Flying the Beech 18
A while back, a Beech 18 appeared at the
airport. The delivery pilot landed and
immediately ran to the refrigerator and popped open a can of beer, which set
the tone for the evening. He got on an
airliner the next day and headed home, leaving me with a Beech 18 to figure out
how to fly. No checkout for you.
I asked around and couldn’t find anyone to check me
out on it. I find in aviation that there
are plenty of people that like to talk, but precious few that are actually up
for the moment.
So I read about it on the internet, where I learned
that it was a fire-breathing dragon
which could not be flown by mere mortals, unless they had tiger blood flowing
through their veins, or something. You know, the usual hangar-flying nonsense about interesting
airplanes.
The Beech 18 which arrived at my airport was one of
the later models, with a locking tailwheel.
What I learned is that you manually lock the tailwheel religiously
before takeoff, and only unlock it when you have slowed down after landing. Thinking about it, maybe the earlier Beech 18’s
with the shopping cart wheel at the tail really were fire-breathing
dragons. But the later (and modified)
ones with locking tailwheels actually aren’t.
It has a pair of Pratt & Whitney R-985 “Wasp Jr”
radial engines, which is probably one of the best radial engines ever
made. Nothing mysterious there. At cruise power the total fuel burn will be
about a gallon a minute, though if you back the MP and RPM off you can get that
down.
What it also had was two 3-blade propellers – all metal. Nothing composite there!
In fact, what those propellers did was the key to
flying the Beech 18, which of course absolutely no one told me, which is why I
am writing this. This note is exactly
what I wish someone could have handed me before I checked myself out in the
Beech 18.
Anyways, as with any taildragger, the Beech 18 flies
very nicely. It’s the landings, and to a
lesser extent the takeoffs and taxiing that can be interesting. Just like any taildragger.
Flying the Beech 18 is actually very simple. Line up for takeoff on the runway and
manually lock the tailwheel. Throttles –
in the middle, weird – forward, and like any other taildragger, raise the tail.
Now, here’s an interesting detail. When the tail is raised, the gyroscopic
precession of those two big props push the nose over to the left side of the
runway.
I suppose you could stomp on the right rudder and
brake, but that seems a bit counterproductive on takeoff. Sure, get on the right rudder, but deal with
the left yaw by twisting your right wrist clockwise, viewed from above, as the
tail comes up. Just a bit of
differential thrust. You want the left
engine pulling a little harder as you pitch the tail up, ever so slowly. Once the tail is up and you are no longer
fighting the gyroscopic precession of the props, then you can straighten out
your right wrist and bring both engines up to power. And off you go.
The landing of the Beech 18 is interesting,
too. A lot of them were wrecked – or at
least groundlooped – during botched landings.
I wheel land the Beech 18. I
suppose you could three-point it onto a short field, but be prepared to really
slow that mother down on short final – probably slower that you might really
like in the event of an engine failure if you had to overshoot.
The Beech 18 does a very nice wheel landing. It sits down very nicely in a level
attitude. Now for the tricky bit. As the tail comes down, again the gyroscopic
precession of the props bites you – but in the opposite direction from takeoff.
When you lower that tail during landing, the gyroscopic
precession of the props points the nose at the right ditch. With a crosswind from the right, this could
get nasty if you lower the tail quickly.
For this reason, with a direct crosswind, you might want to take it from
the left during a landing, if you can.
What you want to do is lower the tail very gently – at
a very slow rate of change of pitch, to try to spread out the gyroscopic
precession. To deal with it, you can try
using left rudder, but it probably won’t be very effective. You then get on the left brake, which must be
in perfect condition. Don’t fly the
Beech 18 unless you have a functioning locking tailwheel and a good left
brake. You might even need a burst of
right throttle – again, differential thrust - to stop the Beech 18 from exiting
the right side of the runway, depending upon the circumstances (gusty
crosswind, long runway).
Anyways, have fun flying the Beech 18. As a supercharged, radial multi-engine
taildragger, it oozes style on the ramp, and sounds simply wonderful flying
overhead – a sound which is heard less and less, these days.
--
acboyd@gmail.com Jan 2012