Saturday was my first time out in a couple of months.
Last time, the nose gear broke out part of the firewall on a bad landing. We decided to convert the plane to tail dragger while it was down. The plane is a Global Right Flyer 60H.
My instructor took off the first time and said he thought it handled better as a tail dragger than as a trike. After he confirmed the trims were OK, he switched it to me and we again verified the trims. I flew around for 10-12 minutes and asked Paul if there was anything special I needed to know about landing a tail dragger. He said most important is to bleed off a lot of the airspeed so it doesn't bounce back into the air. I landed a little hot and bounced off the runway into the tall grass. No damage, refuel, ready to go again.
I tried to take off and got squirrely on the ground and tried to force it into the air. I guess I was still using the rudder because it flew very different and stalled before Paul could take over. It crashed on the runway with the only apparent damage being a broken prop and cracked aluminum spinner. Put on another prop and tried again. Takeoff run was not really pretty but I got it safely in the air. Flight was good, it died on landing approach and I was coming up short and tried to stretch the glide. Stalled it at about 3 feet and it fell out of the air. No damage; try for flight number 3.
Takeoff slightly less exciting than the others, still don't know how to drive a tail dragger. Flew more smoothly than either of the previous flights. I guess I came in really fast. When it hit the ground, the landing gear sheared the four 10-32 nylon screws, flipped under the plane, and then sheared the stab off of both sides. The plane bounced up and glided toward the pits. It skimmed the top of a pilot box and landed in an open area of the pits. Paul had released the trainer switch and had no rudder or aileron control to try to put it into the ground. Maybe it was just going too slow for the controls to be effective, but I definitely will need to check the Rx before it goes up again.
The wing suffered a little damage to the sheeting where it sits on the fuselage and there's a crack along the edge of the windshield (both probably not noticed after crash on takeoff number 2). The ARF calls for the stab to just be bolted in, but it seemed wobbly that way so it was epoxied. Cutting it out will not be simple.
I'm almost finished with a Great Planes PT-60 kit. My first kit. I guess the timing is actually pretty good. I'll get the PT-60 in the air and continue my training while I figure out how to fix the Right Flyer.
Sorry for the rambling, Carrell