Maule M4 - Info Request
Ross Wolin
Hi,
I'm getting close to completing my PPL and was thinking about buying a
Maule M4. Can anyone make any recommendations about this plane? (I was
interested in it because of its short field capabilities.)
Specifically:
1) Is it too difficult for someone as new as me to fly (I trained in a
C-152, but plan to get an additional 10 hrs+ of tailwheel instruction,
probably in a Champ, before I try to fly - and insure - a Maule.)
2) The M4 comes in 145, 180, 210, and 220 hp models. I was thinking of
the 145, because the engine lasts a little longer TBO and probably burns
less gas - but does increase take-off run. I was told 180s are really
hard to find, and thought a 210/220 might be just too much, in
performance AND cost. Any comments?
3) Anyone know a good place to find one? (I live in WA, but am willing
to travel.) I've already contacted Maule AK/Jeremy Ainsworth.
Thanks in advance,
Ross Wolin
ro...@compumedia.com
"I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather,
not screaming in terror like his passengers."
Michael Ely
>hard to find, and thought a 210/220 might be just too much, in
>performance AND cost. Any comments?
Franklin Engines are now available again from the manufacture in Poland and
I understand they are pretty inexpensive to buy for a new engine. But other
than that, I've only flown in a Maule once and it was so long ago when I was
a student pilot. Can't recall much except that it had a throaty sound to
that engine, a 220 hp Franklin if I remember right. I wasn't flying it,
just riding. TTYL
Mike
Andrew Boyd
>
>I'm getting close to completing my PPL and was thinking about buying a
>Maule M4. Can anyone make any recommendations about this plane?
I own a maule m4-210C which has been in the family since 1971. Great
aircraft. Updated the panel recently, I fly it ifr.
>(I was interested in it because of its short field capabilities.)
yeah, great power to weight ratio (2100 lbs, 210 hp, c/s prop means
you get all 2800 rpm on takeoff).
>1) Is it too difficult for someone as new as me to fly (I trained in a
>C-152, but plan to get an additional 10 hrs+ of tailwheel instruction,
>probably in a Champ, before I try to fly - and insure - a Maule.)
well, I've done tailwheel conversions and it really depends on the
pilot on how long it takes. One tailwheel conversion I did, the guy
couldn't even hold a steady approach speed on final, and he hadn't flown
in any kind of crosswind for a decade, so we had a *lot* of remedial
training to do first.
>2) The M4 comes in 145, 180, 210, and 220 hp models. I was thinking of
>the 145, because the engine lasts a little longer TBO and probably burns
>less gas - but does increase take-off run. I was told 180s are really
>hard to find, and thought a 210/220 might be just too much, in
>performance AND cost. Any comments?
well, if it's performance you want, that rules out the 145 hp (and fixed
pitch prop). I personally don't like franklin engines, and have no
problem with the TCM IO-360 in my maule. Just don't shock cool it.
>3) Anyone know a good place to find one? (I live in WA, but am willing
>to travel.) I've already contacted Maule AK/Jeremy Ainsworth.
trade-a-plane (615 484 5137). Also, contact ray maule, near the
factory in moultrie, ga (912 985 2045)
btw, following is an article I wrote about tailwheel training a
while back:
-- cut --
THE TAILDRAGGER
Introduction: Stability
Have your ever wondered exactly what is it about tailwheel
(aka taildragger aircraft) that gets so many novice taildragger
pilots in trouble?
Actually, flying a taildragger is pretty much identical to flying
a "nosedragger". It's taxiing (especially fast taxiing) which is
the difficult and often prohibitively expensive task.
Let's take a look for a moment at the basic physics involved.
If we add up all of the mass of an aircraft, we can calculate its
center of gravity (C of G). You can think of all of the mass of
the aircraft as being concentrated at the point of the C of G.
A nosedragger has it's C of G ahead of it's main gear. If that
weren't true, all the nosewheel aircraft parked on the ramp would
be sitting on their tails!
