#11 - BL8 - Super Decathlon

The Citabria and the Decathlon are very nearly the same airplane.  The Decathlon wing has a metal spar and the engine is a far more exciting 180 horsepower Lycoming.  I took one flight in the 8KCAB and I did not make use of its major advantage over the Citabria.  The Decathlon can do ‘outside’ maneuvers…these are things that put negative Gs on the plane – outside loops and inverted flight being the most common.  These fabric covered planes are rather common high wing, tandem aircraft and are often painted with a sunburst pattern on the wings and tail.  Like the 7 series airplanes, this is not a long distance flier, or a cruising machine.  It is designed for moderate aerobatics and is often a first competitive plane for novice aerobatics pilots. 

The very decathlon I flew at the airport I flew it from

I got in it because the Citabria was rented that day, I needed more tailwheel time and I thought I might go on to get an aerobatics endorsement.  I still might, but I ran out of steam shortly after this flight. The parachute that is required when doing aerobatics does not cramp the pilot’s sitting arrangement or make it seem more difficult to get out the flimsy fabric door.  In fact, sitting on the chute makes for a slightly higher perch that makes taxing even less of an issue in this plane. We departed John Wayne for some aerobatics practice on a perfectly clear, blue-sky day.  The aerobatics box is about a five mile flight from the pattern and the controls on the Decathlon proved light and well balanced.  There is some adverse yaw, so I spent a little time in straight and level flight working on Dutch Rolls.  The rudder is heavier than in a Cessna or Piper, but it also does a good deal more.  On this particular Decathlon there were wire sculptures out at the end of the wingtip that allow pilot to judge the angle of the wing relative to the horizon when the wing is in usual attitudes. 

I did rolls, snap rolls, an inside loop, a hammerhead and I attempted an Immelman turn.  From this I learned that this is one capable airplane.  The larger engine relative to the Citabria really makes a difference.  The other thing we learned is that I might be too easily disoriented to be a good aerobatics pilot.  My principal gift as an aviator (or SCUBA diver, or parent) is that I do not get overly excited or panicky when things are potentially not going well.  When I got confused in the Immelman I was in no way wondering whether I knew where I was.  I absolutely knew that I was completely confused about my posture vis-à-vis the earth, but I was not overly concerned about that. Either I do not have the intelligence to understand the implications of situations like this or I am not imaginative enough about the outcomes.  As I must have known, back in the reptile part of my brain, once the world stopped spinning it was clear I was in a 60 degree bank and letting the nose fall off into a power dive.  I remedied that, but I suspect the true ugliness of the attempted maneuver made my instructor wonder.

Chris asked whether I had recently done much spinning.  I allowed as the last time I had done any was when Dan, one of my several flight instructors, decided it would be good for my digestion and complexion to spin his Cessna 150.  We did spin entries for about 40 minutes and I confess that I had only a vague idea of where I was at any time.  Well, Chris had me spin that Decathlon, and I am here to tell you that while I read in the magazines about the gentle stall characteristics of this plane and that I never read about how sprightly an airframe enters an ‘over the top’ spin.  Someone should write about that.  This plane really, really likes to spin.  The first spin I popped into in the usual fashion with some up elevator and crossed controls.  I pulled out of the spin without help, but was completely stumped by the question that came over my headset.  ‘How many times did we go around’?  Are you kidding?  I am psyched when I keep it straight and level, while spinning I have no clue what is going on.  ‘Once’ I said only to be told that we did two and a half rotations.  Huh.  OK, I’ll count the next time. 

I pulled us in to another one, this time stalling the higher wing and getting that awesome flippy sensation when the flying wing and the stalled wing swap attitudes all of a sudden.  I counted out loud and got to four before rescuing us from certain dizziness.    Chris allowed as I was counting something other than rotations since I seemed to increment the list a little more often than I should.  Three and a quarter rotations; I did not even come out on the heading I went in on.  A third time I took us around and once again my count was off.  ‘What part of the horizon are you looking at when you fix a landmark’ asked Chris?  That was when I realized that I generally keep my eyes closed for the first part of the spin.  It is more fun that way.  Less pro apparently, but more fun.  A few more spins with my eyes open and I was able to report accurately on the number of arounds.  The spins seemed less exciting though, perhaps I need to add a small cabin fire to keep things interesting.

In any case, as we headed back to the airport I decided that even a neophyte like me could feel that the Decathlon is a more capable aerobat than the Citabria.  Hopefully I will get some more comparison flying in.  No way I could afford to rent the Extra or Pitts, but someday I’ll get a few more aerobatic airframes under my belt.  A perfect wheel landing finished off the afternoon.

