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Tail wheel Endorsement Needed-Insurance advice

LR60

Active Member
Looking for any advice on where to get a tail wheel endorsement around the piedmont triad aera in NC.

Since I have zero time in tail wheel and type, the insurance quote stated I would also need 25 hours total tailwheel and a CFI checkout in type prior to any coverage. Is this the norm for zero time TW pilots?

I plan to do the RV 14 with Mike to take care of checkout but I first need to start building up TW time.

Thanks
 
Is this the norm for zero time TW pilots?

I plan to do the RV 14 with Mike to take care of checkout but I first need to start building up TW time.


Is it the norm? I would think so, but I never went through the transition. Can't help you with location, but I believe the transition would take 5-10 hours depending on your flying experience. Then rent something like a Citabria or Decathlon to build some time, experience and confidence. You should be all set for your 14 transition training with Mike by then.
 
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There are two places around Charlotte, but I don't know about the Triad area.

There a number of tailwheel RV's in that area, so someone must be instructing with a TW aircraft.

Yes, it typically takes around 10 hours to get your TW endorsement.

Good luck!
 
I had no such requirement when I purchased a RV6 with zero tailwheel time. They only required that I receive the endorsement.
 
Mark,
Mikey Mathews at Lake Norman does the TW endorsments and has a bunch of RV time. He is very good, and well recommended. A friend of mine who just bought an RV-4 that I ferried back to NC from Fla. He went down to Jan Bussel in Okeechobee for a long weekend and got his TW endorsment there, as well as RV training. Jan has 2 RV-6's. Sugar Valley over near me in Mocksville/Advance area had a Carbon Cub they were renting, but Im not sure if they are still doing that.The fact that you are going to have a zero hour new RV-14 in phase one is your biggest hurdle, and you may consider a seasoned RV pilot as 2nd crew member which is now allowed for your first part of phase one.Look forward to coming a and chat about your project..dang KC-10's have me busy !
 
Yes, it typically takes around 10 hours to get your TW endorsement.

10 hours? I would say that is excessive unless there are some issues going on with the training.

Mark,

If you need 25 hours it might help to find a place that will rent you the TW airplane once you have your endorsement. I know a lot of the schools only fly them dual.
 
Why?

Why would you think 10 hours is excessive?

If that is what it takes, that is what it takes...

It has been my experience that folks who don't think they need the instruction, actually take longer to become proficient...
 
Why would you think 10 hours is excessive?

If that is what it takes, that is what it takes...

It has been my experience that folks who don't think they need the instruction, actually take longer to become proficient...

Because its like getting your PPL in 2-3 months but it took 100+ hours to complete. The CFI is probably wasting your time flying stuff that is not helping the student become proficient in the required flying.

Even if the student is rusty you should be able to knock that off in a flight or two. But yes you are right there is always that student that needs extra flying. I still feel that 10 hours of dual is excessive. Now if you are saying 4 hours of that are ground instruction then that is more realistic.

Remember there are student pilots soloing tail wheel airplanes with not many more hours than that.

Cheers.
 
...and

...and there are B-777 Captains with 30,000 hours that take substantially more than 10 hours...what is your point?

The instructor will provide the endorsement when he is confident in the student's ability...and putting an arbitrary number on that is ridiculous...

I know of several places tailwheel instruction is given and they pretty much say 10-15 hours. If you do it in less, great but the problem is if you say 5 and the student gets to 8, they begin to get frustrated.

It is very difficult to learn anything once frustration sets in...
 
10 hours? I would say that is excessive unless there are some issues going on with the training.

Mark,

If you need 25 hours it might help to find a place that will rent you the TW airplane once you have your endorsement. I know a lot of the schools only fly them dual.

What part of "typically" don't you understand?

Some take more, others less. In talking with friends who have gotten their TW endorsement that seems to be a good number.

Most get really frustrated around the four to six hour mark and then it just "clicks". The rest of the time the instructor will spend making sure they have it and then focusing on crosswind landings, wheel landings, three point landings, etc.

Also, the reason they fly them with an instructor only is because even with 10 hours of instruction, the insurance companies won't trust their insured aircraft with newly endorsed TW pilots.
 
chuckle

I know of one place that will actually rent their cub solo with just a minimum "check out".

That cub has spent a lot of time in the hangar being repaired!
 
Just offering another reference point or two...

I just sold my GCAA Citabria to a low time pilot. He had 600TT with only 5.6 hours in an 7ECA prior to his purchase. His insurance company required 10 hours in the GCAA before he was insurable. His premium with 600TT, an instrument rating and 15.6 hours of t/w was within $300 of my premium with 15k TT and 700+ t/w and an ATP.