A taildragger has it's C of G behind it's main gear. If not, parked
taildraggers would be resting on their props!
The result of this is that a nosedragger has inherent directional
stability when the wheels are on the ground. If a gust of wind
"weathervanes" the aircraft, it will naturally tend to straighten
itself out without requiring much help from the pilot, as the mass
of the aircraft (the C of G ahead of the wheels) will tend to pull
the main wheels straight again.
However, this stability has the unfortunate side effect of atrophying
a pilot's rudder skills. Or never developing them in the first place.
A taildragger is fundamentally directionally unstable when in motion
on the ground. If a gust of wind weathervanes a taildragger, the mass
of the aircraft, at the C of G behind the main wheels, will continue
to turn the main wheels. This requires quick and appropriate pilot
rudder input to straighten out. Otherwise a "groundloop" will develop,
which in turn has the unfortunate side of atrophying the wallet of the
neophyte taildragger pilot :-(
This all sounds far more complicated than it really is. Language,
at least english, is a pretty suboptimal way to communicate anything
more complicated than directions to the nearest broomcloset.
Speaking of broomclosets, go get a broom from the closet (use a pencil
if you can't find a broom :-). Try to balance the broom, upside down,
on your index finger. See how it's unstable? If you don't continually
correct, the broom will fall down. In this hokey analogy, your finger
is the main gear, and the broom is the C of G of a taildragger.
Now hold the broom, with two fingers on the handle, bristles down.
Notice that the broom is now stable. With the C of G below your hand,
disturbances of the broom will have their energy naturally dissipated,
just like a nosedragger.
So, if you're talented enough to balance a broom on your finger,
with a bit of practice, you can safely land a taildragger, too!
Wheel Landings vs Three-Pointers
How to "properly" land a tailwheel a/c is one of those religious
issues. It varies, depending on the airframe and the pilot.
I used to spend hours working on a perfect three point landing,
until I realized that it had all of the utility of lactation
glands on a male camel.
There's really two types of surfaces you land (a taildragger) on:
1) a hard-surfaced runway.
In this case, I prefer a wheel landing. The extra 5 mph or so
that you might have on final in the wheel landing is probably
irrelevant on a long, hard-surfaced runway, so why not save the
wear + tear on the tailwheel? Use forward stick to keep the tail
in the air until you're at taxiing speed. Looks good, too!
My personal belief is that nosewheel and tailwheels, which tend
to be rather fragile, should only be used during taxiing. Feel
free to disagree, but your opinions may change once you own an
a/c and have to replace them :-)
2) a grass strip.
Often short, sometimes with obstacles. For a short strip, you
probably want to be at least 5 mph slower than normal on short
final. This is really important from a kinetic energy standpoint
(see below).
To maintain adequate lift at the slower speed, you will have a
greater angle of attack on final: the tailwheel will actually touch
first (the grass absorbs the shock nicely) then the mains.
B. D. Maule calls this the "double-whomp" landing. A nice side
effect of having the tail touch first, then the mains, is that
the angle of attack is automatically decreased during the landing
which means that you aren't going to balloon, and you have weight
on the tires for a wee bit of braking.
On my maule M4-210C, 60 mph works well on short final in the unlikely
case that you actually do want to do a three-pointer. 65/70 mph
works well for a wheel-landing, and 50 mph gives a nice double-whomp
on grass.
Basic Physics Time: kinetic energy = 1/2 mv**2 tells us that at
50 mph, vs 70 mph, we will have
50 * 50
------- = 51% (half!) the kinetic energy
70 * 70
which is nice on a short strip, eh?
Lesson #1: learn to precisely control your airspeed on short final.
Strong Crosswinds: What To Do?
It's a religious issue as to what is the best way to land a taildragger
in a crosswind. Your mileage will vary, given a particular airframe
and a particular pilot, but in a strong, gusty crosswind I personally
prefer a wheel landing to a 3-pointer.
