This is sort of an odd flying story, because there’s no actual flying. But it is related to flying, being a discussion of how one pilot (me) goes about shopping for a flight school. It might be useful to someone interested in flight training, and it might even have utility as a general discussion of making decisions involving time, money, and risk.
About two years ago I got the notion of learning to fly taildragger airplanes. Now, for those of you who don’t know what those are, consider the landing gear of an airplane, any airplane. Most typically these days, you have two large wheels of some sort (or, for really big airplanes, two distinct clusters of wheels) with another nose towards the front of the airplane the same size or slightly smaller. This is called “tricycle gear”. There’s another arangement of landing gear wheels, with two big wheels (or wheel clusters) and the other, third wheel in the back of the airplane. The result being that the tail of the airplane rests on the wheel that rests on the ground and drags behind the airplane instead of the tail being held jauntily aloft. Hence, “taildragger”. Confusingly, such landing gear is also called “conventional gear”, even though it’s not the most common. Anymore. At one time it WAS the most common, and hence “conventional”, configuration but that was decades ago. Sort of fossil terminology.
Anyhow, partly I wanted to do this - be trained to handle a taildragger - because it was a new thing for me and, to be truthful, what I had been doing was getting a little stale. Another reason is that I like old, vintage airplanes and most of them are taildraggers, so if I ever got a chance to fly them I would need those skills. And yet another reason is that there are still new, small airplanes being designed as taildraggers and having those skills would only increase the variety of aircraft I am able to fly. And, oh yes, flight training of any sort (assuming it’s competantly done) will tend to make one a better, safer pilot.
So, I started investigating.
As I said, at one time conventional gear airplanes were the convention, but that was 50 or more years ago. Taildraggers available for training and rent are not so common as they once were. They aren’t offered at many airports. In the end, my search for taildragger training within 200 miles of home came down to really just four possibilities:
1) Stick and Rudder Club at Waukegan Airport in Waukegan, Illinois - truthfully, I didn’t bother to look in this one much. For one thing, getting to Waukegan, which is north of Chicago, is a pain in the butt no matter how you look at it. The roads would take me a good 2-3 hours on a typical day, and Og help you if there’s a problem along the way.
Flying there isn’t much better - you either have to go around the big honking piece of the sky owned by Midway and O’Hare, adding easily a a couple hundred miles and more to the trip and drawing it out to a 3 hour flight, or zip along the Lake Michigan shoreline flyway. Which looks like a better alternative in many ways - about a 40 minute flight in a slower plane - except that the traffic is squeezed into a confined volume due to the O’Hare/Midway airspace considerations, flying over the water presents its own hazards, there is NO really good emergency landing spot along most of that lakefront due to the Very Large City Structures (especially since Meigs Airport was torn up), and there’s not much in the way of radar services to help you with the other traffic zipping up and down that corridor. Anyway you look at it, the cost and aggravation of getting there from Indiana was going to drain my money and my patience, which would leave that much less for learning new skills.
Waukegan is not a particularly cheap airport. It’s not THE most expensive general aviation facility in the area, but it’s up there due to location, property values, population density, and other environmental reasons.
Finally, the Stick and Rudder Club is just that, a flying club - you have to outlay money for a membership, and then there’s the matter of scheduling time. I knew from speaking in the past to others who had been members of that club that (not surprisingly) getting time in the airplanes on the weekends was difficult. If you can’t schedule lesson time consistently, you are going to take longer, maybe much longer, to learn new things and in aviation time=money. Not particularly efficient. Mind you, I’m willing to pay a fair price for airplanes and instructors’ time, but I just can’t afford to hemorrahge money when I don’t need to. Because I work during the week, and live in a different state, the ONLY time I could fly out of Waukegan would be the weekends. This just didn’t seem practical on so many levels that I didn’t call anyone and didn’t go out to look at the place. (I had been there a couple times about 10 years ago).
I also didn’t want to buy into a club, particularly not one 100 miles away from where I live. I didn’t want to buy a fraction of an airplane that I would then have to share with several dozen other owners, while putting up with the inevitable abusers, users, and idiots that seem inevitable in such situations. I wanted to rent the airplane, hire an instructor on a consistent schedule, and otherwise do this to accomodate my needs and schedule, not someone else’s.
Poplar Grove - this seemed quite promising in many ways. They had the focus on specific taildragger training. They had two varieties of airplane - Cessna 140 and Piper Cub. The prices were fair - not cheap but not outrageous either. The nice young man I spoke to - the taildragger instructor - was enthusiastic and knowledgable.
