Lockable Tailwheel

[Springloaded]

Every once in awhile someone ask me if I will go fly with them to help out with there CC. I recently went over to fly with a guy who has ground looped a couple times. He was told to put a lockable tailwheel on his plane and that would help. I have never flown with one before so wasn’t sure what to expect and being in the back I decided to taxi out to runway get a feel for it. (unlocked) it was pretty easy just differential braking.
I let him do a take off and landing he did pretty good except we seemed to be tracking a little off center on TO & landing. The second time I did one. I found it extremely hard to control with the wheel locked,with 2 people there a lot of weight on the tail and it locked straight so took quite a bit of brake to over come the tail wheel. We had a pretty decent cross wind. I found he was putting full rudder input and stomping the brake to try and get it to respond. Seems like a disaster to me. We did 4or 5 like that then we talked about a couple things and I made him unlock the wheel. He did much better with out it locked. I would say the lockable tail wheel made landing for him a lot harder. I told him put the 3200 back on there with steerable tail wheel and will go back up and see how that works for him.
In my Opinion if someone is having directional control problems it seems the locking tail wheel would make it worse,if they land and are not going straight down the center there gonna go straight of the side or panic stomp the brakes and end up going around in a circle. Now I realize I could of just picked the tail up and unloaded the wheel but that’s not gonna happen with someone already having problems and to me would just complicate things.
Just my take on it.
Chuck

[Dan L]

I've never flown with a lockable tail wheel. That would seem like a bad move in my opinion. Steerable would seem to be best for someone transitioning to a tail wheel.

I like this the best. Free-castering.

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[Cubdriver2]

Good on you Chuck for setting him straight ( hopefully ) The guys down South are lucky your around to help. Most CFIs teaching tailwheel today are converted nosewheel guys or don't fly enough TW and aren't totally comfortable flying tailwheel themselves so they tend to correct the student before he gets too far outa whack. Problem with this is the student doesn't get into enough trouble to learn anything because the CFI is afraid to let him dig a bigger hole. We have a good hired gun TW CFI up here if anybody needs one. PM if interested

Glenn