Well, yes and no - I kind of did a lot of what Patterson describes when
I was first training. My 'picture' of a 3 point attitude and my
altitude above the runway weren't fully formed yet. So I would get down
to where I thought I should be and if I didn't touch, I would just keep
flaring and would make more tail first landing than not. Problem was
that if I had the airspeed low enough, I would stall on, then I learned
to feed it some power, then I would hang and keep pulling back, etc. So
I never slammed the mains as you described but I did stall it on and do
some other sloppy looking stuff.

In the Maule, if you get the short final apporach speed right, you don't
have enough elevator to land tail first unless you keep some power.

I recently did a night landing where I really focused on getting a
smooth landing. Kept a little power on, flattened the approach, nailed
the speed, etc. We kissed the ground so nicely that there was no bump,
no squeal, just the tailwheel spinning up for a few secs then a bump as
mains came down. My wife and I looked at each other and smiled. She
said, you did it! except it was the TW.

dave wrote:
Mauledriver, I don't know why you would do that but I don't see how you
could land with the nose so high that the mains slammed down. Have you
done that? At any rate, I do my best to three point it. Sometimes the
tailwheel hits a fraction of a second before the mains, sometimes it's
mains first and sometimes it's all three at the same time. Lately, it's
been one main and the tailwheel. Seems like I've been landing with a
crosswind a lot lately.

Dave
68 7ECA

Maule Driver wrote:

In the Maule, the tailwheel first thing eliminates bounce completely,
at least if you airspeed is close to right. But it's always seems
sloppy to me. If you can tailwheel first, you can 3 point it. If you
TW first on purpose all the time, when you miss, you are going slam it
on a few times. Why do that?

dave wrote:

Someone else pointed out here or maybe on the citabria group about
the advantage of hitting the tailwheel first. That is, if the
tailwheel hits first, when the mains drop the angle of attack lessens
reducing lift. Is this significant? I suppose that if the landing
speed is as slow as it should be, it really doesn't matter.
Personally I like landing as slow as reasonably possible. Less wear
and tear on the tires and it's more fun.

Dave
68 7ECA
vincent p. norris wrote:

Believe it or not, it's okay to roll the tailwheel first.





There was no better way to get a pat on the back from our Navy
instructors at Pensacola than hitting the tailwheel first. That was
back in the days when airplanes had tailwheels, of course.

vince norris