Some people like to get the tailwheel down immediately, thinking
that the tailwheel gives better directional control than the rudder,
but I feel that the slower speed and higher angle of attack required
for a 3-point landing (vs a wheel landing) makes you more vulnerable
to gusts.
Most of the time you have at least some headwind component, if not
a lot, so you will probably not have an excessive groundspeed if
you "fly it on" with a wheel landing.
In a slip on short final, you will touch down first on the upwind
main tire, and apply full into-wind aileron to reduce lift on the
upwind wing, and create maximum adverse yaw on the downwind wing.
Eventually the downwind main tire will touch down. During the
rollout, avoid weathervaning by using the rudder, and only when
you "run out" of aerodynamic steering (as you slow down to taxiing
speeds, and the downwind rudder pedal is on the floor) should you
use the brake on the downwind main.
You may find the the brake on the downwind main is somewhat
ineffective while the tire is still in the air, too :-)
When you are convinced that the a/c isn't going to fly any more,
get the stick back to get the tailwheel on the ground, with some
weight on it. You're taxiing now.
Note that in a tailwheel a/c, land and take off with the crosswind
from your right, if you have any choice (of course, landings and
takeoffs with any significant tailwind component are a Really
Bad Idea).
Why is a left crosswind worse than a crosswind from the right?
Well, we know that a/c weathervane. Keel area aft of the C of G,
and all that other stuff we've all forgotten from ground school :-)
If the x/wind is from the left, the a/c will tend to weathervane
to the left.
But when we add power, which way does the nose go? Left, of course,
which is Not Good when you're already weathervaned to the left.
It's too easy to run out of right rudder in this situation, esp
in the later maules (M5+) with the massive vertical fins, reminiscent
of the stinson 108-3.
Sometimes a burst of power can hurt more than it helps.
Now if the x/wind is from the right, we will tend to weathervane to the
right, and a burst of power will tend to swing the nose to the left, which
is the way we want it to go. Neat, eh?
Lesson #2: given a choice of right or left x/wind, always choose a runway
with the wind from the right side. Some people feel uncomfortable touching
the passenger side main tire down first, but practice, practice, practice
until you get used to it.
[Note that there are other excellent reasons to prefer a right crosswind
to a left crosswind in any aircraft, assuming a normal left-hand circuit
(time on base, overshooting/spin on turn to final) but that's outside the
scope of this article - ed]
Quick, correct use of the rudder is primarily how you keep a taildragger
straight. A burst of power is only used to increase the rudder effectiveness.
Nosewheel a/c, because of their inherent directional stability, tend to
train pilots that rudders are only for taxiing (and some pilots don't
even use the rudder to taxi, and instead use just the brakes, which causes
unnecessary wear of the brakes, if the a/c has a steerable nosewheel).
Less than coincidentally, manuevers involving the rudder are usually a
source of anxiety and mystery for student pilots: slow flight, spins,
sideslips, crosswind landings. But that's a subject for another time.
Wheel Landings: Getting Rid Of That Darned Bounce
Most people, when learning how to wheel land a taildragger, also
learn that gosh, it sure is easy to bounce from a wheel landing, eh?
It seems rather obvious, but the key to avoiding a bounce is to avoid
an excessively high of rate of descent at touchdown. At first, do not
try to immediately touch down out right of the flare. Use lots of
runway, it's cheap :-)
Use a 5 mph higher final approach speed than you would for a 3-pointer.
This will help you keep the nose down. Use full flaps (on a nice calm
day).
Do not allow your speed to bleed off during the flare, or you will
3-point. A trickle of power can help immensely here. Again, when
you're just learning to wheel land, don't be worrying about getting
the shortest possible landing distance. Use a long runway for this
if at all possible.
For a smooth wheel landing, you must be able to precisely put the
main tires a few inches above the runway. A foot is too much.
As I said before, "fly it onto the runway".
Try touching one main down before the other. There's almost always
a bit of x/wind component, right?
Also, as soon as the mains touch, you must apply forward stick.
