I showed up at the airport early, 9:30 AM, as was the small price I paid for getting a ride to (but not from) the airport, courtesy of Rachel’s mother’s rental car. With thirty minutes to kill, I plopped down on the couch outside the Oakland Flyers office and played with my newly-3G’d iPhone.
Some time thereafter, Rodrigo’s recognizable white Dodge Stratus cruised into a front-and-center parking lot. After customarily giving my hand a firm shake, he explained that this lesson would be a sort of “final exam,” wherein my tailwheel abilities would be tested as the ultimate arbiter on whether I can safely manage the cantankerous airplane.
To this effect, Rodrigo had me find the “windiest airport in the Bay Area,” a property pilots generally tend to avoid when picking a landing spot. Being early in the morning, winds were predictably calm throughout, and as I fiddled with my iPhone’s METAR application, I couldn’t find any airport with more than 9 knots of wind.
“Try Rio Vista,” Rodrigo suggested. I couldn’t find a METAR, nor an AWOS phone number for Rio Vista. Rodrigo explained that the phone number is unpublished, a sort of exclusive nugget of information only the privileged would know. Which is odd, considering it’s an automated weather station phone number.
I called it and Rodrigo was pleased to hear 13 knots with gusts of 20 knots, sealing my fate as a trip to Rio Vista (O88).
At the hangar, I was sharply reminded of last week’s episode involving a black widow infestation. Rodrigo searched for and killed a few of the remaining survivors from last week’s massacre, as I performed a preliminary check of the airplane. Once all the hangar doors were opened, I taxied the plane out onto the tarmac, where I could perform the complete preflight free of the possibility of black widow bites.
Along with poisonous spiders, I also had the airplane’s fuel caps on my mind: Last week’s flight held the notoriety of being without either fuel cap, resulting in an early landing due to a hot engine. I was extra-careful to ensure the fuel caps were securely fastened before flying.
With my taxi clearance and squawk code in hand I taxied the airplane to runway 27R, performed an uneventful runup, and brought onto the runway. As I was trained, I pushed both throttle and stick smoothly forward, and as the propeller provided a new rush of air over the elevators, the back of the airplane lifted off its tailwheel and the nose rotated forward to be level with the runway, while the plane began slowly picking up speed.
My feet were already alive keeping the temperamental airplane straight down the centerline, a task which required a level of constant correction consuming one’s attention. As the airplane approached VR, I smoothly pulled the stick back, remembering Rodrigo’s admonitions not to slap the tailwheel back down on the pavement as I lifted off.
I had told the weather briefer that my enroute time between Oakland and Rio Vista would be 20 minutes — which it may well have been — but in the tiny plodding Citabria, it felt like an hour. I started on a “best-guess” course which, as I gained altitude, proved to be about 20-30° left of the actual direction. Rodrigo was quick with a suggestion: Next time, I should plot the direct-to course beforehand so I have an initial heading to turn to. He admitted it would have saved “only a few minutes,” but pilots are big on saving minutes. Minutes are money.
The way there was slow and easy, with wrap-around views afforded by the Citabria’s large and enveloping plastic windows. Traffic reports abound, and each conflicting airplane slipped into view and passed to the side of us. It was a busy day, and justifiably so, as it was severe clear with a sky untainted by clouds.
Past the first line of hills Rodrigo presents to me the hood. I put it on and discover a new challenge: flying the Citabria by instruments. It’s important to note that the Citabria is not an instrument-rated airplane. It has a very simple panel and lacks many gyroscopic instruments considered necessary for instrument flight, such as the artificial horizon and heading indicator.
I checked my attitude using a combination of the altimeter and turn coordinator, and checked my heading with the capricious magnetic compass. Although dicey at first, I was able to settle into some semblance of stable flight. The turn coordinator, normally referred to only occasionally in instrument flight, became my crux. My eyes rarely strayed from that little cross-section of an airplane’s wings against a horizon bar.