A BIG drawback was that this airport was even further away than Waukegan. Even if I flew there (and this was another situation where I’d be detouring around O’Hare and Midway airspace, making the flight distance/time as long if not longer than by freeway), I might well have to stay overnight and return the next day. Never mind the cost of flying out to flying lessons, the time alone would have been significant. I gotta hand it to the guy, though - he really did try to find a solution for me. It’s not uncommon for pilots to travel considerable distances just for breakfast, traveling 200 or more miles for a specific type of flight training is nothing unusual. He sent me information on local hotels, eateries, and where to buy cheap gas for both cars and airplanes. Sent me information on campgrounds, just in case I wanted to rough it. Places to part RV’s in his area. Offered me space in the staff refrigerator and use of the microwave if I wanted to bring my own food. He discussed bringing the airplane and himself to MY location (that might have been affordable if I had found 4-5 friends also interested in taildragger training). He returned phone calls promptly. He answered questions without evasions, and if he didn’t know the answer he’d look it up and call me back.
And, you know, I fly both Cessnas and Pipers. I like the old airplanes. C140’s and Cubs are definitely classic, vintage airplanes. >sigh< I almost did it… but I felt obligated to check out locations closer to home.
Lowell Airfield - OK, this one was the closest to me, only a 40 minute drive on Route 41, which seldom if ever got badly clogged once you were south of Route 30 (for those of you who don’t live in the US - highways and freeways with even numbers run mostly east-west, those with odd mostly north-south). I went out to look at the place.
The owner has a nice little Aeronca Champ. It’s a cute, almost perky little airplane from the late 30’s/early 40’s. He had just the one airplane and, not at all surprising, it showed a little wear (Cripes, it’s old enough to collect social security, of course it has some wear!) Wooden prop. No electrical system.
The latter did bother me a bit. Mind you, I am perfectly capable of flying without an electrical system. The airfield was located where radios really are optional. I do prefer to have a radio for a number of reasons. In fact, I have a portable transceiver that can hook onto a belt as a backup, and it’s compatible with my headset and even comes with a push-to-talk button. Even so, I have flown without radios before.
When I mentioned something to that effect the owner didn’t seem terribly enthused, said something about not wanting people to mess around with radios and yak over them when they should be concerned about the flying. Um… OK… some old coots do have that opinion, onward…
My biggest objection to a lack of an electrical system is that that means you have to handprop the airplane every single time. Handpropping means you get your precious fingers extremely close, like, actually touching, a piece of metal or wood that, once started, is going to whip around somewhere between 1000 and 2000 revolutions per minute. Most people do not really need the inherent hazard explained. If done properly it’s a safe procedure. There’s not a huge margin of error, however, and since the advent of electric starters there have been a lot fewer armless (and headless) linemen and pilots.
I’m a big fan of electric starters, even if I have handpropped an airplane in real life (I should also point out that prior to that event I sought out the most experienced handpropper on the field at the time for advice and coaching.)
Old Grump started in on the “you shouldn’t be afraid of the prop” speech, as if putting one’s limbs at avoidable risk was somehow a sign of manliness and being a “real pilot” :rolleyes:
Hear that ringing sound? It’s an alarm bell.
I am not terrified of props. I don’t have a phobia about them, I don’t recoil in horror from them, I do touch them during pre-flight inspections, etc. But yes, I do fear them on a certain level, just as I fear car accidents and dogs I don’t know baring their teeth at me and tornadoes. Why? Because they can hurt me if I don’t treat them with the proper care and respect. You should be a little afraid of an airplane propeller because they genuinely can be dangerous. They are like power saws and guns - they are tools that require proper handling and strict attention to safety.
I consider an electric starter to be safer than handpropping. It’s that simple. I try to be safe. It’s that simple.
By the time Old Grump is going on about how one can’t land the airplane at any other airfield (he claimed it was because of his insurance, I have since heard rumors it’s because his airplane couldn’t pass a ramp check) and because of this he doesn’t teach how to handle a taildragger on pavement I was having multiple reservations about this situation. OK, he has a grass runway, and you can’t land it elsewhere… yes, that does sort of eliminate pavement operations but to talk as if this is somehow a poitive… Yes, it’s true, many, if not all, taildraggers are better suited to grass runways BUT a majority of runways in the US, of all sizes, are now paved. I question how well you’ve mastered the task at hand (learning to fly a taildragger) if you’re never exposed to all conditions you can reasonably expect to encounter. I’m not getting this endorsement to fly just one airplane from just one runway… when I’m done I want to be able to fly a taildragger from any field of adequate length, and any taildragger I have the money to rent or buy.
Morris Airport - I discovered taildragger training here because I went to breakfast.
When I first got my license I hung out for awhile with the “Dawn Patrol”, a group of pilots from my local airport who fly to breakfast spots pretty much every weekend. I stopped after awhile for several reasons, not the least of which was halt an alarming expansion in my waistline. But I do, still, occassionally go to breakfast and it was one such morning, as we were exiting the cafe located on the airport, that I noticed an advertisement of taildragger training on the field. Actually I noticed "Stearman biplane for rent’ first, then the “taildragger instruction”, which is probably exactly what was intended. 
More on Morris in the next post.
