New Maule MT-7-260 Landing HELP

Discuss topics related to technique, procedures, and idiosyncrasies of Maule aircraft.
User avatar
LT4247
100+ Posts
Posts: 237
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2006 4:11 am
Location: GEORGIA
Contact:

Post by LT4247 »

Yeah, that's right....kinda like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0WpLQtiTyA
aero101 wrote:Flyseneca is exactly right... I own an MX7 and did a little instruction with an individual that bought an MT7, get it slowed down as you come over the numbers, get the nose up almost to a Tail Dragger 3pt attitude, hold it a foot off the ground until it quits flying and settles onto the runway. The whole trick in landing it nicely is all about attitude, can't land it flat like a Cessna!!
J.R. Lane
GEORGIA
----------------------------
"I say all that big talk is worth doodly squat"!
- Granny Hawkins

User avatar
Sam Rutherford
100+ Posts
Posts: 197
Joined: Sat Nov 10, 2007 11:10 pm
Location: Europe
Contact:

or Charlie Jirik out of Addison

Post by Sam Rutherford »

Charlie did my tailwheel endorsement when I bought my MX7. His teaching style is to shout at you until you get it right (not my first choice of technique :roll: ) but can that man fly!!!! :o

Oh, and he's over 80 so you might want to hurry!

I have his cell number somewhere.

Safe flights, and enjoy the world's best aircraft (well, for under USD1M!)

Sam.
MX7 180-B

www.prepare2go.com
TV/Film & Rally-Raid Logistics

User avatar
Tapiola
Posts: 14
Joined: Wed Jun 02, 2010 2:28 pm
Location: Baddeck, NS. Home of the first powered flight in Canada eh?
Contact:

Post by Tapiola »

flyseneca wrote:I own an MX7-180B and often fly a CAP MT7-235 tow plane. As a CAP instructor I have found that the MX7 does take a bit of getting used to. First problem is always the excessive approach speed and the reluctance to use full (40) flaps.

Pilots with tail dragger experience do much better than tri-gear folks. The reason is that the MT series likes to land just like its tail dragger breathern. If you use a tail dragger attitude you will do far better. The picture through the wind screen will have you touch down nose wheel first if you hold what I call a Cessna attitude. This is how all of the CAP incidents seem to have taken place. Nose wheel contact first--bounce--botched recovery--prop strick on the 3rd attempt.

Find a high time Maule CFI and go fly in your machine. It does take some time--but you will love it.

Skip Guimond
Whereaway in Atlantic Canada do I find a high time Maule CFI?? Jeremy is 5,000 miles away!!
Chris.

Now have an IFR ticket in my IFR certified Maule on 29" tundra tyres! A truly go anywhere aircraft!

chukker
Posts: 5
Joined: Sat Sep 20, 2008 7:35 am
Contact:

Better late than never . . .

Post by chukker »

I'm late to this particular thread, but WOW! can I relate! I'll share my experience:

I bought my Maule when I was a brand-spanking-new pilot. All's I ever flew was my trainer, a Cessna 172SP. That was my entire experience.

I bought the Maule MXT-7-180 because I had a landing strip on our farm. Also, I was under the impression that the "training wheel" would significantly reduce the learning curve. (That and the fact that taildragger insurance was prohibitive for a new pilot.)

Well, I was mistaken about the reduction in the learning curve. Ballooning, porpoising, etc. defined almost every one of my early landings in the Maule. If I had a good landing, I didn't know why. It wasn't pretty, and a few times I thought I was going to take out some of the runway lights.

When I flew the Cessna as a student, I usually had good landings; then I go and buy a Maule and can't get on the ground without my hands sweating and my hair sticking out in all directions.

Of all people, my aircraft mechanic, who is not a pilot, was the most influential in helping me resolve the issue. While we were in my hangar talking, I expressed my complete frustration and exasperation with landings. He told me that the nose wheel hangs down quite a distance in flight (it doesn't look like it does when it's sitting on the ground). He told me to climb into the cockpit, then he held down the tail-end to show me what the site picture ought to look like when coming down the runway. Nose high like a taildragger, not the somewhat more parallel attitude of the Cessna.