“We’ll do some compass turns first,” Rodrigo said. He taught me some easy techniques for turning with a magnetic compass. Without the aid of a heading indicator, which accurately indicates direction even in banks and turns, I needed to compensate for the magnetic indicator, which leads and lags during turns and can be inaccurate during banks.
Though wholly unprepared at first, after a few easy turns I started getting the hang of capturing and holding a compass heading, learning how to predict when the compass will be inaccurate, and how inaccurate it will be.
As we approached Rio Vista, Rodrigo let me remove the hood, and I was able to approximate the location of the airport with the help of the sectional chart. Eventually large buildings came into view which I assumed were hangars. Eventually it became clear that I had found Rio Vista airport, so I began an easy descent to 2,000 feet, announcing my intentions over the CTAF along the way. Rodrigo had to feed me the “real” CTAF, as the frequency listed in the A/FD was apparently disused. Everything about Rio Vista was an inexplicable secret.
Over the airport at 2,000 feet, Rodrigo surprised me by cutting the throttle. “Engine failure,” he said curtly. I was already pitching up to capture VG, the best-glide speed, and turning towards the downwind leg.
“Rio Vista traffic, Citabria 38C is 1,800 feet above the field, simulated engine failure, entering a right downwind for 32, Rio Vista.” My radio call was quick, as I had plenty of other things to worry about. Most present in my mind was the voluminous amount of altitude I had to lose to touch down a reasonable distance down the short runway.
Even from downwind I began a big, fat forward slip, which I continued through base and final. Rodrigo always worries when I slip the Citabria, because the Citabria spins easily, and from the back seat he can’t see the airspeed indicator.
“Check your speed,” he says nervously. “Is your speed up? Don’t spin this plane.”
“My speed is fine,” I reassure him. “80 MPH.”
“Alright. Give me a wheel landing.”
The plane remains high all the way down the chute, and so it isn’t until the last moment that I kick out the slip and set up for a landing attitude as the plane settles over the runway. The runway is short, much shorter than Oakland’s, which phases me some, but Rodrigo assures me “this is a long runway. Don’t worry.”
As instructed, I set up the plane in a wheel landing attitude, but when the front tires plant on the pavement the plane is too fast, and it leaps back into the sky with its momentum. Two more bounces later I’m starting to get the plane under control, but Rodrigo has an immutable rule: Three bounces, and you go around. No exceptions.
So, I pushed in the carburetor heat and throttle in one smooth gesture, and as the airplane regained its lift, I let it leap back up into the sky.
Surprisingly, Rodrigo actually had praise for the botched landing. “Good job going around. In an emergency you don’t have to get it on the ground nicely. You just get the plane on the ground and whatever happens happens. It’s enough for me to know you would have made it down in one piece.”
He was disappointed, however, that once it became clear that the wheel landing was botched, I didn’t transition into an easier three-point landing. This has been a standing suggestion of his for some time now, but one I have yet to do successfully. It’s just that, when you’re floating inches above the ground, and runway is slipping behind you at 70 miles per hour, it’s much easier to just say “fuck it” and go around for another shot, then continue to try different methods of salvaging the landing.
We flew one more traffic pattern and did a second wheel landing on the runway, and this time I had my touch back and it was a success. The wind was blustering, but it was right down the runway, so no crosswind correction was necessary. I touched down smoothly and easily on the main tires, with only a quiet little squeal of discontent coming from either of them. With the wind whipping over the plane’s fabric surfaces and airspeed pairing down, I let the tension in my hand release, and the stick moved slowly back as the tail of the airplane dropped back onto the ground.
“Let’s go,” Rodrigo said, his signal to push in the power for another go. As we climbed away from the runway, he instructed me to make a right turn to enter a pattern to runway 25. I turned the plane 90° to the right to enter the downwind for 25, and it became immediately apparent that I would be battling a hell of a crosswind. The airplane was pointed nearly 20° off just to maintain the parallel track against the wind.
My base turn was truncated; as I turned another 90° to enter the base leg, with the wind at my tail, my speed jumped up. Base turn became more of a base-final turn, as by the time I completed my base turn, I was already in position to begin the final approach.
