Old 01-03-2019, 12:01 AM
  #5  
JohnBurke
Disinterested Third Party
 
Joined APC: Jun 2012
Posts: 6,003
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I fly single engine airplanes with clockwise and counterclockwise propellers, with large radials and large props, and smaller, nosewheel and conventional gear.

One can really overthink it, and there's so much out there about tailwheels "making a real pilot" and being "difficult" to fly that the truth gets lost in the hype. The reality is that it doesn't make much, if any difference.

I flew a large single engine airplane to an airport where a pilot proceeded to tell me all about how large tailwheel airplanes with big propellers would torque roll right out from under a pilot and all kinds of other things she'd heard. Then she asked if it was all true.

Not that I'd noticed. Tail up, tail down, nose up, nose down...Some airplanes want to turn left, some right. Use opposite rudder, whatever is needed, and when you run out of rudder, you've got brake or angling across the runway or using a taxiway or a different runway...and that's about it. They don't operate that differently. Same for flying floats, which are different than nosewheels or tailwheels, but don't fly much differently, including the amphibians, which have four wheels, two on each float (or tricycle gear or conventional gear for some amphibs). Not really that much different to operate.
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