Ah, but Chuck, during a wheel landing, the C of G is not as far behind the mainwheels. The point of my original post. If you wheel it on, to some degree, the need to maintain directional control actively is slightly less demanding, because the repositioned C of G. The elevator still gives you good pitch control, so nosing over is not an increased risk, if you apply control.
That is true.
However the point I was trying to make is if sideways drift is present at touch down the C of G is behind the main wheels which will be on the ground and yaw will be fed by the rearward C of G in direct proportion to the inertia of the sideways drift at touch down....
....the wheel landing gives better yaw control than the three point landing due to the higher airflow over the tail controls and the airflow is not partially disturbed by the airframe and flaps etc, the Beech 18 is an example of this difficulty in controlling yaw in the three point landing.
The bottom line is competent pilots will be equally skilled in either method and thus able to choose which method to use for a given situation.
When I do initial tail wheel training on light training aircraft they do not get to fly until they can comfortably control the airplane down the runway with the tail in the air...when they can S-Turn down the center line I then take them flying.
Note:
The above is only my personal way of teaching and is based on decades of flying tail wheel airplanes....and I have never turned loose a pilot that lost control of a tail wheel airplane to the best of my knowledge.
