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What a day...  :)

I started learning how to dance down a runway. A very intuitive enterprise and very dangerously grin-inducing.

The wind was steady around 10 knots within 20 degrees of centerline, so I had it easy. A little air work over Imperial Beach, then 6 landings at Brown, just a mile north of Tijuana.
My instructor is a retired Tracker jockey (who was flying this very "Airknocker" 40 years ago) who asked me a few  very precisely-aimed questions throughout and signed me off on my BFR after 1.5 flight hours.
Next weekend we begin the actual taildragger training...
 Up at Gillespie, where "like it or not, you will have to deal with crosswinds", as my instructor puts it.


Anyway, here she is again: she was cranky this afternoon- I thought Bob was going to keel over after about the 50th attempted hand-propping!  ("Switch on; brakes set...")
But once she starts and the oil pressure comes up, all 65 horses report for heroic duty. Climbs well if you nose her down early and let her speed up. Asks for rudder in a very vague sort of way, so by the time your foot moves, it's too late, and too much.

Power-off stall: almost a non-event. I did one of them badly; got left and right hands mixed up, but... easy.
Power-on stall: shivers  like a wet dog first. No mistaking that buffet. Did it once climbing crosswind, but of course the buffet got me to pitch again for speed without looking at the panel.

Landings: let's see... easy, as I said already, but... different. Surreal. Were a trike to behave this way, it would mean you were headed for the weeds, probably on your back. In a Champ, this is normal. This plane takes your role as PIC very seriously.

I did OK, overall... everything from dropping it in from 10 feet because of the scale illusion (dumbass!) to doing my first wheel landing so well that Bob moaned "now you're tryin' to make me look bad..."


At any rate, I made my points and she made hers. I have not tamed the taildragger yet, but I got in the cage and got a feel of the whip in my hand, and she did not kill me.

I think she's pretty.

     


A better look this time at the panel: No, I did not look at the G-meter, so I don't know if it works.
This machine has no transponder at all. Thanks to its original certificate and its age (60 years!!), it is exempt.

     



Afterwards, I caught this blue-collar pilot dropping a banner.

     

Glad to hear you did well, Looks like a real adventure to fly.

I know you'll be flying her solo in no time soon and then just have fun you two!!

respect the plane and you'll do fine, sounds like all is going well thus far

Very nice.  Looks like loads of fun. 8-)

You're inspiring me to climb back into the club's Aeronca Champ     Unfortunately, it's just not practical to stay current and comfortable in that plane, because it's based up in Marysville (KMRT.. about 25nm NE).. and 95/100 times that I fly, I'm going somwhere and taking somebody with me. The times that I would fly the Champ are too infrequent to remain competent *sigh*..  Our home airport (KOSU) is always buzzing with business jets and KingAirs and the dozen or so Cessnas from Ohio State University's  flight school... AND it's nestled under Columbus' Charlie airspace (KCMH) along with 3 other class Delta airports... it's not the best place for flying around, transponder-less.

First cool, sunny, fall day though.. I'm going up to KMRT, just to do it  :)

Congrats! Welcome to the taildragger club. That rudder can be a bit tricky at first, you really have to lead into the turns with rudder. Most taildraggers are like that so it is good practice. Usually, when I go back to flying trikes after flying taildraggers for awhile I'll actually be using too much rudder too early out of force of habit (I've even sometimes caught myself taxing with the yoke back too). I'm surprised you started with wheel landings, 3 points have always been easier for me personally. Good luck with the taildragger, don't let yourself get frustrated, it will take awhile to get the landings down. You've got to first unlearn how to land a trike then relearn how to land a taildragger. I've got about 40 hrs in taidraggers and I still consider myself far from and expert. But the challenge is part of the reason it is so fun!

You're inspiring me to climb back into the club's Aeronca Champ     Unfortunately, it's just not practical to stay current and comfortable in that plane, because it's based up in Marysville (KMRT.. about 25nm NE).. and 95/100 times that I fly, I'm going somwhere and taking somebody with me. The times that I would fly the Champ are too infrequent to remain competent *sigh*..  Our home airport (KOSU) is always buzzing with business jets and KingAirs and the dozen or so Cessnas from Ohio State University's  flight school... AND it's nestled under Columbus' Charlie airspace (KCMH) along with 3 other class Delta airports... it's not the best place for flying around, transponder-less.

First cool, sunny, fall day though.. I'm going up to KMRT, just to do it  :)

I've been thinking about what I expect to do with this add-on, and
I've decided that if it serves only to allow me to get back into  some other taildragger in the near future with an hour or two of dual as a refresher, that will be OK with me. It will be a long time until I feel competent, but I should be safe enough, if I remain conservative about my limitations.

I may go over to Aeroflex this fall or winter to take their bush course in a J-3, if I can manage to afford that as well as the instrument lessons. They also have skeels for that Cub, and give a snow-ops course.
After that, in the spring, I might try their Husky out... they even offer dual in a Stearman, although that's expensive.
I'll also be in Chicago in November- if the wx allows, there's a Champ available at Bolingbrook, and a Cub at Poplar Grove...

 I see your point about flying "free" near controlled airspaces, but look at the San Diego terminal chart!
Maybe there's not a huge density of smaller fields around, but we were up on a nice Sunday and hardly saw anybody, except some traffic in and out of Brown, which Tower alerted us to. We could easily update our position any time via radio.
At Brown, which has parallel runways with opposing patterns, I shared the airport with a CJ, a Falcon, two Pipers, and about 3 Cessnas. No problem.
The view from the Champ is superb except at six o'clock, and I had no trouble spotting traffic. And I hardly looked at the panel at all...
Extra diligence is require, for sure... but you're going nice and slow, which gives you time to act. Either way, it's fun to fly "naked"... only thing better would be no radio at all!

I'm so jealous...