Thanks for all the replies, everyone. It appears I have marked myself out as a scaredy-cat spam-can driver - bu**er! FNG has read me right - my musings were more out of a general curiosity than from any fear or concerns about losing my nose wheel...
Nevertheless, however much fun it is learning to fly tailwheel types, and however easy it is after a few(!) hours of practice, I still think it's interesting that such a popular landing gear configuration is fundamentally unstable on the ground, leading to "squirrelly" handling, lower cross-wind limits etc. Fair enough on a cub, but on a DC-3 or a Lancaster?? Blimey. I was just wondering aloud if any stability-enhancing tricks (such as my idea above) had ever been tried...
Would any of you fancy a go in a machine that was fundamentally unstable in pitch whilst airborne? "Don't worry, it'll teach you what your biceps are for..."!
