Notes on the Tailwheel Checkout and an Introduction to Ski Flying - ASA
Pooleys stock code: FAA123/Share
Product description
In the northern latitudes, many pilots fly a tailwheel in the summer and then put the same airplane on skis in the winter… an initial tailwheel checkout is often followed up with a ski checkout. Author Burke Mees keeps to that sequence of events in this book, which covers the basics for both checkouts along with valuable commentary on the finer points.
Notes on the Tailwheel Checkout and an Introduction to Ski Flying is meant to be useful not only to the beginner first making this transition, but also to provide relevant observations to the pilot or instructor already flying these kinds of airplanes. The author’s clear explanations have proven effective with students and are distilled from two decades of experience in flying and flight instructing in tailwheel airplanes and skiplanes.
In addition to an orderly presentation of all the basic topics required to develop tailwheel/ski competence, Mees also covers advanced topics such as flying multi-engine tailwheel airplanes and ski-flying on glaciers. But rather than simply explain the list of topics, this book anticipates and preemptively addresses questions and difficulties experienced by the average student. Here readers will find insights about the learning process that will help prepare them for flight training in these airplanes.
Page Count: 112
Illustrations: Black and white
ISBN Number: 978-1-61954-190-0
Dimensions: 7.25 x 9 inches
Copyright: © 2014-2022 Aviation Supplies & Academics, Inc. All rights reserved.
Date Published: 2014
Burke Mees was born in Saint Louis, Missouri, but spent most of his career flying commercially in Alaska. In 1994 he took a summer job over the phone flying seaplanes in Juneau and never managed to leave. He went on to fly in the Aleutian Islands and later moved to Anchorage, where now resides.
His first experience flying tailwheel airplanes was as a young flight instructor when he got a checkout in a 1946 Aeronca Champ for the express purpose of teaching a 69-year-old woman to fly it. When he moved to Anchorage, he started flying skis both privately and for hire, which included flying reporters along the Iditarod trail, providing instruction for ski checkouts and flying on the local mountain glaciers.
“For me, flying has always been a matter of honest work, but it is also something that I enjoy. I look at it as an art that can continually be refined, and flight instructing has always been a way to do that. There’s no better way to explore a topic in aviation than to organise your thoughts and teach it to someone else. Currently my day job is flying as a 737 Captain in Alaska, but I still keep my CFI current and do some instructing on the side.”