Transition Flight Training Available Again

[jaredyates]

I haven't had a chance to update the various online resources yet but I wanted to let everyone know that I have finally received the re-approval to provide transition training in our new plane. If you are in the market please reach out a month or two before DAR time so we can start coordinating.

[Mark Goldberg]

Jared, it is a super fantastic and helpful service to offer this transition training. You get two or three gold stars on your chart for offering this help. Mark

[rodsmith]

Great news, will be getting ahold of you in a few months.

[Bissetg]

In my experience the Bearhawk is one of the best behaved and docile tail draggers I have flown. It has nice big and effective tail feathers but there do seem to have been a number of loss of directional control incidents over the years.

This is more likely to be due to a lack of tail dragger currency, technique, or decision making with respect to using seal vs grass or wind condx etc that is root cause, not the aircraft.

Particularly for phase 1 flying stacking as much in your favour such as a steady 10kts straight on the nose with a smooth grass runway helps.

The irony of phase 1 test flying is it often is the most demanding in terms of workload monitoring temps etc when we are the least experienced and current at flying a Bearhawk that we will ever be.

At the end of the day you can’t beat quality instruction on type so I would urge anyone who can to take advantage of Jared’s offer.

It’s up to all of us to try and keep the insurance premiums down.

[Tim213]

I know I said this previously, but I just wanted to reiterate that Jared’s transition training was outstanding. Although I flew my RV7 tail dragger while building my BH, the speeds, flight and ground characteristics and sensitivity of the controls were completely different. I think I probably would have ground looped without Jared’s training. It was money well spent. Thanks again Jared.

[TrueAirSpeed]

I’ll tag onto Tim’s comments. Even with over 1000 hours of tailwheel time, including the DC-3 and Grumman Goose, it was well worth the trip to Hickory, NC to get Jared’s instruction in the Bearhawk.

[Nev]

This is great Jared.

I was lucky to have spent time flying with Battson and also refreshing my tailwheel training with an instructor prior to commencing test flying and it's hard to overstate how much it helped.

It was also interesting to view the NTSB database - there are 17 Bearhawk "loss of directional control on landing" incidents, the majority of which occurred within the first 40 hours. In context as a percentage of the total flying fleet numbers it becomes a little more alarming. Somewhere up around 10% if my estimates are anywhere close to the mark. And the NTSB database only records events that were reported on, and only those in the USA. Both high and low time pilots were represented equally in the reports.

I don't say this to sound alarmist, but to back up what Tim and Grant both mention above - that getting good instruction from an experienced operator like Jared is very worthwhile.

Incidentally, we're lucky here in NZ to now have 4 Bearhawk instructor-qualified owners able issue type ratings.