Poplar Grove was my second choice for getting a tailwheel endorsement (which is almost finished… grumble… stupid calm air… grumble…) but lost out to Morris in large part because it would double my travel time. Easily.
But I do intende to get out to Poplar Grove and fly that J-3… and the Cessna 140… AFTER I finished in the Citabria and get some time in that biplane I’ve been lusting after…
So many toys… so little money…
>sigh<
The government. You can apply at your local armed forces recruiter!
Neat. That Finch looks like fun.
The Jackaroo, I’m not so sure about, an unusual aircraft, and quite rare I’d imagine.
Yeah, the Finch was a lot of fun. It was either that, or the Tiger Moth.
The Jack is exceedingly rare, from what I can tell. As far as I’ve been told, there’s only 2 left in the world (flying or grounded, I think). And apparently only ~20 were built in the first place. Of course, it HAS four seats, but the only time you can really only use all 4 is if they’re all children.
Lets see, I wasn’t the pilot, but I have flown in…
DeHavilland (Canada) DHC-3 Beaver; right seat, on a folded-up bedspread on the original military-style metal seat with the ledge for the parachute in the small of my back. (Hard to find a picture of it with wheels.)
J-3 Cub; on straight floats off the Mississippi River.
Travel Air D4D skywriter, now hanging in the Udvar-Hazy center of the National Air and Space Museum.
Yes, well the Tiger Moth was never a great performer with two seats, let alone a fatter fuselage and four seats. A friend of mine once tried to set up a syndicate who would do a Jackaroo conversion on a Tiger Moth. It ended up being too hard/expensive though I think.
Oh, yeah? Well, I’ve got 0.2 in a Tiger Moth.
sound of crickets
Carry on.
I plan to get some tailwheel/grass strip time in one of the J-3’s at Hampton, NH when the time comes. First things first, though.
Hey guys, where is this ‘tail wheel’ endorsement thing in the FAR’s? Been a long time since I took a bi-annual in a tail wheel and as I don’t fly for a living anymore, I’m kinda out of the loop. You have to have a ‘tail wheel endorsement’ to fly a tail wheel airplane now? I buy a Cessna 170 and I can’t fly it until I get an endorsement? Who woulda thunk???
Is there a time limit on getting grandfathered in ? ( found the answer in 61.31 ) I have over 5000 hrs in tail draggers but have not flown one in maybe 15 years…
Wandering through Part 61 — so far ------ Ahhh there it is. I did find it in 61.31 … Hmmmmmm Okay I guess, just seems strange to me but in today’s world I guess it was a necessary step. Sure glad I did a lot of different flying before 1991 …
Word has it the commitment is back down to eight years, so there’re several years worth of USAF pilots with 10 year commitments, sandwiched by guys with 8. Sucks for them. Tough for the AF too - they could necessarily get three tours out of a 10-year guy, but usually only two for an eight-year pilot.
Hope things are going well at FedEx! Isn’t that really why you popped your head into the pilot brag thread?
I did no such thing! 
And ask me if I feel like bragging when I’m on my way to Billings next week with a 0342 departure. Ugh.
In 1945 during his RAF training, my father (subsequently a navigator) soloed in a Tiger Moth.
Tomorrow, Classic Wings at Duxford are taking him up again, sixty years on.
A proxy brag, I agree, but how many cool points is that worth?
I once took a guy flying in the Harvard who had been an RNZAF pilot. He’d flown F4U Corsairs in WW2 and Vampires/Venoms after the war. He trained on a Harvard. It was very cool to give him the opportunity to relive some memories. He flew it for a while, did a roll, he was quite comfortable in it despite not having flown one for 50+ years.
He had spent so much of his life with a pipe clenched between his teeth that they were worn away to create a little nesting spot for his pipe.