When I purchased the GCAA, the insurance company initially said I needed 10 hours in the plane before I was insurable. I had 150 in a Champ, 200 in an RV-3, 200 in a Midget Mustang, and probably 50 in a GCBC at the time, but they still wanted 10 hours in a GCAA. I whined a bit and they dropped the GCAA specific requirement for me, but not for the open pilot warranty. GCBC time didn't count for GCAA time. The only significant difference in the two types is the GCAA doesn't have flaps.

What's kinda crazy in all this is that when I purchased my most recent RV-3 in the fall of 2018, the insurance company allowed me to add a couple of my buddies as named insureds on the -3 and neither one of them had a single hour of RV-3 time. One has a bunch of time in an RV-4 and the other an RV-8. Having flown all these types, I can say that a GCAA is much more similar to a GCBC than either an RV-8 or RV-4 is to an RV-3.

My takeaway from my experience is that there's not necessarily a rhyme or reason to any of it and you just have to do what the underwriter says.

FWIW.
 
What part of "typically" don't you understand?

The part of the word that means most of the time. I just do not agree most of the time it takes 10 hours to sign off a tailwheel endorsement.

I knew there would be some of you who disagree with me. Don't take this as a personal attack. I'm just stating my opinion on the internet.
 
The part of the word that means most of the time. I just do not agree most of the time it takes 10 hours to sign off a tailwheel endorsement.

I knew there would be some of you who disagree with me. Don't take this as a personal attack. I'm just stating my opinion on the internet.

This, too, is not meant as a personal attack, but, please tell us how many students you?ve signed off for solo. And how many TW endorsements you?ve signed. And if you sleep at night, knowing that if the pilot subsequently had a ground loop or stalled on final, that there are 10 lawyers out there waiting to take away everything you own. For doctors, it?s called ?defensive medicine?. For cfi?s it?s ?a few more hours just to be sure.?
 
I recently went thru this, I had 25 hrs of TW and took a year off (Oct 2018-Oct 2019) from flying a TW. I realized I was rusty so I contacted a few local schools.

Close to the Triad area - Pressley Aviation at Stanly County KVUJ has a Decathlon and two qualified instructors who will make sure you are good to go before they cut you loose in it. I spent most of last winter flying it.

A little farther away at Monroe KEQY is Aerowood Aviation with Jim Efird who is a older ex-Alaskan bush pilot who will teach you more than you ever thought about TW flying and you'll enjoy every minute. I cannot say enough good things about Jim as an instructor, he won't waste your time and you will learn something every time you fly with him. They do all of their training and rentals in 7ECA Champs.

Also, +1 for Mikey Mathews at Lake Norman 14A, he was the one who originally did my TW endorsement in 8 hrs, but he was too busy to help me knock the rust off last fall.
 
Tail wheel

A different time. My first solo at age 19, With 4.7 hours in a Cessna 140. I don?t think I was exceptional. Since then I?ve flown a lot of tail wheel airplanes from DC-3S to Pitts. This is all driven by insurance and liability issues. The requirement for a private license is still 40 hours, but how many do it in forty hours.
 
I teach quite of few pilots out here in California and the time it takes for the sign off varies depending on the skills of the pilot but usually around 7 hours. California is an especially good place to get an endorsement because the winds most of the time are relatively mild. We only have one runway in most places compared to multiple crossing runways east of the Rockies. I would recommend that a person contemplating building a tailwheel airplane get his endorsement prior to deciding on building the airplane.

Building an airplane is a lot of work only to find out you really should not be flying a taildragger. I had a student who contracted with a person to build his RV-7. He was a good pilot, owned a Bonanza and flew IFR regularly. He paid for all the parts and the builder got half of the airplane in sweat equity. After many hours and flight training by me and another instructor, he finally got his endorsement. I test flew the plane and checked him out in it. After about 90 hours of logged time in his RV-7, he ground looped the plane. His partner repaired the plane and he sold it. After asking him why he sold it he explained, "Dale, that airplane was going to kill me" A very expensive lesson.

I had another pilot fly down from Alaska to California to purchase a RV-6 and contracted with me to meet him at the airport where he was purchasing the plane. He already had a taildragger endorsement and had flown Citabrias so I assumed it would only take a few hours to check him out. I turned out that one day was not enough and I had to fly home and return the next day before I felt comfortable signing him off.

After his sign off, not only did he fly back to to Alaska, he toured the continental USA in some of the most stormy windy and gusty weather we have. He kept in touch with me while I worried like a mother sending her kid off to school. He not only made the trip successfully but wrote all about it in this forum.

Like I said, all pilots are not created equal.
 
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