Freeware Focus - Maule Team

By Andrew Herd (20 January 2005)

he dawn of the twenty first century found us with three main categories of single engined light aircraft: conservative choice 'production classics' like the 172, 182 and Archer; more radical modern composite airframes, like the Cirrus and the Katana; and homebuilts, registrations in the third category expanding rapidly in direct proportion to the escalating prices of hulls in the first and second. But there is a fourth category, comprised of manufacturers who have found a niche and clung to it, sometimes against all the odds - and within that are several companies who build a class of plane that refuses to die - the rag and tube taildragger. This type of aircraft has supplied partly because there is still a demand for it; partly because such planes are relatively inexpensive; and partly because their construction suits relatively low output operations that have no ambitions to take over the world.

One such manufacturer is the Georgia based Maule. Maule builds for the people the big companies don't, which means bush pilots and folk who like to be a little different; and the proof of concept is that the Moultrie plant has been in continuous production since 1962, which is more than many of the bigger names in aviation can say. The four major variants of the Maule hull resemble each other very closely and the reason you don't see one at every airfield is that flying them is something of an acquired taste, though I am sure most owners would assure you that it is a taste which once gotten is hard to lose again, not least because Maules are commendably cheap to run. They ain't pretty and you will develop biceps like a cowhand if you ever get to own one, because they are not light things to pull out of a hangar, but by gosh, they work.

Apart from the very early M-4s, all Maules are built the same way, with metal wings and Ceconite covered steel tube fuselage, and with a couple of exceptions, they are all taildraggers. The plane which sired the line was the M-4, which was originally fitted with a 145 hp Continental O-300, before being upgraded to a 210 hp IO-360A with a constant speed prop back in '65. Two years later, the year the company moved to Moultrie, a choice of 180 hp or 220 hp Franklins were offered, before the M-4 line ceased production in 1973 in favor of the M-5. The new model had more tail area and nearly double the endurance, if you went for optional wing tip tanks; and it marked the beginning of a move to Lycoming engines, as the Franklin line had been sold off to Poland (where it subsequently powered the Wilga, if my memory is correct). There was some shuffling about until Maule standardised on a range of three engines in '77, ranging from 180 hp to 235 hp. In 1981 came the M-6, which had two feet more span and added another 8 degrees more flap to an already impressive 40 degrees - but these modifications reduced the rate of roll, so in 1984 the M-7 was born, which had bigger ailerons and yet another nine inches of span, thanks to a wing tip mod. Only the M-7 remains on sale, fitted with 160, 180, 235 and 260 hp Lycoming engines; and float and trigear variants are available.

Maule's being even more hand-built than the average plane, no two are quite alike, which adds to their appeal in their owners' eyes. Giving performance figures is kind of tricky, because I have yet to find a Maule POH which quotes any, and amazing tales circulate about how their pitot-static systems are calibrated (remind me to tell you the one about the icepick), but with the 235 horse engine, a 155 mph cruise seems reasonable. Climb rates vary with engine and payload, but are on the good side of adequate at 1000 to 1200 feet per minute with the 235, as long as you don't pack more than the certified weight. Some people do, which may be one of the reasons why Maule's figure in accident reports quite often, especially up in the far north, where regulators are thin on the ground and the temptation to stick the bigger moose in must prove hard to resist at times, especially since near enough the entire side of the load area can be opened up. You hear tales of flights being made of Maules flying with antlers sticking out the door and having seen some of those guys operate, I believe them.

Once you have got into the left hand seat, the first big surprise is how good the view forward for a taildragger, relieving you of any worry about taxiing into trees and other airplanes; but the downside is that once you have started the engine, you won't be able to hear onlookers shouting that you are about to hit that sign you didn't notice. Maules are N-O-I-S-Y and communication without a headset is generally only possible if the engine is off and you are standing some distance away.

The instrumentation in older Maules is best described as interesting, though they say you get used to what the gauges are trying to tell you. Much the same can be said about the flight characteristics, thanks to a small rudder tab which moves in connection with the ailerons - this is something you will love or hate, because it results in noticeably squirrelly handling in turbulence at airspeeds above 100 knots. Occasional Maule pilots can be spotted by the way they work so hard to fly in a straight line, because above the critical speed the airframe sideslips in the opposite direction to the one you would expect whenever a roll is picked up with aileron. I gather if you fly Maules all the time you get used to the interconnect, which was put there to counteract adverse aileron yaw at low speeds, but to begin with it doesn't feel at all natural. Rudder trim is also a bit out of the ordinary, requiring you to pull on a T-shaped handle until the pressure goes away before locking the handle down, but like all Maule stuff, it works.

Airplane fuel systems are an art rather than a science and the Maule is completely standard in this respect. Fuel is fed from twin main tanks only, so with the auxiliary wing tanks fitted, you are completely reliant on electric pumps for transfers and if the power goes down, you can find yourself with unusable fuel outboard in the wings, where it doesn't exactly enhance the handling. To add to the joy of it all, there are no less than seven sump drains in some models and though the fuel pump won't burn out if you forget to switch it off, when the target tank gets full, the excess simply gets pumped overboard. One day all airplanes will be like this.

