Someone reminded me that I would fail on the “Know your mental limits” one 
What does it mean, anyway?
BeechBaby wrote:
Come and spend a day with me!! I find it interesting when I take a raw PPL with experience only of tri gear aircraft, and then take them aloft in a taildragger. I start my course with a good deal of time on ground handling and taxying before we go near the take off and landing stage. It would appear, but not limited too, eye periphery and keeping your head out of the cockpit on flare that gives difficulty. Also the requirement for good, alert hand and feet co-ordination. Wind direction is all important!!
I’d love to come! Too bad Glasgow is out of my realistic travel range at the moment.
I’m not at all sure that I buy this “tailwheel pilots are sky gods” stuff. Tail-draggers are much easier to manoeuvre on the ground – and water.
P.S. I heard that Dai Heather-Hayes (SG and bar) recently totalled his S2… It would be insensitive to say “good riddance” to such a machine, but we shouldn’t tar clean-living well-behaved Maules, Cubs and JoJos with the “accident waiting to happen” Pitts brush.
The dear Pitts Special … it may have coined the phrase ‘the first 1,000 hours on type are the hardest ‘
If you thought you had banished any ham- fistedness, it kindly reminds you otherwise.
Jacko wrote:
Tail-draggers are much easier to manoeuvre on the ground – and water.
…. and water? 
. A Cessna 180 and 182 are about identical to handle when they’re on floats….
But yes, tricycle pilots, try for the taildragger experience, and after a dozen circuits, including wheel landings, the observation about piloting skill and discipline will make more sense. Yes, you can fly a whole career very safely having never flown tailwheel, but tailwheel skills will improve piloting skills.
Otherwise, I’m happily very green, only missed two points! Now I’ve got to fly like I’m that safe!
Peter wrote:
What does it mean, anyway?
I have been a bit sloppy in translating. A better translation would be; “You know where the limits are to your mental capacity” (as in parallel processing of information, SA and so on, I would guess)
I don’t get how these get any connection with being rusty.
Flown more than 3 types/models
Practiced tail wheel
Participated on a safety meeting
Participated in fly-ins/air shows
Studied the GA portal of LT (CAA)
If I fly solely one type/model and I’m current in it, I’m definitely less rusty then a guy who jumps in one of three aircrafts he flies from time to time. For tail wheel it’s the same – I fly it regularly or I don’t fly it at all – if I don’t fly it at all, the fact I haven’t tried it won’t increase of decrease my rustiness.
Participation on safety meeting and GA portal of CAA really made me laugh.
Although I regularly attend fly-ins I somehow miss to see contribution in decreasing rustiness except improving English and social skills.
LeSving wrote:
“You know where the limits are to your mental capacity”
On a bit of thread drift here, but reading research on mental capacity and its limits, it is a very, very good idea to have some glucose tablets near you and, if you are in a situation where you have more to do than usual, even if you don’t feel overloaded, suck on one or two and your mental capacity is increased considerably before you realise that it is diminished.
Emir wrote:
If I fly solely one type/model and I’m current in it, I’m definitely less rusty then a guy who jumps in one of three aircrafts he flies from time to time.
Maybe yes, maybe not so much. A skill, not the only skill, but a valuable skill none the less, is to react well to different situations within the range of what one should expect in GA. Yes, this could be maintained in only one type, but if doing it that way, all of the capability of that type should be refreshed in your skills regularly – airwork, stalls, forced approaches to a landing, and crosswind landings among the most important. It’s possible that the one type is simply not equipped with instruments or avionics with which a pilot should maintain skills. If you never fly a transponder equipped aircraft, you’re probably not maintaining skills regarding it’s use, and flying in that type of airspace.
After flying nearly 3000 hours primarily on an airplane I owned, with large intervals of not flying other types, I recognized that I was so at ease in that plane, I was complacent, and not paying attention to what I was doing, it was all just muscle memory to fly it. So I took helicopter training, and that woke me up! I paid more attention to everything I flew. My job took me to test flying other types, and with modifications, and I bought a taildragger. I am a better pilot for it….
I think this goes further. If you only fly a twin, you forget about not flying low over the sea etc. If you only fly turbo you forget about the performance limitations of normally aspirated. If you only fly injected you forget about carb heat. If you only fly STOL you forget about runway limitations. If you only fly HSI you forget about OBS. The list is endless.