As two passenger airplanes, with a somewhat antisocial seating arrangement, neither the Citabria nor the Decathlon is something you would buy for transport.  If you need to get from A to B the choices range from the pedestrian and inexpensive Cessna 150, through the snappy handling Grumman Yankee, to the modern, sleek, fast and easy on fuel Diamond DV20.  No, these airplanes are for folks who want to fly.  Pilots who are perfectly happy if the majority of log book entries read KFHR Local in the destination block.  For someone who wants an avenue for experiencing flight at its purest, these are wonderful planes.  Their location in the flight envelope can usually be determined without reference to instruments, simply listen to the sound of the wind whistling across the fabric and around the struts.  The price for a Citabria is somewhere south of $50K and for the Super D you can expect to pay over $150K.  Neither one is for the faint of wallet, but both planes bring a purity of flight mixed with aerobatic capability to the table.  This has to be worth the price of admission for many folks. 

The only caveat I would emphasize for the potential owner is that as fabric covered airplanes these really should be in a hanger.  Though the John Wayne aerobatics operation kept theirs in the blazing seaside sun, and bragged about 10-15 year life spans for the covering, I would be very reluctant to put a $15K recovering job out in the salt air.  That corrosive air is another reason the hanger is worth while.  The fabric and strut combination makes for some really good hiding places for corrosion.  This is something to think about on the pre-buy as well as when storing the plane.

#10 - CH7A - Citabria

When I moved from Redondo Beach to Irvine I left the wonderful airplane rental community of Torrance Airport (KTOA), for the incredibly restrictive and stifling atmosphere of John Wayne Airport (KSNA).  I checked out the flying clubs and the FBOs but it was not going to be very much fun to get checked out to fly let alone head out on a whim to take the waters on Catalina.  I was a little bummed and started looking harder at the used airplane market.  I put myself on the list for a tie down at John Wayne - 4 years later they called me to say I was up. Then I realized that there were all these neat merit badges I could earn.  The FAA issued me a license to pilot a single engine land plane…under visual flight rules conditions…as long as the engine was not too big…and the wheels could not tuck up out of sight…and the third wheel was on the correct end. 

Each of the caveats can be wiped away with more training.  My brother got the engine size limitation removed by threatening to buy a Cessna.  Actually he was really up front with the salesman and explained that next week he was buying a Diamondstar.  The salesman said that what he really wanted was a glass cockpit 182.  Well, Colin said he was pretty sure he did not want that.  The salesman said he would be there in the morning with a spiffy new plane that would be irresistible.  When Colin pointed out that he could not even act as PIC of the plane since the engine was larger than 200hp the salesman allowed that as he was a CFI he could just write that endorsement in Colin’s logbook after he had flown around in the 182 for a while. It really was that easy.  Clearly not the merit badge I wanted. 

After some consideration I decided on the tailwheel endorsement.  Airplane generally have three wheels, though I have flown both two and four wheeled varieties. Those three wheels can come in two arrangements: either the single wheel can be in front of the pair of main wheels or it can be behind.  Airplanes started out with just a pair of wheels and the tail was held up by a bent piece of metal.  The planes were always landing on grass and the tail skid was just fine bouncing over the turf.  When runways started to get paved, say 90 years ago when flying was becoming mildly popular, the shower of sparks from a tail skid on tarmac could elicit concern on the part of potential passengers.  This led to its replacement with a little, tiny, hard rubber wheel.  This tailwheel configuration is called conventional gear because it was in opposition to the with the single wheel was up on the nose.  My goodness, all sorts of bad things, front smacking the prop to the plane hitting a bump and tripping on to its nose could be caused by that pernicious ‘tricycle’ gear.  I think the picked ‘tricycle’ because the old timers could not get ‘damnfool’ or ‘newfangled’ to stick. 

In any case, now it takes a special endorsement to take to the sky in an airplane with a tailwheel.  There are really good reasons why this is so and they primarily have to do with momentum. An airplane with tricycle gear has the center of mass somewhere in front of the two main wheels, this keeps the nose down on that misplaced wheel sticking down from the region of the engine.  With conventional gear the center of mass is behind those two big main wheels and if it were not the plane would nose right over on to its prop.  So, what is the big deal?  Well, once an airplane gets going the placement of that center of mass is important.  If the tail starts to wander left or right in a tricycle gear airplane the center of mass up in front of the mains will tend to pull the tail back towards the middle.  In contrast, a when the tail swings in a conventional plane the center of mass swings out that same way and tends to keep the rotation going. Imagine riding a bike with a big pail of water on a long stick out in front.  Hit the brakes and the pail pulls you forward, but if that long stick is trailing out behind, when you hit the brakes the bucket is apt to come swinging around one side or the other.  That fundamental instability is a real knock on the conventional gear, especially when combined with a little aerodynamics. 

