A lowtime PPL,s view on Trike v. TW
I recently got back into flying after several years away from it (all my previous flying had been in Warriors and on large tar runways). Due to relocating to rural Scotland and getting a piece of land to build my own strip i looked at a lot of different aircraft both trike and TW, and settled on the Maule primarly because of the tailwheel Maule's reputation for toughness and the prop clearance.
After completing the strip which has a few rolls and bumps in it, the first airplane after my own to land was a friends trike Maule., I closley obseved his nose gear and was amazed the travel it had and how well it handled the field, which made me regret my choice of a TW (with all ground loop risk/expensive insurance issues etc.) Until we got talking about an off field landing I had recently made due to the wind conditions at my home field. My friend listend to the story and said " yeah my plane could probably manage that type of landing fairly easily also". Which got me thinking, during my landing (based on the field being a reasonably smooth field of early barley with sprayer tram lines) I had no doubt whatsoever that I could land and my only concern was the length, not the condition, which allowed me to concentrate my priorities on other aspects of what to me was a tricky landing.
And I guess that is the difference for me as a novice, I have full confidence in the TW in that type of landing where I detected my friend in his trike was only somewhat confident which i assume would limit ones option when considering certain fields whether in a forced situation or not.
Bottom line I feel safer in a TW and it may just make me a better pilot to boot.