Originally Posted by
JamesNoBrakes
This depends heavily on forward pressure on the yoke after the wheels touch, which is "opposite" of what you've done on every conventional wheel aircraft landing. It causes bounces and crashes in some cases when people try to "teach themselves" how to land in a tailwheel, this has to be "re-wired". This procedure is quite different than what you do when landing a conventional gear aircraft. It's very "opposite" of what you do on a conventional gear aircraft landing.
You're overthinking it. There's nothing to rewire.
It's a bit like the whole dead-foot dead-engine and tail-rises, head-falls bull **** that does little more than confuse people.
One flares into a wheel landing, but just until the fusalge is level. It's no different than landing anything else, but just a bit flatter. Instead of continuing to pull back until the nose is pointing at the sky, one approaches the runway, typically nose toward the runway, and pulls back gently in a flare until level as the mains kiss. That's a wheel landing.
If you're approaching the runway in a nose up attitude and touching the mains, then rolling it onto the mains, that's not a wheel landing. That's a half-baked three point that is cheated into a quasi-wheel landing. In reality, it's just sloppy.
As the aircraft slows, one can keep the tail in the air by maintaing or increasing forward pressure, adding a bit of power, etc, but that's not necessary, and in a crosswind, can prove hazardous if one waits until the stick is full forward and the tail is out of airflow and energy before attempting to transition to a three point attitude. It's quite intuitive: just land the tail; it's not contrary to what one has learned. Simply by applying a bit of back pressure or by not applying forward pressure, the tail comes down, and one can moderate it as needed. Nothing to complicate there unless one tries to teach that it's a new skill...which it isn't.
We land a nosewheel, we land a tailwheel. Same thing. Lower it smoothly to the ground.
If you happen to be flying an airplane with a lockable tailwheel that relies on forward stick to unlock the tailwheel, as many do, then by applying the logic of forward stick, you may develop a dangerous condition in some aircraft by unlocking the tailwheel before the aircraft is slow enough to taxi. Try that in an older Air Tractor 502/602/802, and you're going to be in for a very rude awakening. The tailwheel will spin violently and you can easily end up in the weeds.
If the airplane is treated like any other, then that isn't a problem.
A wheel landing is a round-out that transitions from nose down to level as the mains touch, and little more. Again, if one is in the habit of touching nose up, tail low and rolling it back up on the mains, it's just sloppy, and you'e working too hard to accomplish nothing. If that's the case, you might as well flare just a bit faster, hold it off, and three point it.
You shouldn't have to depend "heavily" on forward pressure after you touch, or pinning the main gear, but if you choose to do so, then it's still intuitive. Push forward on the stick to drive the nose down; works the same in flight as rolling on the mains. No new skill there, nothing new under the sun.
A student can easily get familiar with a flared landing attitude in a tricycle gear airplane by tying the tail down, sitting in the airplane, and looking at the sight picture. I used to do it all the time with primary students. Likewise, a student can see a two-point wheel landing attitude in a conventional gear airplane by putting the tailwheel on a sawhorse or truck bed (depending on aircraft type), and sitting in the airplane. What you see then is what you see landing. No mystery, nothing new.