The wing generates lift as air moves over it.  More airspeed means more lift, in fact much more because lift goes up with the square of airspeed.  Well, when the tail of a tailwheel airplane starts to swing around, propelled faster and faster by the instability of the center of mass being behind the mains, the wing on the outside of the turn is moving a lot faster than the wing on the inside.  In fact, the plane is often rotating around one of the wingtips, which means the airspeed is nearly zero.  So...no lift on the inside wing and a good deal of lift on the outside wing.  What happens?  The plane flips on its back or at least tilts the outside wing up until the inside wing hits the ground.  This is called a ground loop and while loops are normally something you might recount with great glee this type only happens to the other, less skilled pilots.  Except for that time when it was not at all your fault. 

More training is needed to fly tailwheels, that is all there is to it.  John Wayne has an excellent aerobatics school run by an autocratic, but basically nice fellow with very firm ideas of how people should fly, learn to fly, and think about flying.  One thing they do very well is teach the tailwheel.  For one thing they have a lot of different tailwheel types.  When I was there they had five types and perhaps eight planes.  This is eight more than almost any other training company I can name.  I flew three of these types and they would not have signed my endorsement without at least two.  If I were a bigger ticket sort of guy I could have flown the last two, a Pitts S2 and an Extra once I had the endorsement in hand.  But, to start they put me in the most docile tailwheel they could find, the American Champion Citabria 7ECA (type CH7A).

The Citabria was a stronger, faster version of the Aeronca Champ, itself an attempt to improve on the oddities of the Piper Cub.  The idea was to sell a short field plane that could hold two and be completely aerobatic.  In fact airbatic citabria is a palindrome. Walking up to the plane I was really book smart, I had read the POH extensively, and about tailwheels in general, but nervous about my lack of practical experience.  This was not just my first tailwheel plane but the first made of cast off rags and wire, the first where they threw the copilot seat in the trunk when they realized it would not fit next to the pilot, and the first with a wooden spar.  I mean really, the whole dang wing is supported with wood.  Termites eat it, it burns, it rots – what kind of fool build an airplane wing out of it and then sits the airplane outside?  I was nervous.  Also, the doors were essentially a pillow case strong on some coat hangers, with some saran wrap so you could see what you would fall on when the wing spar gave way. 

About that tow bar.  There is none.  You just grab the back end of the plane and push it to move side to side and push on a wing strut to get it rolling forward.  Once out of the parking spot we did a preflight that included looking at a lot of bits and bobs that might either rot or come untwisted, causing great issues with the aerodynamics of the plane.  Once all was inspected and found to be in as good condition as it was designed to be, we climbed in with the instructor in back. I’ll  get this out of the way early: this plane is not for folks who take great comfort (probably misplaced) in smooth metal or upholstery.  The seats are really camp chairs wired in to the birdcage frame.  I am pretty sure the cushions were leftover from a college football pep rally, though I was surprised they were not emblazed with a school mascot.  The controls and instruments are basic, but as I settled in to the seat I realized that nervous was giving way to excited.  This plane is designed to fly, not carry folks around in comfort, just fly.  There is something very, very cool about that. 

The forward visibility of taildraggers is always a potential issue on the ground, but the Citabria has a good enough view over the nose that the only reason for S-turns while taxiing is so that I can learn S-turns.  And to keep the stick back.  In the very light winds the plane does not even feel a little bit squirrelly and by the time I am lined up and ready to go I am nothing but excited.  The engine is small, but the tandem seating makes for a narrow, low drag fuselage, and that spiderwork of tubing covered with fabric is far lighter than an equivalent metal plane.  So, while the Citabria does not leap off the pavement it does get moving smartly and we are airborne and headed for the aerobatics box in short order.  This is another airplane with a control stick; I have a hard time imagining aerobatics with a control yoke.  I am mostly learning tailwheel operations, so we will soon go back and practice landings, but first I get to do what every kid who has ever thought of flying wants to do…fly the plane upside down.  All the planes I have flown until now can do aerobatics, but they are not only not designed for it, but it is both illegal and ill advised.  It is far too easy to screw up and overstress the airframe.

