I know it's personal preference but I'd like to know if any of you feel there is a specific advantage to one over the other.
Interesting that the poll is split exactly down the middle, isn't it? If one technique were all that you needed , then half the people are wrong (or the other half is wrong, however you look at it...).
The truth is, if any one tells you that you should ALWAYS use one technique (or the other), you probably have someone that doesn't quite understand the whole gamut of tailwheel flying. It is normal to have a preference one way or another - and a technique for particular airplanes - but if you are nervous about one technique (or the other), then you know what you should think about going to work on, shouldn't you?
Landings are fun - practice them all until you really can land just about any way that works - under a given set of circumstances.
I have a short gear RV 4 180 HP with a FP and find that the wheel landing work best for me. Trying to do a full stall landing the tail will normally hit first, bounces up then the main gear hits and now I start hobby horsing down the runway. (I hate it when that happens)
Well of course. You're not trying to stall it, you're trying to 3-point it!
A full stall landing is a 3 point landing.
And with the short gear 4's, the little wheel on the tail will hit the ground before the main and then the hobby horse oscillation starts. Now I can do a tail low landing but that is technically a wheel landing and if your too fast you will balloon up again and if your too slow you will drop and bounce.
That is an excellent article,
Practice makes perfect and I do work on improving my 3 point landing and I do surprise myself with an occasional greaser (feels goooood) but with the Shorter Gear it will always be more challenging. At this point in time the Wheelie is the safest for me and safety is what counts.
Related to the RV4 there is lots of stuff on the forum that talks about short gear long gear, gear conversions, crow hopping, hobby horsing and prop strikes. But nothing about converting from a long gear to a short gear but lots about going from a short gear to a long gear. I'm thinking it's probably relative to the unique landing characteristics' of our 4's.
At 1600 pounds with full flaps my stall speed is 62 mph indicated. My approach is 81 mph and then over the fence at 78 mph. At 1300 pds it stalls at 59 mph. My approach is set at 77 and over the fence at 74.
I have a graph that I put together for this but as you can see, there is not much of a change between fully loaded and lightly loaded.
The majority of the stall reduction is done in the first 15 degs of flap. The remaining flap only adds drag.
In having a wooden fixed pitch I need all of the drag reduction I can get.
Quite possibly the difference between having a constant speed prop versus the fixed pitch adds to the differences in the handling? Maybe the CSP and the associated drag reduces the hobbyhorse effect? Lots of variables between planes so maybe we are not even comparing apples to apples.