Hello all. I did my first flight in my new (well new to me) 1951 Cessna 170. It was not as bad as I had anticipated. We did some taxiing at normal speed, and then some high speed taxiing. I was very excited that I did not take out any runway lights. (I expected to be all over the runway; well we do have a very wide runway ) We then took off and did some slow flight, stalls, and then returned for the ‘OMG I can’t believe I’m going to land a tail wheel airplane’ landing. I guess it was an OK landing; my instructor let me take of after the first landing. Although I think I made my instructor a little nervous when I asked him, as we were on final, “Do I have to use the rudder?†I don’t know if he knew I was kidding. It was hard to tell what he was thinking through the funny shade of white that his face and knuckles were.
It was a great experience. I think I enjoyed today’s flight as much as I did my first solo. I think I will have a lot of fun with the new plane.
If any of you have stories about your first flight in a tail wheel share with us.
God forbid we should ever be twenty years without a rebellion. ***Thomas Jefferson***
Congradulations, sounds like you survived your first flight in your 170 quit well....there are many more fun times to come in your 170....I'm just over the Wallowa Mountains to the north of you at 8S4 in Enterprise....I'll stop in the next time the weather lets me fly and I'll share a few stories of my first few hours in 2604D. Damn, I was looking for an excuse to go flying!!! See you in Baker City some time this month....
My first C170 flight last year was great. Though I was breaking in a fresh overhauled engine (just manuvering and boring holes in the sky) it was exciting. On my initial take-off, my friends standing on the right side of the runway about 500' away told me later they considered running when I starting to drift (or was it swerve) to the right. I missed 'em with plenty of room to spare. I had my instructor make the first landing. After that it was on me. His main adminition was practice, practice and practice. He has been flying nearly 50 years and still goes out every week or so and does practice landings. He also told me the 170, in his opinion, is mid scale on the tail-dragger difficult-to-land chart. If that is the case, then some of 'em must be very easy.