On final I was instructed again to do a wheel landing. My fist was firmly clenched around the stick; fighting the 10-20 knot gusts of winds took a good measure of physical arm strength. Approaching the runway I kicked out the crab, pushing in left rudder to center the airplane down the runway.
“Watch your wing!” Rodrigo’s voice comes in loud through my headphones. With the wind this strong the plane is banked sharply to the right, and I notice the wing is jerking up and down with my control movements about a foot above the runway as it rushes past next to me. I return my attention forward to the centerline, trying to maintain a mental picture of how far to the right I can bank before the wing will strike.
The gusts of wind wax and wane, requiring constant correction to maintain the plane over the runway as I wait for the speed to drop enough that the right tire will touch the pavement. When it finally does, I bunt the nose forward to plant the plane, and balancing on that one tire, hold the centerline and let the speed continue to bleed. My arms and feet are alive, moving in a coordinated ballet against the unpredictable elements of nature.
Eventually the other tire touches down. The plane begins drifting to the left. Rodrigo is quick on the intercomm.
“More right aileron! More! More!” The stick is already at its limits.
“There is no more!” I yell back as the plane continues its drift.
“There’s more! Push it!” I’m pulling the stick furiously, and the plane is reluctantly saved from coasting onto the grass. Rodrigo finally tells me to go, and I gratefully push in power and close carb heat, and the plane bursts back to life. I’m quick on the rudder pedals, counteracting the left-turning tendencies of acceleration, and careful to slowly release right aileron as airspeed increases.
Finally the airplane is ready to fly. I take it back up into the sky, and breathe an involuntarily noisy sigh of relief.
“You had lots more aileron.” Rodrigo is giving me the post-game. “I know you did. It’s at full deflection when the stick touches my leg, and it wasn’t touching my leg.”
The downwind leg is my time to relax, a precious minute or two of sanity before the terror of another crosswind landing. Rodrigo and I are talking about what I did right and wrong when another voice comes over the CTAF.
“Cessna zero-five-charlie is ten miles out from the south for Rio Vista, wind and traffic.”
Rodrigo is quick to explain our unusual situation carefully.
“Cessna calling Rio Vista, we are using runway 25, but the wind favors 31. Repeat, we are not using a runway that favors the wind.”
Over a few more radio calls we work out a system whereby we can continue using runway 25 and the Cessna can land on 31 without us conflicting. (“Conflicting” here being a euphamism.)
Two more of the harrowing crosswind landings finds me upwind 25, with Rodrigo telling me he is very satisfied with my performance.
“Your landings aren’t pretty, but you can’t be pretty in this crosswind. I just want to know that you are safe, and you are safe. Good job. I feel like we can go home.”
I mention somewhat jokingly that we can continue landing until each is pretty, which he misinterprets as a desire to continue making these knuckle-clenching landings. He has me do one more. Not surprisingly, it wasn’t pretty.
Climbing out of 25, he has me turn 90° to be upwind 31, where he then cuts the power again. “Engine failure,” he drolls. I run through the steps again.
“Rio Vista traffic, Citabria 38C, simulated engine failure, upwind 31, turning around to land 14.” I turn the aircraft around 180° and set up for a downwind landing on runway 14. Before the time comes to land, Rodrigo pushes the power back in and explains that I’ve recovered. We turn away from the airport and from the houses, setting up over a nearby delta to climb without disturbing anyone’s morning sleep.
On the flight back Rodrigo is praising my landings, peppering the praise with suggestions. It’s obvious to me now that my tailwheel endorsement is nigh, because Rodrigo’s tone of voice was that of a father giving his son advice before seeing him off to college, or a bungee instructor giving a final send-off to a jumper before he leaps.
“I want that you fly this plane every week. Every two weeks when you get more comfortable. But mostly I want that you understand you can never be completely comfortable in a Citabria. It will always try to trick you, catch you off guard.
“We had an instructor here, like me, who had thousands of hours in this plane. One day he was landing in a crosswind and he struck the wing on the ground and nearly flipped the plane over. He never flew it again after that.
