min$2crash, contrary to what intuition might suggest, air brakes (spoilerons, actually) cause the nose of the plane to pitch upwhen deployedinstead of down, as I learned after setting up spoilerons on my Venus II last year.

Spoilerons do, however, cause the plane to "stick" very nicely and not bounce, but if the wing incidence is set properly (raising the wing TE), and with a tiny bit of down trim (or down elevator), wheel landings are quite do-able. Wheel landings are very difficult or impossible with spoilerons because of the nose pitch.

ALL planes will bounce if they are travelling faster than stall speed when landing. This is why - in order to keep the tail up and the main wheels down - a little down trim or a gentledown pressureon the stick is necessary. Obviously, easiest done when there is little or no wind, or a very steady light wind straight down the runway.

IMO, this plane lands fine without spoilerons, even with no wind. Just hold it off the ground until it has well and truly stalled and settles onto the runway on its own, and it won't bounce. I think what guys are doing is using too steep of an approach and not flattening the glide out long enough when approaching the runway. My Venus II has a LOT longer and faster glide than the Phoenix Extra, but I have learned to use a very long, shallow approach to put it on the runway where I want it, using throttle - NOT elevator - to tweak the glide path. Now that the Venus II is set up better - with fuel tank on CG, and CG back a little more - I no longer need spoilerons to land it.</p>