“BILL!!” I screamed, my lungs operating well outside warranty, the sound slicing through the cockpit noise like a mayday call from a pilot who just realised he’s been flying the manual for a toaster. “Let’s do another round! I need to learn this! NOW!!” We were ripping down the runway at fifty miles an hour—on one wheel. One. The tail was kicked skyward like it had been possessed by the Lucifer himself. The right wing was flirting with the asphalt, nearly peeling it off like a cheese slicer on a bad day. I was having the time of my tumultuous, ill-advised life—blasting down the runway on one wheel in a flying deck chair from hell, utterly unaware this level of airborne lunacy was even legal, and fully convinced we were auditioning for the airshow spin-off of Jackass: Aviation Edition.
And I? I was riding shotgun in a CubCrafters “Sport Cub,” a psychotically light, tail-happy little demon of an aircraft. A modern reincarnation of my ancient Super Cub—except this one hadn’t yet developed arthritis or a drinking problem. For the first time, I was in the front seat. And not just in the front seat. I was launched into it—perched dead-centre like the brain stem of a mechanical dragon, held in place by a crosshatch of seatbelts—hugging me like a padded straightjacket—that felt less like safety restraints and more like ritual bindings for whatever unholy ceremony this was turning into.
And oh, it was glorious.
Not like flying a Cessna, where you sit crammed in the left seat like a forgotten ham sandwich—cheeks vacuum-sealed to the plexiglass, while your passenger sits 2.5 inches away, breathing straight into your soul and close enough to exchange DNA through passive osmosis. That’s not flying—that’s hostage negotiation in a lunchbox.
No, this was different. This was raw. This was primal. This was freedom. This was flight. This was aviation with the safeties off and the middle finger fully extended.
The little engine up front roared like it had unfinished business with the runway. And somewhere behind me, wrestling with physics and possibly a minor stroke, was Bill—my instructor for the day. Bill, who by all evidence was a stick-and-rudder necromancer. If he’d announced we were about to barrel-roll into a wormhole, I wouldn’t have even flinched. I had no clue what we were doing. I didn’t care. All I knew, with the clarity of a divine revelation or maybe a really solid uppercut to the soul, was this:
I need to learn this.
Whatever this insanity is—
I want it.
I crave it.
I will burn my former life to the ground for it and laugh while it smoulders.
My wife—God bless her battle-hardened soul—stood next to the runway, visibly torn between joy and sheer existential terror. On one hand, there I was: vibrating out of my skin with childlike euphoria, shrieking with delight like a squirrel strapped to a firework. On the other hand—and this was a Texas-sized “but”—she was probably realising, with the slow-motion horror of someone watching a blender fall into a bathtub, that she would one day be the unwilling passenger in whatever airborne chaos I was about to unleash on the unsuspecting skies. She must've seen it already: me tearing down airstrips like a death defying demon, squaring off with crosswinds like they owed me money, launching vendettas against weather systems, rogue trees, and wildlife that had precisely three seconds to choose between relocating or being converted into airborne protein. I have no doubt she envisioned me chasing elephant poachers across the African savannah like a propeller-wielding wrath angel with a grudge and a license to defy physics.
In hindsight, I do feel a twinge of sympathy...for her.
Me? I was already halfway into the abyss—fired like a missile from the hangars of hell, fuelled by aviation fuel and poor life decisions.
An opening excerpt from this chapter remains available here.
The full manuscript is currently reserved for submission and publication.
🧨 From Riches to Rags: An African Odyssey, Part IX — The Propeller of Doom: One Man’s Descent into Tailwheel Terrorism 🧨
There I was—smiling like a lunatic who thought taildraggers were cute vintage toys, not airborne sadists designed to humble pilots and flip insurance premiums.
This was my first flight in a Sport Cub S2, and behind me sat Mad Dog Bill—Oregon’s answer to “if Chuck Yeager had a chainsaw and PTSD.”
I strapped in, adjusted the headset, and faked enough confidence to fool a drunk FAA inspector. Inside? Full existential breakdown.
Tailwheel flying, I would soon learn, wasn’t “classic aviation charm.”
It was reverse psychology with wings.
And that propeller? It wasn’t spinning. It was plotting.
Welcome to my taildragger baptism by fire—and yes, Bill saved the day. And my ego. Repeatedly.
🛩️🥵🔥🧨
Here it is — the origin story of aerial overconfidence.
Fifteen glorious hours of yellow Cub cruising over Germany’s mighty potato fields, where the only threat to my safety was a tractor doing donuts on the Autobahn.
I felt invincible.
Taildragger certified. Africa-ready. Clearly destined for aviation greatness.
No turbulence, no baboons on the runway, no angry customs officials with AKs asking for paperwork you don’t have because it was printed in triplicate by a drunk fax machine in Nairobi.
Just smooth air, flat fields, and the soft whisper of lies that whispered:
“You’ve totally got this.”
Spoiler alert: I didn’t.
But I looked damn heroic while pretending.
Marcel Romdane's Delusion Manifesto
I devoured Sparky Imeson’s Taildragger Tactics like it was the holy scripture of backcountry flying.
By the third reread, I was convinced: 500 hours to become competent? Nonsense. That’s for the weak.
I was different. Special. Pre-ordained by the gods of overconfidence.
Armed with 1 part theory, 3 parts caffeine, and zero regard for reality, I marched into the cockpit like it was a Tinder date I’d already decided to marry.
Spoiler: It didn’t go well.
Turns out, taildraggers don’t care what you’ve read. They only care if you can keep them straight, on the ground, and upright.
Which I couldn’t. Not even slightly.
But boy, did I look good trying.
🔥“If you ain’t a taildragger pilot, you ain’t sh*t.”🔥
TOP LEFT:
First time in a taildragger, confidently faking competence while secretly praying to the god of crosswind landings. Thank heaven Bill was in the back—ready to save both the plane and Romdane’s fragile ego.
TOP RIGHT:
Still trying to enter the Cub like a professional. Three months of “training,” and Marcel Romdane remains locked in a high-stakes limbo between wing strut and humiliation. Grace? No. Determination? Unfortunately, yes.
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