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Are you really sure about that, Gary? I seem to know a couple of guys who have picked up their 150/150's at, well let's say, "reasonable" prices?

Rub it in, Bill!

Actually, by rights I should own that bird!

Hey - its got my name all over it!

It spent most of its life within 10 - TEN miles of my house!!!

Now, if it was 999WF, or 999BF...you get the idea....it would be understandable, you see.

But....

man...after ridin' in that puppy, and flyin' formation, this boy is a'droolin' like Pavlov's dog when I think about it.

Mr. Ed Rocks!!!!

Quote from Gary:

" So, the FAA stepped in, most likely at the request of the NTSB and designed a little extra safety measure and required at least an instructor's signoff for the tailwheel endorsement. "

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When one reads a statement like the above and it is from an American it means that the " instructor " must hold an instructors rating to do the training.

That is an FAA thing, in the rest of the world an instructors rating is only needed for doing pilots licenses, other training such as sea plane ratings, IFR ratings and type ratings can be done by pilots who have xxx amount of experience in the aircraft being used for the check out.

For decades I have tried to get an exemption from the FAA to do PBY type ratings in the USA to to avail because the bureaucracy is set in concrete....so what I do is I give the training to the pilots and bring them up to a high standard of flying skills on the on the PBY and then some designated FAA inspector does some flying with them and issues the type rating.

The FAA is the only agency on earth that still insists that I get a certified flight instructors rating to give this kind of instruction and I respond by telling them O.K. you have a deal as long as you will pay for the frontal lobotomy I will need to study and remember all the material you insist I must learn to get your certified flight instructors license, because in the final analysis all that stuff will be of no real advantage in teaching someone to fly a PBY.

Anyhow the real problem in todays world of aviation is finding someone that is truly competent to teach tail wheel flying and just because he / she holds a CFI license that means very little is far as the quality of instruction you will receive.

And before anyone gets the wrong impression...yes I at one time held a CFI, however once I no longer needed it I let it lapse.

Chuck E.

Chuck,

I didn't say the FAA had any common sense. They're just a bunch of beaurocratic weenies that attempt to regulate our passion and punish those who break their arbitrary rules.

The guy who sold me my 150/150 TD wasn't an instructor, but he had many thousands of hours in that very airplane. I learned more from him in the couple of hours I flew with him than I remembered from the TW instruction I got 7 years ago. Besides, it was airplane specific...not learning in a Cub, then trying on a pitts...

Seems like you're a little disgruntled at the FAA's current system. I agree, it's a waste of super knowledge if someone thinks you have to have an instructor's license to pass on your experience. But, that's our system here in America. Like it or not, we're stuck with it. And, before anyone says we should unite and stand up for a change, you can't get ten people in this country to agree on where to go for an evening's dinner, let alone uniting to challenge a well entrenched beaurocracy.

" Seems like you're a little disgruntled at the FAA's current system. "

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Naw, Gary I could care less about the FAA, I have basically turned over all the flying to my partners and let them worry about dealing with the Government agencies.

In fact I could care less if I never did another minute of training towards type ratings.

There is one last customer I have who bought a PBY in South Africa and I think it is still registered as Canadian, he is insisting that I do his type rating and I had told him I would several years ago so I guess I will go back to Africa and do him...he is American so I guess he will have to find a FAA licensed flight instructor to confirm that my training was acceptable but he knows that.

Anyhow I spent fifty three years dealing with cretins in government and am happy to be out of it.

..now if I can find a buyer for that little Aerobat that will be one less irritation to deal with.

I'm heading out to my sail boat to relax for a few days so will not be on here.

Have fun and remember " You can learn to fly in hours, it takes years to learn when not to. "

Here is one of my web sites with some of the airplanes we fly.

www.pbyflighttraining.com [pbyflighttraining.com]

If you click around you will find my other site and the Aerobat as well as a bunch of other stuff.

Chuck E.

Chuck, a tailwheel airplane will be tough to sell for at least two reasons; lack of competent tailwheel instructors; and insurance requirements, generally 20 hours or more in make and model, and certainly no basic instruction.

Plus, if your airplane is Canadian registration, and you did the TW conversion in Canada there are further complications. When I was shopping for a TW 150 I encountered one that had been converted in Canada, and I gave it a pass.

When I learned to fly in the late 40s tailwheel airplanes were all there were, if you didn't count Bonanzas, Navions and Ercoupes, and real men didn't fly Ercoupes. Also, society was a hell of lot less litiguous. Renter insurance was un-heard-of, and liability claims likewise, aviation was considered dangerous and anybody who flew had to be nuts. And, of course, airplanes were easier to fix then. We aren't going back to those days, no matter how much we may wish to.

Geo.

" Plus, if your airplane is Canadian registration, and you did the TW conversion in Canada there are further complications. When I was shopping for a TW 150 I encountered one that had been converted in Canada, and I gave it a pass. "

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Why did you give it a pass? The conversion is done under a FAA STC...was the work shoddy?

I personally did the conversion and it was signed out by a Structures engineer who works with me.

Our business is aircraft restoration, the last one we did was a Super Connie so a C150 poses no great challenge to perform this STC conversion.

Yeh, I agree tail wheel airplanes are more difficult to sell, but there are still thousands of them out there and people are still building them as homebuilts so eventually someone will buy it.

Man I just can't believe the that such a simple airplane is feared by so many pilots.

I guess it is indictive of who trains them, if the instructor is so limited in skills that a little tail wheel training airplane is beyond their ability to fly we can excuse the people they teach for thinking a tail wheel airlane is something exotic.

Chuck E.

Student pilots don't always have a choice!

When the kids were finally grown enough to start carrying their own weight, and money began to loosen up somewhat, I decided it was time to start living my dream. I would finally get my PPL! There weren't that many flight training choices within a reasonable commuting distance, and those that were didn't offer tailwhell endorsements (A J-3 WAS my first choice to train in.) The point was to get into the air, not specifically to have the endorsement, so I did what so many others did. I accepted following my nose(wheel) as the only viable alternative to not flying.

Now, I have a '63 150 that will eventually be converted to tailwheel. I may even make it my priority project (I had planned to finish the restoration of my 150K, but the '63 is actually closer to flying).

So, I will be one of those that will have to "un-learn" nosewheel take-off and landing in favor of the more "conventional" style that I've always dreamed of!

There really isn't anything to "un-learn" ... instead, you must learn the 3 most important things about flying a tailwheel plane:

1. rudder
2. rudder
3. rudder



Terry

Ok guys enough on the tail dragger stuff. If you want to argue it goto the piloting post and place the forum there and knock yourselves out!! The orginal post states about selling a tail dragger plane not flying it!!! and Im finding more and more posts are leading off the main topic... Case Closed!

Now as for tail dragger if its in Canada you should get 35 to 40. At least remeber its a all aluminumal airplane vs the Citriba which is a 40000 dollar cloth in my opional. Others would hang me for that comment!! But thats my opional and thats why I bought a 150 its a cheap 20000 dollar of aluminumal LOL!! But I like Aluminal and lot pilots perfer that. I dont have to worry about rips frabic replacement etc etc. Also some perfer side by side vs Tandom. Either case its a preferred taste. I personally sell shy under a Citriba.