Taildragger Insurance - Gasp!

[Chewie]

Any advice for a low-time pilot who's years away from a completed Patrol to become more insurable when the time comes?
Mark

[AlabamaSlammer]

The way I'm going about it is either get time in someone else's or rent. Time in type would be better, but any TW time will be better than none


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[Gavin Chester]

Marsh Canada $80,000 insurance on my BH 4plc is $1942.00 and $175.00 of that is hanger insurance.

[dedgemon]

time in type is great but essentially impossible to get for most folks. So, find some place that will rent a champ or something and star getting taildragger hours. any td time helps. the more the better.

[Chris In Milwaukee]

That's exactly how I'm treating it. C140 isn't my dream ride, but it's a way in (although I may end up falling in love--who knows?). I have a great opportunity, and the insurance company wants 150 hours TW and 700 total before they'll "let me" fly my dream plane (Howard DGA, C195). So time for me to get cracking!

[Chewie]

Would ultralight TW hours help?

[dedgemon]

Nope, insurance companies dont seem to count anything un-registered. they dont count sailplane time either.

Curious, when I started insuring my RV8 I only had about 20 hours of taildragger time (although I had 500 In RV's). they just asked for a 5 hour checkout in a taildragger RV. You might be able to work out something of that sort if you can find a BH to get transition training in.

[Jflyer]

I mentioned this on another thread about gaining free hours in a high performance tailwheel.
I received my tailwheel cert in a Cub. The day I was signed off for tailwheel, I was also trained and signed off as a tow pilot in our glider club's Pawnee tow plane which has a 235. I was previously signed off for high performance in a 182. My total hours at that time was around 340hrs combined SEL and Glider.

FARs allows private pilots (class 3 medical) to receive compensation as a tow pilot provided you are not carrying passengers nor carrying freight. That glider strapped to your tail doesn't count.
Compensation per the FAA is simply logging hours as more hours gain you a financial benefit.

Glider clubs generally are in short supply of tow pilots. Tow pilots are usually club members volunteering to tow, but would rather be soaring. It may have been a little easier for me as I have a glider rating and understand all the maneuvers and signals. You will get some time in a glider as well, so you can see the tow from that end, but usually at the club's expense as you will be volunteering your time as a tow pilot.

The tow planes are usually insured under the club's group policy which allows low time tailwheel pilots to fly as tow pliots, provided they are members of the club. The insurance company understands that we need tow pilots or we will not need to insure our gliders with them. So low hour tailwheel pilots will be insured with our group policy. Our club has a "Tow Pilot Only" membership which we do not charge a membership fee for. This way we have friends who are not glider flyers but who can be tow pilots for us.

So my point ends up like this. I log hours in a high performance tail wheel plane at someone else's expense. I do not receive income, but get the hours for free, which is considered compensation by the FAA.

So....If you have a glider club near you or within a reasonable commute and they have a Pawnee tow plane or some other taildragger, see if they will take you on as a tow pilot.

The other bonus is the Pawnee is a little hotrod that's fun to fly. And it's T & L's all day long. Tow them up to 2000 to 3000 agl, they release, I spiral down at 110knts, land and pick up the next one.
Fun stuff. We can pull off 4 to 5 tows per hour, so your tailwheel landing skills will be honed as well.

[Chewie]

Good stuff John. We had some glider ops here, which is arguably a better place for soaring than powered flight. One can hop from one volcano to the next over the cascades all day. The owners of the glider operation had a Pawnee and several trainers and clients to tow. I inquired about towing some time ago and seems their insurance still wanted what would almost qualify me for a full commercial! It would be a fantastic experience, but as so often happens in aviation, it was blocked by forces that really have nothing to do with aviation.
Anyway, there's a glider operation up for grabs in Hood River, Oregon if anyone wants it!

[Jflyer]

Mark,
Volcano hopping sounds like fun.
I think you'll find the commercial operations will need commercial pilots as they would have different insurance. We had both a commercial operator and a club here where we fly. The commercial operator had to have commercial tow pilots with minimum required hours etc. due to insurance company rules, but our club does not.

Most glider clubs get their insurance through the SSA, which refers us to Costello Insurance. Costello has entirely different requirements and qualifications in order to tow and fly the gliders. We talked with Costello initially when private pilots were allowed to tow per FARs, and their answer was literally,
"We understand the need for a club to have tow pilots and without them you won't need our insurance at all, so we lower the requirements for SSA member clubs."

I think you'll have better luck if you can find a glider club that are members of the SSA. I can tow in the clubs Pawnee (Leased from a member), however I cannot tow for the commercial operator even though we charge the glider pilot the same tow rates.

[Chewie]

I sent you a PM John...
MJ

[Jflyer]

I think I should clarify something.
There is a big difference between a commercial glider operation and a glider club. This pertains directly to the type of insurance. We've had both at our field.
The commercial operators will most likely have to have commercial pilots with a minimum amount of hours, etc. to fly tow, as our local commercial operator does.

Glider clubs can use private pilots for tow as their insurance will typically allow this. Your smaller clubs with 10 to 20 members are generally in short supply of tow pilots.
Many, if not all glider clubs, who are members of the SSA, receive their club's group insurance from Costello Insurance, which is what we have with our club.

Another idea to gain tail wheel time:
The Civil Air Patrol is another possibly. CAP has a glider fleet and some tail wheel tow planes (Pawnees). These are scattered around the country. One may be near you.
CAP regs state that the tow pilot must have a minimum 500 hours, however that was being waved for me as I was the only one of two CAP members in SW FLA with a glider rating and the only one in my squadron. The other CAP pilot was our only GFIG in CAP in SW FLA. Although he is very good, he wasn't able to train the students in the glider and tow himself at the same time.

Some glider clubs are also the tow operation for CAP, and they may welcome anyone to help out with that towing as it usually is a break even scenario, and they don't want to burn out the club tow pilots on CAP flights. In this scenario, you would only need to qualify for the club's insurance, not CAP regs.