This appears suicidal at first, if you've only flown nosewheel a/c,
but to ensure that you don't start flying again, you should get
the stick forward and reduce your angle of attack.
As you slow down, the elevator will lose effectiveness, so use
progressively more and more forward elevator to maintain that
nice tail-high attitude until you run out of forward stick.
At that point, move the stick full aft to positively transition
to a 3-point attitude, and get some weight on the tailwheel.
Practice, practice, practice.
-- cut --
--
#include <std.disclaimer>
patterson,george r
> THE TAILDRAGGER
I like it.
One thing though .....
>[On hard surfaced runways] I prefer a wheel landing.
As you point out earlier in the article, it depends on the airframe and
pilot. Although these may work out well for you in your M4, the factory
recommends that MX-7 pilots avoid wheel landings. Having set the mains down
early once (so far), I can testify that she bounces nicely (a phnomenum you
mention later). Fortunately, my tailwheel wasn't very far up, and the mains
came back down shortly after the tail hit. According to the Maule test pilot,
the MX-7 is rather infamous in this regard, being somewhat stiff-legged.
>But when we add power, which way does the nose go? Left, of course,
>which is Not Good when you're already weathervaned to the left.
Now, I have all of about 15 hours in a Maule so far, but in my limited
experience, this isn't the case. I add power when the aircraft is just
beginning the roll, and I can start my roll with the nose pointing slightly
to the right. The main problem I find is that the nose tends to yaw due
to precession when the tail comes up. That's followed by a reduction in
P-factor, which can be a little tricky and lead to overcorrection (you
can substitute the verb "will" for "can" if I'm the pilot). I start bringing
the tail up around 20-30 mph (that's a guess; the ASI doesn't read below
40). Would you be keeping the tail down longer in a crosswind?
>Sometimes a burst of power can hurt more than it helps.
Amen.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
| If a company announces that they have perfected
George Patterson - | a product, it's time to sell your stock in that
| company.
| Kelvin Throop
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ed Gauss
>>
>>I'm getting close to completing my PPL and was thinking about buying a
>>Maule M4. Can anyone make any recommendations about this plane?
>
I put over 1,000 hours in a ML4-210C in Alaska. My wife did all of her
flight training in it. We flew that critter from the Arctic Ocean to
Baja California.
It is not a good instrument platform. While we flew it ifr, it lacks
the stability you espect from Cessna. It is a "rudder" airplane and
you sometimes really have to keep your toes active to fly the plane.
At cruise I measured 105 dbm noise in the cockpit and that is enough
to cause hearing damage. The tanks hold a little less than four hours
fuel, and we never, never flight planned for more than a three hour
leg. The early ML4's could collapse their fuel tanks in rime conditions,
as mine did while coming down the ILS into Fairbanks one winter night.
The gas tank vents on those are on the filler caps themselves and are
the first things to ice up.
I could work a lightly loaded C-172 on just as short of a runway as I
could work the Maule with the same load. A supercub can work from half
the distance. 600 feet of gravel was as short as you can work the Maule
with any safety at all, and forget anything less than 400'. If you pop
the flaps at exactly the right time you might get off a little shorter,
and if you land with the wheels locked you might get down a little shorter,
but then again you might end up on your back.
On skis it had enough power to blast out of snow drifts, but a Cessna
185 would do quite as well. When I bought the Maule, I could not afford
a Cessna 185, and a C-185 is what I would look for if I were to get back
into bush flying.
Wheel landings deteriorate very quickly if you get any sort of pitch when
you land and I understand now that Maule is recommending that you do not
try them. In squirrly winds, the Maule stays on the ground once you get
the mains down, as most landings have the tail wheel hit first and as
you pitch down the lift is dumped from the wing. This is not really a
good thing for a ski plane for is you may not be able to do a go around
if there is water under the snow, as sometimes happens on Alaskan lakes
in the winter.
At forty below all of the paint started poppoing off of my Maule as
apparently the factory did not use a good primer on the aluminum.