“You must understand that no matter how good of a pilot you are, the Citabria can get the better of you. You will be fine so long as you never let your guard down, and you’re always prepared. Never be relaxed.”
These were ominous words, especially the part about the flight instructor. I digested them slowly as the countryside receded below us in my climb to 4,500 feet.
“The kind of landings we did today are for emergencies only. I don’t want to see you doing crosswind landings like that just for fun. We were fine today, but don’t play with chance. Maybe one in one-hundred landings you will strike a wing, or ground loop. Don’t play those odds unless you have a very good reason.”
I didn’t consider it very likely I would do what I did today “just for fun.”
When I had settled into cruising altitude Rodrigo gave me the hood once more. We did a few more compass turns to solidify the learning process. Rather than have me turn off-course when we were rushing home to get the plane in before its due-back time, he merely asked me to describe the process by which I would have made the turns instructed to me. He seemed satisfied with my answers.
“OK, eyes closed and hands in your lap.” I knew what this meant. Keeping my disappointment to myself, I dutifully shut my eyes underneath the hood and folded my hands into my lap.
Rodrigo added power then pulled and turned the plane throughout the sky, disorienting me and giving me a sick feeling in my stomach as the plane gyrated around in the air. During this I thought about what recovery sequence I’d need without the aid of the gyro instruments, preparing myself for the task ahead. Following about twenty seconds of sickening turns, dives, climbs, and other aerobatic maneuvers, he let go of the controls.
“Recover.” His command was curt.
I opened my eyes, greeted with the sight of the instrument panel and the hood blocking my view out the window. I first listened to the sound of the engine. It was waning. I added power to compensate, then referred to the turn coordinator to level the wings. Finally, I referred to the altimeter to regain level flight. Rodrigo had me shut my eyes for another one.
After doing unusual attitudes with Rodrigo many times before, I know his game. He always does two, one that leaves me in a climb, with the engine winding down, and one in a descent, with the engine revving and beginning to whine. So it was no surprise when he said “recover” that I heard the aural cues of a descent and cut power to compensate. After leveling the wings, I pitched up to stabilize the plane in normal flight.
Satisfied, he removed the hood, and I spent the next five minutes of level flight recovering my stomach.
“You’ll be OK, right?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m fine, just give me a bit.”
“I only do two of them with you; I know you get sick.” It was disappointing to hear that. There was a time when I did so much flight training that I could handle five or six of those exercises without issue.
He had me add power to hurry the trip home, as time was ticking away before the cutoff. Sinking into lower altitudes over the Oakland Hills, Rodrigo gleefully pointed out to me his home, as we flew almost directly over it.
Tower cleared us for a long base approach to 27R, and turning final, Rodrigo told me to make one last wheel landing to make him happy. The landing was a greaser; the plane slipped gently onto two wheels on the runway, and with the slightest bunt of the stick, I was able to “stick” it onto the ground and take it to an easy stop.
In retrospect, it seems obvious that the landing would be so smooth: At Oakland there was no wind. But I am glad this is a thought I had strictly in retrospect — to have such a thought before the landing would mean I am getting complacent, a definite no-no in a Citabria. If you are constantly surprised by how easy your landings are, then you are doing it right. If you expect easy landings, then you are setting yourself up for a bad surprise.
Rodrigo helped me put away the plane, but with him short on time, I did everything I could to get his part wrapped up. I gave him a blank check with his name on it — “don’t get any ideas” — and allowed him to leave me to put away the plane myself while he got on with his next lesson. He gave me a hasty signature in my logbook, solidifying my accomplishment for eternity.
I still need to do a familiarization sheet (“fam sheet”) before I am checked out to fly the club’s Citabria, but I have my endorsement, meaning that the big hurdle is done. As Rodrigo scanned the pages of my logbook for club records, he added up the time I spent in the tailwheel.
“Twelve hours,” he said with surprise. “That’s really good. Most people do it in twenty.” It felt great to hear that: the first evidence that I have some skill as a pilot. Great blue yonder ho!
