind sprang up and started pushing me towards the weeds, but the second and third landings were fine.
I was congratulated on a good job, and given notice of almost being off supervision.
Saturday 28th July 2001 -- Dual to Brazoria County
To allow me to have some fun when solo, we took a trip south from AXH to Brazoria. This is an uncontrolled airport about 20 minutes south. We shot some touch and goes, including some shortfield landings and wheel landings, then headed back to AXH.
This was one of the most fun lessons I've had, as my flying seemed at least a couple of notches better than usual. It seems like any improvements from all the gliding I do, take a couple of weeks to filter through into flying the Citabria.
I am now signed off for solo in the vincinity of AXH, SGR and LBX. This means that I can now do mini-xcountries and visit controlled airspace.
Sunday 5th August 2001 -- First Solo Away from Home Airport
Visibility was iffy, but good enough to go, as I am signed off for 5 miles and 1500' ceiling. Wind was calm. After fueling and preflighting 625, I took off and went slightly southwest to avoid the ILS approach to 9. I then carefully headed north and radioed sugar land airport from east of the power plant. Sugar land asked me to turn my lights on and report 4 miles to the southeast, and to report airport in sight. I felt good reporting airport in sight, and joined the pattern.
I shot two three point landings then a couple of wheel landings, with the last one being to a full stop. Unlike my previous visit to sugar land, I made the wheel landings work though the second one wouldn't win many style points... I **was** really pleased to have made them work. Maybe the best bit of the whole day.
After a bit of a rest, I took off again and headed back to AXH, a few minutes flight to the south east. I made one tng, then landed to a full stop. First landing was a bit iffy, but the second one was ok. All in all, some good fun and 1.2 hours added to my solo time for a total of 1.9 hours.
Saturday 25th May 2002 -- Final Hood Work & Start of Check Ride Prep
Some Citabria Links