I got to have a go at wheeling the Pitts (S-2B) a couple of weeks ago and I have to say that it was not as difficult as I thought it would be. Mind you I did only get on landing without at least a small bounce
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Agree with everything people have said about the Pitts here. Due to control effectiveness it is fairly easy to keep straight and as was also said it will do
exactly what you tell it to do. So make sure you tell it the right things.
How about this for controversy, the Pitts is one of the best short field aircraft around!!! I went up with a mate who is an instructor and a very experienced Pitts pilot and he got me to do some short field work in the Pitts and I must say the Pitts is an AWESOME short field aircraft. I got the landings down to about 250m without heavy braking and the instructor had the aircraft stopped in what must have been no more than 200m, again with less than maximum braking. He reckons he has stopped it in less than 150m. And from what I saw I have no reason to doubt a good pilot could do this.
As to the C180, well I took that for a session of circuits for the first time a couple of weeks ago and found it much harder than the Pitts primarily because I was used to only small inputs of rudder in the Pitts, but the 180 requires relatively manful amounts of control inputs to achieve the same effect. I found flying the Pitts had made my legs rather lazy again (notice I didn't say feet)...
Cheers
CB