When I flew a Beta (G-AWHV), it had been significantly modified for speed with faired wheel spats and had lost that ridiculously long undercarriage. Mind you, that did have the effect of a looooooooooong float on landing if you got the speed wrong:eek:

I hadn’t realised there were diffferences, so that sent me looking through my slides. Here is G-ATLY at a later date with the shorter spatted u/c and a new nose (and possibly a new engine?). As you point out, the short u/c geometry might have an interesting effect. If you put the tail down too soon, you would probably get an air cushion caused by the very low wing trailing edge, preventing the aircraft from settling.