The cargo model is great for hauling chunks of moose and other such
things you might want to move about in the Alaskan bush. It is a terrible
plane for primary instruction. When Becky first landed a plane with one
of those little training wheels up front, she was amazed at how easy it
was.
--Ed, Fat Moose Flying Service, retired
patterson,george r
Ross Wolin <ro...@compumedia.com> wrote:
>1) Is it too difficult for someone as new as me to fly (I trained in a
>C-152, but plan to get an additional 10 hrs+ of tailwheel instruction,
>probably in a Champ, before I try to fly - and insure - a Maule.)
Flying one is no problem; it's handling on the ground that's difficult.
You have the right idea about getting in some tailwheel time before
purchase. If you can find a Cessna 140, that has landing characteristics
which are close to those of a Maule (IMO, they're actually harder to
handle). The Piper Supercruiser, on the other hand, is gentler on the
ground (except for those heel brakes) and would be an easier plane in
which to learn. Also plan on some transition time once you get the Maule;
if nothing else, your insurance company will probably require Maule time
(mine requires 15 hours dual, and the CFI must have at least 25 hours
Maule time).
>2) The M4 comes in 145, 180, 210, and 220 hp models. I was thinking of
>the 145, because the engine lasts a little longer TBO and probably burns
>less gas - but does increase take-off run. I was told 180s are really
>hard to find, and thought a 210/220 might be just too much, in
>performance AND cost. Any comments?
Six years ago, I called Ray Maule looking for a 145 hp model. At that
time, none were for sale, and it was easier to find a 180. You can get
in touch with Maule Air on 912/985-2045. That's the factory; if they
can't help you, they'll steer you to someone who can. If you wind up
talking with Ray Maule and he doesn't have a plane when you call, call
back every few weeks to check with him again. If you don't, he'll
figure you weren't really interested.
The 210/220 models will require a high-performance checkout and cost
your left arm in insurance. I would take either the 145 or 180.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
| He who speaks of sacrifice speaks of slaves and
George Patterson - | masters. And intends to be the master.
| Ayn Rand
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew Boyd
Thank you.
>>[On hard surfaced runways] I prefer a wheel landing.
>
>As you point out earlier in the article, it depends on the airframe and
>pilot. Although these may work out well for you in your M4, the factory
>recommends that MX-7 pilots avoid wheel landings.
well, I know that the maule factory teaches three-point landings, and
I think I know why.
When someone is just beginning to learn to fly taildraggers, they're
plenty busy enough just keeping the damn thing straight.
But once someone has gotten comfortable with landing a tailwheel a/c,
some extra cpu is available during the landing. And that's when
wheel landing practice should begin. It really saves wear and tear
on the tailwheel, and if you ever fly larger tailwheel a/c (eg DC-3)
you're going to have to know how to to wheel land.
Ever seen a lancaster [or other large tailwheel a/c] three-point?
>Having set the mains down early once (so far), I can testify that she
>bounces nicely
yep. It's a good idea to kiss the tires onto the pavement during a wheel
landing. Reason why is that if you impact the mains with any noticeable
rate of descent, the C of G aft of the mains will pull the tail down,
increasing your angle of attack and launch you airborne again. At
a very slow speed [oops]. Time for some power!
Actually, not every wheel landing of mine is a greaser. If you do
contact the mains firmer than you wish, some forward stick to lower
the nose (reducing the angle of attack) solves that problem nicely.
>According to the Maule test pilot, the MX-7 is rather infamous in
>this regard, being somewhat stiff-legged.
well, maybe. But once you've got your maule under control, go do
some t+g's in pitts. Now *there's* stiff-legged gear! Can't see
out of the little pig, either.
>Would you be keeping the tail down longer in a crosswind?
Probably not. You could even put the brakes on, push the knobs into
the dash, and raise the tail before you even release the brakes to
start moving. But remember, I *like* the tail-up attitude, with the
rudder in the slipstream.
--
#include <std.disclaimer>