That info combined with coming in slowly, flaring, then holding the yoke all the way back to my chest when solidly on the ground were some of the best tips I received in helping me overcome the landing issues.

Maules like to fly and will take every opportunity you give them to get back in the air, so keep that yoke back until she can't take flight again. I'd get lazy when I felt the wheels touchdown and relax the yoke, then my Maule would leap into the air again, hence the porpoising. It was ridiculous, but as a new pilot I hadn't enough information in my experience toolbox to even figure out what I was doing wrong.

And like the others said, once on terra firma, immediately get rid of your flaps then trim back to the middle mark. Also, the brakes will help you "ground" the plane.

It surprised me that such a "pussy cat" of a plane would give me such a hard time wrestling her to the ground. There is something wonderful about knowing I'm not the only one who struggled.

Thanks for posting.
I got Mauled in Moultrie, GA

User avatar
maules.com
100+ Posts
Posts: 3144
Joined: Tue Aug 29, 2006 4:01 pm
Contact:

Post by maules.com »

Methinks the approach was too fast, as you were relating to the Cessna.
Jeremy
www.maules.com
Maule AK Worldwide

User avatar
calmflight
Posts: 40
Joined: Wed Nov 19, 2008 5:17 am
Location: New York
Contact:

Post by calmflight »

My MXT-7 came with Rich,CFI. He's told me over and over 3 important things. " Too fast!!!", "RUDDER!!!" and "Any@#$&% can fly a 172 but a Maule..."
US Coast Guard Aux Air( NYC area).
Aviation Psychologist, private practice special fear of flying program for Business flyers and children

User avatar
Flyhound
100+ Posts
Posts: 413
Joined: Sat Jan 05, 2013 12:04 pm
Location: Port Townsend, WA
Contact:

Post by Flyhound »

I too am a low time Mauler, with a new (to me) MX7-180C. I flew the plane from Seattle, WA to Manassas, VA when I bought it and half way across the country my landings started smoothing out. I had more greasers than bouncers. The plane was fully loaded with my wife and our baggage for a 2 week trip visiting family and friends as we traveled. Now that we're home and I'm flying solo again, the bouncers are outnumbering the greasers again. I have the feeling I'm keeping the nose too high in the flare and am dropping the mains after the tail touches and that results in the bounce. I think I'll spend a day just shooting landings again myself. The plane does seem to have a different personality when it is loaded and when it is unloaded. I need to understand it in both modes and everything in between. Flying these planes is humbling...
Por mares nunca dantes navegados - a line from a Potugese poem about exploring the unknown.

Piperpilot
Posts: 28
Joined: Sun Nov 30, 2014 8:27 pm
Location: Wolfforth, Texas
Contact:

Post by Piperpilot »

Reading this has been very helpful being new to an mt7 235 owner.....thank all of you

User avatar
Craigh-KRPH
Posts: 28
Joined: Mon Dec 09, 2019 1:13 pm
Location: Graham, TX (KRPH)
Contact:

Post by Craigh-KRPH »

This post has been very helpful. Just purchased a MXT-7-180A and while most of my landings lately would be considered safe, only a small percentage of them would be considered pretty.

Speed and rudder control seem to be way more important than they were in the other Tri gears airplanes I have flown. My tailwheel time from years ago has definitely helped. What seems to get me the most is coming in at such slow speeds, small wind gusts seem to blow you around on short final/flare much more than in other aircraft.

