Baby steps

So, when I earned my tailwheel endorsement (“Always Learning: Good Instinct,” November/December 2025 Flight Training) late last year, I was at a crossroads. Count this as another notch in my aviation belt, and go back to flying Cessna 172s? Or commit to tailwheel flying, and fly AOPA’s American Champion Citabria 7GCBC High Country Explorer often enough to stay proficient in it, working up to flights in more challenging conditions?

I chose the latter.

My first priority was simple: Don’t let these new skills atrophy. Then, I’d seek out incrementally more wind and, hopefully, reach a breakthrough in tailwheel confidence like what Editor at Large Dave Hirschman describes in “Making Progress.” I resolved to schedule flights once a week to support this building-block approach. Alas, the best-laid plans….

The week after my first tailwheel solo flight, I went for a second one—and then I got bronchitis. After a few-week gap, I went back out with my instructor to get back on track and then scheduled more solo flights. Fickle weather turned my standing weekly reservation into a patchwork of last-minute scheduling: I’d sit out two weeks of storms, then slip in a couple flights on tranquil mornings just after sunrise.

As a new tailwheel pilot, my personal minimums for flying nosewheel aircraft went out the window. I had fewer than 10 hours of tailwheel time when I earned my endorsement, so the flight risk assessment tool (FRAT) AOPA’s flight operations department had created for employees flagged my first two solo flights as moderate risk just for showing up. Shortly after, I sat in the parking lot comparing the calm winds report on the AWOS to the windsock indicating a tailwind on the active runway. Would the tower switch runways for a long line of training traffic at the request of one low-time tailwheel pilot? I could request the intersecting runway, but a direct crosswind put that option out of reach for my experience level, according to the FRAT. I canceled my reservation and drove home.

But I kept showing up at the airport, logging tailwheel hours 45 minutes at a time. I focused mainly on landings, hopping from airport to airport in the local area or staying in the pattern at home. With no instructor in the backseat, the lightly loaded, 180-horsepower airplane leaped off the runway, and it climbed so steeply I had to be cautious of the FAA guidance not to turn crosswind until beyond the departure end of the runway. Sometimes I practiced ground reference maneuvers, tracing sharp curves of a river and marveling at how crisply the airplane turns. And I flew a cross-country, surprised that this aerobatic rocket could double as a comfortable traveler.

Still, the windsock at midfield often taunted me, adding two knots and 30 degrees to the crosswinds on the AWOS. Tricycle-gear-pilot me would scarcely have noticed. Taildragger-pilot-me sweated every landing.

As I write this, winds are gusting to 19 knots at my home airport and the Citabria is tucked safely in the hangar. I’ve logged 13.4 hours of tailwheel time and 57 tailwheel landings since earning the endorsement, and most of my flights have been in surface winds of 10 knots or less. I wish I had made greater strides in comfort and competency in strong winds by now, but I’m building confidence in the conditions nature hands me. As spring ushers in more flying days, my tailwheel flying world will expand.

In “Tailwheel Traditions,” Editor Ian Wilder introduces us to a community of pilots united by a passion for tailwheel aircraft. These airplanes put the focus on stick-and-rudder skills over flight deck management and demand precise, authoritative control. Any pilot can benefit from learning to command an airplane that is inherently unstable on the ground, and the pilots at Santa Paula in California are teaching skills that lay the foundation for big aviation career aspirations.

Maintaining tailwheel skills can be a challenge, since many flight schools and FBOs don’t have a taildragger on the flight line. I’m fortunate enough to have a Citabria near me, and so I’ll keep scheduling flights and checking the forecasts for just enough wind to be a challenge. At some point, I hope, I’ll cross the threshold from “pilot with a tailwheel endorsement” to “tailwheel pilot.” FT 

Editorial Director Sarah Deener has her next American Champion Citabria flight scheduled.

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