Maules are not difficult to fly and they are justifiably renowned for their short field abilities, but herein lies a trap for the unwary. The low wing loading leaves you with a lot of float to kill if you can't dump excess airspeed after a steep approach and early models didn't have quite as much flap as some pilots found themselves wanting on short final. The M-7 fixes this, but beckons inexperienced pilots to make low, slow approaches that invite groundloops in crosswinds if the shear doesn't bounce 'em first. I guess if planes didn't have character, we wouldn't fly and the proof that Maule have got their sums right is that they keep walking hulls off the end of the assembly line. Respect this plane and it will be a faithful friend, but like most hulls, it doesn't tolerate fools gladly.

We are fortunate to have an excellent freeware Maule available for Flight Simulator 2004 and this piece is a tribute to the team who developed it - Mikko Maliniemi, Steven Grant, Kari Vertanen, Ian Grant, Aaron Swindle, Tomas Foosnes and Gerd Nehr - a glittering array of talent. They have chosen to simulate the comparatively rare 260 hp M-7 variant, which is the most powerful of all Maules if you ignore the 420 hp Allison turboprop model. As you would expect from a relatively draggy design, the extra power does very little to increase the cruising speed, but combined with a constant speed prop it ups the initial rate of climb by a respectable 50%, making it a bush pilot's dream machine. The only snag is the effect all those extra horses have on fuel consumption, which amounts to15 gallons an hour even at 65% power.

The addon is an 60 Mb download (M7260_V1.ZIP) and there is a 24 Mb patch available (M7260_11.ZIP) and although installation requires you to unzip the package into the main FS2004 folder, enough instructions are included in the file that a beginner with an average knowledge of Windows should be able to cope without problems. When setup is finished, you will find seven different variants of the Maule: four taildraggers, including one with tundra tires and one with skis; a floatplane; and a trigear. If you fire up Windows Explorer and take a look in the \Flight Simulator 9\Aircraft folder, you will find a comprehensive user manual in the \Maule M7-260 documents folder, presented in both pdf and Word format; and there is also a pdf checklist.

Selecting any of the planes brings up an initial splash screen with a check list that you have to click through to load the Maule itself. The visual model is good, as one would expect from such a talented team, and it captures the hull's dumpy outline well. There are all the usual animations and both the cockpit doors open - though note that without the patch you won't get dynamic shine - and a few additional paint schemes are available from third parties on FlightSim.Com. Although the Maule is a very popular download, it hasn't attracted many new liveries, which is a pity, because it is a great addon and deserves more.

The flight model is about as good as Flight Simulator will allow and gives a good idea of what it is like to fly one of these planes - I had great fun doing dive bomber approaches, exploiting all that flap. The sim probably doesn't sideslip as well as the real thing, but a sign of how much care has gone into it is that the aileron/rudder trim tab interconnect is faithfully modelled and rolling the plane does interesting things to the slip ball. If anyone doubts just how fast a 260 horse Maule can get off the ground, they need look no further than this package, because given a little flap the sim leaps into the air after the shortest of rolls. Just out of interest, I tried some stalls, an area which is never a strong point in FS sims and the addon behaved pretty well as expected, which is to say that it mushes unless you really try to make the wing quit. It won't spin, but then it isn't advisable to do this with a real one, given the law which says that planes which are hard to spin are giving you fair warning of what will happen if they did spin.

There are two different panels to allow for the slightly different instrument fit on the floatplane, with both VFR and IFR views included, and if you don't count the removable yoke there are five pop ups: engine instruments; a fuel selector valve; enlarged radio stack; flap trim window; and the FS2004 GPS. The 2D panel graphic is sized at 1024 x 768 and displays OK at up to 1600 x 1200, and with the exception of the engine controls is very sharp, although like all 1024 size bitmaps, it gets softer at higher resolutions. With more and more gamers using large panels, developers need to consider making a move to 1600 x 1200 and above, especially since there is little penalty for doing so. The icon stack at lower left on the panel can be used to swap around the different views/pop ups - you will need it to start the plane, since none of the controls are visible on the VFR view.

The high point of the 2D panel is undoubtedly the Apollo radio stack, which leaves the stacks you find in many payware addons eating dust. Apart from a selector box, you get an SL30 Nav/Com, an SL40 Com2, a GX50 GPS and an SL70 transponder, a lush fit by anyone's standards. The best news is that the SL30, 40 and 70 have most of the functions that their real world counterparts do, the GX50 being mostly there for show, as far as I can see. The radio manuals are spread around a series of text files in the documents folder, but although you have to hunt out information, it is all there. As you can see, there is an ADF and a transponder. The fuel transfer pumps are on the 'engine' panel and I wish you good luck with them.

The VC is good by any standards, with sharp gauges, a reasonably well focussed graphic and - a surprise this, for what was a relatively early FS2004 release - clickable instruments, so it can be used to fly the sim without any need to access the 2D panel. Both panels are nightlit with floods, rather than using the default FS lighting scheme. Finally, the sound set is great, although to enjoy the genuine Maule experience, you should turn the volume up full and ignore the complaints from the neighbors.

The Maule is one of the finest freeware addons ever released for Flight Simulator. This review is a salute to the team that produced it - we think they did a great job and wish them well with future projects.