wrote in message m...
I am a long term lurker and have a question regarding landing tailwheel
airplanes in a crosswind. I have about 250 hours in a Piper PA-12 Super
Cruiser. The other day during a very routine crosswind landing I
started heading for the weeds faster than I new what to do.

Sounds like you might have been bit by that nastly little beast called
"complacency". To me, the hint is "a very routine". I think you've
learned
that ain't necessarily the case:-) I've always found that a light, but
variable,
wind to be about the most difficult to land a tailwheel airplane in.
I've been
surprised by swings at least a few times on those days. When the wind
is strong
and from the left, for example, you know it's a crosswind from the
left. In light winds, it may be a left crosswind now, but a second
from now??

I had a fairly gentle cross wind from the left. I had cancelled out all
sideways drift by lowering my left wing and aligned the plane with the
runway with right rudder. At touchdown, everything seemed perfect. That
is when all hell broke loose. As soon as I touched down, I started a
very fast turn to the right. At one point I was headed right between
two runway light. As I was deciding that "between" was not a bad place
to be, I finally managed to straighten everything out and managed to
stay on the runway.

Sounds like you made a good save. Good job! As others have noted,
checking the tailwheel
for problems sounds like a good idea. About the most experienced
tailwheel
pilot I've known (with over 10,000hrs of tailwheel dual given) says "a
well
maintained tailwheel is the cheapest insurance you can buy". Having
said
that, I wouldn't be surprised if there's nothing wrong with it. A wild
guess
would be that the left crosswind died just before you touched down. At
that
point, your left wing down caused you to drift to the left and that,
combined
with the right rudder, caused the swing. In the end, sooner or later I
think
we'll all get a good swing (I know I have:-) and you pulled off the
save, which
is great. I suspect your save will happen more quickly next time.

Don't know if this'll help, rick
ps: The same instructor mentioned above, used to say that the most
inportant
pre-landing check he did was to "shake his head and remind himself
it's
time to focus on landing" when on final.