Citabria vs Triple-tail

[Rob58]

The January issue of AOPA Pilot ran a page on the easy flying qualities of the Citabria. The title of the piece is "Easiest taildragger..." talking about the docile behavior of the Citabria. We got a nice little plug for the club and the website thanks to Bob Szego. Now I have a very minimum amount of time in a Citabria, but is it really an easier taildragger to master than a triple-tail? In my humble opinion... NOT! I have posted my challenge over on the Citabria forum but thought I would ask the question here with my fellow triple-tailers... what do you think? --Rob

 

[Ralph925]

The triple tail has nice soft, non-bouncing, wide gear, and does everything is slow motion on landing giving us lots of time to get back in front of the plane when we have fallen behind, but it can get kind of squirrely when the already week rudder quits working during rollout in a crosswind. Having said that every triple tail I have had a chance to fly has done its best to make me look better than I really am, often forgiving my sloppy performance on arrival at fly-ins so that I did not have to hide in shame.

It could be that the Citabria makes a good aircraft to compare to because there are so many of them. Obviously comparing other aircraft to a 14-13 or -19 does not help most of the unwashed masses understand.

Then there are those ailerons, don’t even get started about the ailerons

 

[Rob58]

Ralph, I think you put things in the proper perspective. A Bellanca of any model is not a plane for the masses, and this is especially true for a triple-tail. Aircraft such as ours are unique partly because each one was hand-crafted - certainly never meant for mass production. And as far as I am concerned the virtues of the Bellanca is a good secret to keep. I guess to be favored with an article in a leading aviation magazine there need to be production numbers that would be appealing to a broad audience. There were a few good write-ups in years past, but not so much any more. You are certainly correct that this airplane makes a pilot look good, but I'll accept that gracefully! --Rob