Flying a CX4 for the first time was like walking and breathing. It is so instinctive, it’s almost as if I had flown it many times before. I am 17 years old with no more than 60 hours logged in a Cessna 152. Dave Thatcher was kind enough to give us (my Dad and me) this wonderful opportunity to fly the CX4. An opportunity almost no one at my age has. For this I would like to extend my gratitude to Mr. Thatcher.
Dave brought his CX4 up to the now famous rained out Lee Bottom flyin and left it here to provide others the chance to fly the plane. Eventually, a couple a couple local airline pilots had a crack at it too, but that’s their story.
Before this, my only tail wheel experience was in a J3 Cub. I received my tail dragger endorsement in about 4 hours. Not because of my own skill mind you, but by the fantastic instructing ability of those at Red Stewart Airfield in Waynesville, Ohio.
Compare what it’s like to drive a really heavy truck to what it’s like to drive a sports car. I knew the switch was going to be drastic ahead of time, but when I actually flew the CX4 it didn’t even matter. The CX4 practically flies itself.
The fact that the CX4 is a single place airplane was a little intimidating at first but then I thought of what it was like to have two people in a Cessna 152 and thought “Hey more shoulder room!” The only briefing I got was from my father.
He described to me his experience of what to do. Which was “Let it get up to 65 or 70 MPH on the airspeed indicator and let it lift off the ground itself.” So I wondered how hard that could that be.
He could not have been more accurate in describing how it flies with that simple statement. I did just that and it took off all by itself. It naturally wanted to climb. I didn’t want to do anything to make that “easy” feeling go away so I decided it was best to stick to pattern flying until I could really get a feel for how it flew.
The first thing I noticed as I turned crosswind, was how fantastic the visibility was. Then I noticed that was also partly due to the fact that I had reached about 1000 feet in a about a minute by the time I turned crosswind. I still am getting used to the fact that the CX4 wanted to climb so much. You really have to use your trim to level it out on downwind.
Other than the fact that it would not stop climbing, the CX4 felt so smooth. The plane almost seemed like it was gliding upwards. Although the plane responds quickly I never felt like I was gong to lose control. I guess that’s what finger pressure is all about. It sure doesn’t take the pushing and hauling on the stick that the Cub does.
I wanted to give myself some room to set up an approach so I extended my downwind just a bit so I could figure out just how it descends. If found that to be the most challenging part. Mainly because it was difficult to establish a good rate of descent at first. Once I got it to descend at 70 or so MPH indicated by using idle power and about 1/2 trim, I didn’t have to do anything else but turn on to final.
My first approach and landing resulted in a long glide down the runway before the plane settled onto the ground, and roll-out was straight and easily controlled. Having no prior experience in a plane with a truly light touch, I think I may have had a tendency to over control, but that passed quickly as I got used to the feel.
In subsequent approaches, I feel I still tended to over control a bit and porpoise before touching down, but people watching from the ground claim the porpoising wasn’t obvious or severe. I guess that that’s because the plane will float when near the ground. It seems that the plane cannot be made to land in a true three point fashion with the airspeed just a couple miles an hour over stall just as the three wheels touch simultaneously. That can be explained by the very flat attitude of the plane as it sits on the ground. But that doesn’t seem to me to be a big handling problem. It just causes a somewhat longer roll-out than a true three point landing would require.
I still landed and rolled to a stop in less than 1500 feet. Early on, I pretty much remained in the pattern, and the lack of any traffic allowed me to make the pattern legs longer than usual. I was able to reduce power and try out stalls, after going to about 2500 feet AGL. I did not try to do any fully developed stalls, but getting the airspeed down to just under 65 mph (at least that’s what Dave’s airspeed said), I was able to approach a stall, and it felt that the airplane would just mush thru a stall without any sharp break. My Dad and a couple airline captains who also flew the plane confirmed that this is true.
In Dave’s plane, there is also no apparent tendency to fall off on one wing. I got to fly the CX4 a total of about 3 times for about 45 minutes each time. After about 2 hours of flight time my landings were smooth as silk. The whole secret to flying the CX4 is to minimize your input to the controls. Once I felt comfortable flying it I had to force myself to land and get out before I’d want more time with it. But it sure is a motivation for me to work with my Dad to get our own CX4 airborne!