This plane is made to loop and roll and hammerhead.  So that is what I do.  The instructor is wonderfully tolerant. I just tell him what I want to try next and then I move the stick and rudder in the directions I think will accomplish that.  It mostly works, but when I ask to be shown the difference between a aileron roll and a snap roll I get a chance to see how wonderfully precise the Citabria can be in the right hands.  When we return to the pattern I do both wheel and three point landings and neither one seems particularly difficult.  There is little wind so there is not much opportunity for hilarity on the roll outs, but in general I am impressed with how docile and clean this little plane is.  The more landings I do the more I see why there are some folks who only fly taildraggers.  The plane has to be flown even while on the ground.  When it takes off you have to lift the tail, build up speed then rotate.  It turns a simple takeoff into something you have to pay attention to: it is aviating. The Citabria may not have all the muscle of its bigger aerobatic cousins, but it convinced me to keep at the tailwheel endorsement.  Next up the Decathlon…same plane with a bigger engine and a metal spar.  After the jiggling I gave my guts in this plane I am quite sure that I do not want to experience whatever G-forces lie between the wooden and the metal spar.  

#9 - AA5 - Grumman Tiger

I flew the Grumman American Yankee when I was getting my ticket.  In the years that followed I was a serious student of plausible first planes for a fellow like me.  I am completely agnostic in the great wars over wing placement, except that I firmly believe they should be there.  High, low, mid, canard, it is all the same to me.  I can easily see myself in a pusher prop plane or a tail dragger, all that really matters is that it fly.  But, that little Yankee got to me a bit.  It was such a sweet flyer that a major contender for first airplane because its four seater big brother.  There were essentially three models that mirror the three/four engines put in the Skyhawk and the Warrior. The Traveler had a little 150 horsepower engine, but with its clean lines and narrow fuselage it managed 20 more knots than the Cessna on a little less fuel.  The Cheetah was a slicked up version and got yet more speed out of the same engine, and the Tiger put 180 horses up front and managed about 140 knots at less than 10 gallons per hour.  I was completely enamored with the sliding canopy and even joined the type club for a year to read more about people who had taken the plunge.  All things being equal I suppose the Cheetah is the plane I would have tried to afford and I even called Barron Thomas once when there was one that looked like too good a deal to pass up.  But I had never flown one until I stumbled upon another pilot who worked in the same building.

This is what the Tiger looks like, but I can't find any photos of the one I flew

Dana had been flying for 20 years and had owned the Tiger with a partner for about 8 years or so.  His description of the partnership is one of only two that I have heard in detail and it did not make me want to shell out real money for a part of a plane.  For one thing, when you have partners you keep track of every hour and charge the partnership for them.  I actively do not want to know what the flying is costing me.  Since I am well over 200 hours a year it must be cheaper than renting, but I sure do not want to really know the per hour cost.  Dana and I had talked planes quite a bit and I started passing along the copies of the NTSB reporter than my brother passed along to me.  It was pretty clear that Dana and I are very different sorts of pilots, with him being he smart cautious one.  We tried several times to set a time to go out flying, but with one thing and another it was about 8 months before we hit a day that seemed perfect for a lunch trip up to Santa Barbara.  We would depart from Orange County (KSNA) and meet my brother at 1500 feet over Santa Monica (KSNA).  He would also be in a plane. 

As I expected from the Yankee experience just walking up to the Tiger is great fun. It is a very cool looking airplane with flowing lines and neat little holes for cooling flow in the front of the cowling. Entry is exactly like the Yankee, step up onto the trailing edge of the wing then slide open the canopy and step in.  The ergonomics are such that it is easiest to step on the seat then the floor of the cockpit, so the smart pilot flips up the seat cushion with her toe before stepping on the seat then knocks it back down again as the other foot is brought in to the cockpit.  I flew right seat, but all that time in the right seat of the Diamond, and any other airplane I fly with my brother, means that I am about as comfortable operating on the co-pilot’s side as I am in the left seat.  The panel is pretty standard, with the main oddity being he placement of the fuel gauges, which are on the side panels because they directly read from the tubular tank in each wing.  The tubular tanks are an issue if the plane gets in a spin because the fuel can be pulled away from the wing root and the fuel line will unport leaving you in a plane that is rapidly rotating, falling fast and has no engine.  Since this is more excitement than even utility pilots are accustomed to, spins are prohibited.