It's definitely been a challenge but the landings are slowly getting more and more consistent. Just checked the logbook and only 20 landings so far.....maybe by 100 or so I'll be a little more consistant. :P
Craig Helm
'97 MXT-7-180A
Graham, TX (KRPH)

Joe-FBS
Posts: 18
Joined: Thu Jan 31, 2019 4:53 am
Location: UK
Contact:

Post by Joe-FBS »

"small wind gusts seem to blow you around on short final/flare" is my problem as well. My quarter-share MXT-7-180 is at a 500 metre (1640 feet) grass strip which is at the bottom of a shallow bowl in the landscape with tress perpendicular on one side (In Google Maps search for "Graveley with Chivesfield St Mary", the strip runs north from that church). After a year, forty hours and plenty of practise, with early assistance from the other group members, I am now OK on reasonable days but still struggle in crossing gusts such that I have a couple of times diverted to the wide-open-spaces of the nearby RAF Henlow.

What tips can you experienced Maule flyers offer please?

doubleh
Posts: 13
Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2017 8:59 am
Location: Austin Tx
Contact:

Post by doubleh »

This sounds all too familiar!
Jef at INK got me squared away in less than 3 hrs. I have his number if you want to pm me.

Joe-FBS
Posts: 18
Joined: Thu Jan 31, 2019 4:53 am
Location: UK
Contact:

Re: New Maule MT-7-260 Landing HELP

Post by Joe-FBS »

On my first post-lockdown (first lockdown anyway) cross country, I dropped into a new to me airfield and happened to get talking to an experienced Maule pilot and instructor. He gave me two key messages, which have made my subsequent landings much pleasanter and less stressful. Approach at 55 knots (broadly speaking that is 1.3Vs) and steer in the air with your feet. Years of Cessnas, Pipers and even a lovely Grumman had made me lazy. Very poor show on my part since my earliest flying forty years ago was in gliders.

User avatar
andy
Site Admin
Posts: 1662
Joined: Mon Aug 06, 2007 2:05 pm
Location: Lake James, NC, USA
Contact:

Re: New Maule MT-7-260 Landing HELP

Post by andy »

Somewhere around 60 mph (52 kts) with a steep approach to final with full flaps would be my recommendation for a normal landing. If there's a gusty crosswind, I use 24 degrees flaps instead of 48 (full). Once you establish a visual aiming point on the airstrip, use pitch to control your airspeed and throttle to maintain the aiming point in the same position. Since pitch and power interact, a change in one requires a change in the other so it's a juggling act between the two controls. You don't want to approach too fast or you'll float during the flare, which gives a gusty crosswind more opportunity to push you around as your airspeed decays. Make sure that there's no sideways drift before touchdown by watching for visual cues on the airstrip. The painted center line on a hard surfaced runway works well for the that. On grass, dirt or gravel you have to watch the runway end and whatever is present on the surface to detect sideways movement. Touch down with the upwind main wheel first to stabilize the airplane then lower the other main wheel followed by the nose wheel. Maintain enough aileron into the wind to prevent the upwind wing from being lifted by the crosswind. There are a couple of ways to approach the runway in a crosswind. I like to crab into the wind until the flare and then use rudder to align the airplane with the direction of travel just before touchdown. Many pilots prefer to use aileron into the wind and cross-controlled rudder to maintain the airplane's alignment with the direction of travel during the entire final approach segment. That requires more throttle to overcome the drag created by the rudder and ailerons but it gives you an idea of how much rudder control is available.
Andy
1986 MX7-180
Image

1989
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Apr 24, 2022 7:04 am
Contact:

Re: New Maule MT-7-260 Landing HELP

Post by 1989 »

Agree on all the above. New MT-7 235 owner here. Looks like a 182 so why doesn't it fly like one? Key is speed control over the fence. Guy I bought it from told me 70 mph over the fence. No way in the world I could make it land smoothly like that. I'm down to 63 ish and it works great. Will be slowing her up a little more as I get more comfortable. Another key is be ready to do a go around if you bounce it even once. Unlike a Cessna, it's a challenge to get the power and pitch set up perfectly to recover from a botched landing. I've got around 15 landings so far with 2 go arounds. That is more go arounds than I've done in the last 25 years in Cessnas, Beech King Airs, etc.

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 5 guests