CHAPTER 16 / STEERING 101: A SYMPHONY OF BRAKE & RUDDER - Logbook entry: “Taxied without incident.” (Filed under fiction.)

Before we dive into the sacred dance of stick, rudder, and heel brakes—before we discuss differential pressure, pivot points, or your Super Cub’s loose interpretation of “straight”—we need to cover one rule. Just one. DO NOT LOOK AWAY. Not for a second. Not for a breath. Not for your pen, your clipboard, your cigarette, or the existential crisis rattling loose behind your airspeed indicator. Because the moment you look down in a taildragger, you become a statistic. And not the cool kind. Not “badass bush pilot crashes through jungle canopy, survives on honey and vengeance.”

No. We’re talking NTSB-report-with-caffeinated-shame kind of statistic.

The kind that reads:

“Pilot collided with Boeing 747 while taxiing. Causal factor: peanut butter donut lost in floorboard.”

That’s it. That’s your legacy. Forty thousand hours of engineering, twenty thousand pounds of thrust, and you're the guy who tail-wheeled into it because you dropped a pastry.

So remember:
Keep your eyes up.
You’re not steering a tricycle.
You’re herding a grumpy, overweight goat with wings.

And the goat has opinions.

TAXIING: WHERE CUBS GO TO KILL CONFIDENCE

(Or: How to Make It Ten Feet Without Summoning God, Newton, or Kalli)

Taxiing a Cub for the first time feels… off. Wrong. Crooked. Like your wheels are arguing. And they are. That’s normal.

But if you don’t want to feel like that for the next 500 hours, you’d better start learning to anticipate what your aircraft is about to do.
Not what it "IS" doing. By the time your reflexes kick in—whether you’re channeling Bruce Lee, Muhammad Ali, or just fighting off a hangover—it’s already too late.

In a taildragger, if you’re reacting instead of predicting, you’re already starring in your own ground loop reenactment.
This isn’t a matter of “if.”
It’s “when”—and it’s always sideways.

So, before you ever release those heel brakes—preferably both at the same time unless you'd like to 180 into your hangar like a rodeo clown on meth—take a moment.
Visualise it.
Know what’s coming.

The Cub will surge forward like a vegan at a tofu sale.
You need to stop that movement immediately.
Sounds easy? It’s not.

You taxi too fast, panic-brake when a goat wanders across the path, and WHAM—Your nose plants itself into the dirt like it’s looking for truffles. Especially if you’re flying solo, with a backseat emptier than a weekend seminar on medieval French lyric poetry.

And then there’s brake feel.
Not just pressure.
Equal pressure.
A little too much right heel, and suddenly you’re doing pirouettes on the apron, blaming crosswinds that didn’t exist.

Too much right brake?
You’re writing a check for three shattered taxi lights, one defaced fence post, and an emotionally scarred ramp agent.

So before you taxi off like Wyatt Earp chasing the Cowboys:

Roll. Brake. Stop.
Do it again.
Coordinate with your left hand like you’re disarming a bomb.

Because if you leave the throttle on while slamming the brakes, the next sound you hear will be:

1. Metal meeting asphalt,
2. Propeller shriek,
3. And then the cold, dead silence of shame before the rescue crew peels you off the taxiway like a sad lasagna.

All while Kalli stands in the hangar, cigarette lit, already calculating how many spare struts you’ll need…and how long he can hold this over you.

THE ILLUSIONAL MYTH OF THE S-TURN

(Or: Why You’re Not a Dinosaur Doing Tailwheel Ballet)

You made it fifty feet without pancaking a taxi light or summoning your mechanic from the hangar with a rage cigarette.
Differential braking feels decent. You’re not panicking.
You’re even beginning to think you’ve got this.

Which means—tragically—
It’s time for the next lie.

Let’s talk about the bedtime story.
The gospel according to Part 61.
The myth etched into flight school whiteboards from Florida to Nairobi:

The Noble S-Turn.

You’ve heard it. I’ve heard it.
Every instructor swears by it like it’s aviation scripture—
“Just S-turn your way to visibility.”
Lean left, drift right. Swing your tail with grace. Peer out the side window like a majestic ground-bound eagle.

It all sounds plausible.
Logical.
Even… elegant.

And to be fair—yes—I’ve seen a few people do it.
Once in a while.
Usually when someone’s watching.
Or they’re drunk.
Or trying to impress a student pilot they want to date.
But out in the real world?

Nobody’s waltzing their Cub down a goat-infested dirt strip in S-curves like some deranged theropod with a show tune stuck in their head.

I’ve flown dirt strips with more sheep than runway markings. I’ve taxied through the chaos vortex of Nairobi Wilson, where aircraft, trucks, goats, and gods all fight for right-of-way. I’ve operated on sand so soft it could swallow your soul—and gravel so jagged it filed my tires into cubes. And yet, in all that chaos—not one Cub pirouette. Not one graceful S-turn. Just terror, dust, and the sound of tailwheels making bad decisions.

Out there in the actual wild?

We lean.

Just slightly.
Like a shady tabloid photographer catching sight of a D-list celebrity entering Family Dollar in pyjama pants.
Crack the door.
Tilt the head.
Peer left like a curious vulture.
Coast looks clear?
Good enough.

No graceful curves. No instructor-approved tango.
Just raw, unfiltered taxi paranoia and the desperate hope that nothing large, moving, or bovine has wandered in front of you.

Because let’s be honest:
The only thing you’re going to S-turn into is an insurance claim.
And possibly a fence post.
And definitely Kalli’s shit list, which is worse.

That’s real-world taildragger ops:

One eye on the horizon, one foot in the grave, and a mechanic named Kalli silently judging you from the hangar.

So if you’re still upright, still pointed more or less in the direction you intended, and haven’t accidentally taxied into a regional turboprop or sacred cow, congratulations. You’ve passed the first part of tailwheel ground ops: survival by paranoia. But don’t get comfortable. We haven’t even talked about wind yet. Or slope. Or what happens when the surface changes from polished pavement to tractor-grade gravel in the middle of your turn.

That’s tomorrow’s disaster.

For now, park it.

Chock it. Lie to your logbook. And try not to make eye contact with Kalli—he’s still watching.