Starting is about the usual for a carbureted 180 hp Lycoming.  Prime a few times with the mixture full rich and the throttle cracked.  Mags on both and push the starter button.  The engine usually catches on a few blades unless the weather is just brutally cold.  An excellent feature of the Tiger (and Yankee) is that the canopy can be open during taxi and even during flight.  This really mitigates the greenhouse effect of the bubble canopy on a sunny southern California day.  We taxied to the run up area and I reacquainted myself with the concept of a castering nose wheel.  It is a feature I actually like in a plane and would put it on a list of things I would like my theoretical perfect plane to have.  The ability to turn a tricycle gear airplane in a radius normally only seen by conventional gear planes is a real plus.   I like doing a 360 after the run up to see whether I can spot folks in the pattern.  Tail wheels or castering nosewheels make this a fun proposition rather than an exercise in staying inside the run up area. 

Lining up for takeoff I recalled that the Yankee needed more right rudder than the Warrior, but when I poured to coals to the Tiger I found it climbed straight and fast with pretty minimal rudder input.  Not ten feet off the ground it is already clear that this is not a Cessna/Piper straight ahead workhorse.  This plane can fly and if you are not right on top of the control yoke and rudders you quickly find yourself correcting for errors you are not sure you made.  The plane has such a direct connection between me hand and pitch, roll and yaw, that you will go exactly where you aim…but the corollary is that if your mind wanders the airplane will as well.  The C172 is so stable that I can often fly 50 miles without putting in more than a token bump of effort on the yoke.  In the Tiger you could get it trimmed then shift your feet or put a little unconscious pressure on the yoke and before you know it you are sliding off in some direction only vaguely related to the one you were hoping to fly.  I find that when I am ahead of the airplane and have a clear idea of my destination that I can keep my head out of the cockpit and fly long straight distances.  But when I get behind, like when I am told to watch for wake turbulence from a departing 737, the airplane darts around like a fractious horse. 

The airspace of LA and its environs is wonderfully complex. I say that as someone who trained in there and whose second flight was through the ‘miniroute’ over Los Angeles International Airport.  This required following a VOR before I was entirely sure what the navigation radio was listening for. I think I had a vague idea that it was turning in various talk radio shows and guessing where you were by the suite of available programming and the strength of the various signals.  Lots of preachers over by John Wayne/Orange County.   More NPR as you head north.  In any case, the airspace gave me an excuse to maneuver the airplane quite a bit on the way up to find my brother.  As I had hoped, the pushrod actuators on the controls and the laminar flow wing made for an agile and steady airplane.  Just to get the feel for what landing would be like I did one power off stall at 2500 feet.  The look on Dana’s face and his pointing out that he does not do stalls in the plane without an instructor, convinced me to go a bit easier in my testing.  We got overhead Santa Monica and I cranked in 45 degrees of bank, added a little trim (which is electric, by the way) and started a series of small circles over the airport.  Dana seemed to be impressed with my airmanship, but I believe he would have preferred to hear of my exploits while we sat in his office making flying noises.  Eventually the DA40 rose up towards us and we raced for the Santa Monica Mountains.  The Diamond is fast but the Grumman had no problem keeping up.  It may even be that the Tiger was a little faster.  You will never get my brother to say, he rarely thinks about his air speed as long as the plane is not in danger of stalling.

We zipped up to Santa Barbara and the flight was too short by several hours.  It is just a great plane to fly.  More fun than should be possible in a vehicle worth less than $60,000. I was really happy when Dana offered to let me take the landing.  I have no idea whether he was being generous, he was confident in my abilities, or so airsick from my piloting that he just desperately wanted to get on the ground. I set up for left traffic and went a little long on downwind because I had heard a long stabilized approach helps you to land these planes. If you read much about the Grummans a recurring theme is that they like to fly, conversely they are not so keen on stopping flying.  If you have a little extra airspeed, say for good luck, or because it is Tuesday, or because there are a godawful lot of bushes on that side of the runway, you will find that scrubbing off that speed is difficult.  Raising the nose just makes the plane balloon, neglecting to scrub off the speed leads to a departure into the weeds at the end of the runway.  In any case, I had been boning up on the POH and had the spot landing speed in my head.  I called the 1000 foot markers and landed 50 feet from the numbers end of them.  It was a good landing and Dana looked relieved.  We had a pleasant lunch and then headed back to John Wayne.  The plane is beaut and with the sliding canopy would be pretty easy to exit in the case of ending up in the water.  This one is on my list of step ups from the 172, but it is hard to imagine the circumstances where it is enough of a step up since I own the 172.