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Taking Back to the Tailwheel by Kevin Ware
Most of the past two decades, I have f lown multi-engine and turbine aircraft, rarely f lying anything with just
one engine. There are reasons for this. For one, my personal airplane for three decades has two engines, plus my professional f lying has almost exclusively been in turboprop or jet aircraft. But, with the onset of the COVID-19 limiting the use of the personal twin for distant travel and the concomitant but unrelated aviation insurance availability prob- lem, I decided I should simplify my flying life and again try out single- engine airplanes.
Remembering back to a prior time, I recalled the fun I had flying taildragger airplanes of all kinds, but Cessna 180’s and 185’s in particular. At one time, I owned a C185 on floats and periodically put it back on wheels and flew it to the Idaho backcountry just for the fun of it. So, while still
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keeping my Cessna 340, I re- cently started looking for a Cessna 180 or 185. It was a rather discouraging experience. I found these airplanes are now highly valued by their owners, with a sort of cult following, making a good one hard to find and much more expensive than I remembered.
My definition of a “good one” was it had to have less than 3,000 or so hours total time, all logbooks, no damage his- tory, a factory float kit, and ideally the Continental 550 engine upgrade, plus Garmin avionics. Since they stopped making them in 1981, these air- planes have become as rare as “hen’s teeth.” I found many of them had been used commer-
cially with very high-time airframes and usually a history of one or two ground loops or other damage. Oth- ers were f lown on f loats on saltwa- ter and had corrosion issues. Finally, after looking for several months, a good one showed up – not in Control- ler or ASO, but surprisingly in an ad on Facebook that my grandson Philip forwarded to me. Oddly enough, it belonged most of its life to a doctor of my past acquaintance and was based in nice, dry, sunny Nevada. I had my grandson make an immediate offer for me subject to inspection, which the seller accepted.
Unfortunately, the seller had re- located the airplane from Nevada to an isolated part of Alaska, so the inspec- tion part would not be easy. But, as it turned out, Mike Rhoads, an old family friend, had a friend who was an expert C180 mechanic who just happened to be in his motor home on a fishing vacation in that part of Alaska. Mike
called him, and he agreed to leave the salmon alone for a day and inspect the airplane. A couple of days later, he sent me a ream of photos and a very posi- tive report on the airplane’s condition. Again, lucky for me, Mike and Philip had great enthusiasm for ferrying it down to Washington along the coastal route over the following week, with the only mishap being one flat tire.
Finally, with the airplane at KBVS, I got a chance to see my new Cessna for the first time and try out my old tailwheel skills. The airplane was as advertised, but the tailwheel tryout was a very ego-bruising experience.
First of all, with the tail on the ground and the nose in the air, I could not see anything beyond the engine cowl. After years of sitting in Lears, Citations and twin Cessnas, where the nose drops away to a clear view of the runway ahead, I was spoiled. So, I cranked up the seat to its limit. This helped, but I still could not see over the nose worth a darn. I then got a floata- tion cushion from my boat, which is about three inches thick. I sat with my headset touching the headliner, but I could see just over the engine. Forty years ago, when I was frequently fly- ing this type of airplane, I probably would have just made S -turns, looked out the side window, and not worried about it. But, with thousands of hours in nosewheel aircraft (and perhaps the aging process), my level of acceptance for poor forward visibility was not the same. So, head bumping against the headliner, and a blue boat cushion on my seat, is my new norm.
The next thing I noticed was the airplane had a directional mind all of its own. When power was added, it caused an immediate 90 degree left turn. Quite different than the jets I