TAILWHEEL TIME

My Stearman experience over Labour weekend convinced me I should take the plunge and buy the share that had been advertised on TraedeMe recently.  So, once the paperwork is sorted out I should be the proud owner of 1/30 of a classic aircraft (and, as CFI Roger pointed out, it is a BOEING!!!!)
To fly P-in-C on the Stearman, Classic Flyers want you to have 25 hours of tailwheel time, so I thought some sessions in the club's Cessna 180, JFG, would be a good way to do some of this, and also, maybe, get another type rating while I am about it.
So, today at 1645 I arrived at the club for a flight in JFG with CFI, Roger.  I have been up twice before in the 180 so not a complete novice.  Compared to the club's Alphas, Cherokees and 172s, JFG is a bit of a beast!  230hp six-cylinder engine, three blade constant speed prop and stands very tall at the front due to the tailwheel stance.
JFG has a STOL kit fitted which droops the ailerons when the flaps go down so is very short field capable for the type so we headed off to Matamata for some circuits with stop and goes.  Maybe it is the nearly two years further flying experience, or flying the Stearman, or Roger's (as always) excellent instruction, JFG today seemed a lot more benign than I remembered.  There was a 5-6 knot crosswind on Matamata's 10 runway, left to right, enough to make it "interesting" in a taildragger (runway 04 was closed and from the rich green grass after the 10 days of very dry weather here has not been mown for a while).
I was guilty of being lazy on the rudder both on take-off and landing for the first couple of circuits but was doing OK after that, setting up into a sideslip attitude on very short final, levelling off, column back, chop the throttle and settling onto a near three-point landing with only a slight bounce, keeping straight by working the rudder and a bit of brake to a halt less than halfway down the strip with plenty of room to take off again.  Then it was back to Hamilton for an acceptable landing on 36L (on the grass and no crosswind) and a taxi back to refuel.  Roger let me taxi back to park on my own - no simple task in a tailwheel plane with not much space betwen the fence and JGP's stand - I did it OK, just slightly off-centre!  Great fun, Roger, 1.0 hours in the book which means: 300 HOURS TOTAL TIME - Whoo-Hoo!!  Action replay next Monday, weather permitting.

P.S.:   Total tailwheel time: 4.1 hours!!