Update on learning to fly a Maule

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cubnak
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Update on learning to fly a Maule

Post by cubnak »

So I've got about 30 hrs on my new (to me) M7 and I have to admit, I'm really loving it! I didn't really know what to expect and I'm still a long ways from being really proficient but it's all been a better experience than what I thought it was going to be. It's faster, better on fuel, and easier to handle in all aspects of flying than what I had thought, so it's all good at this point. My only beef so far is that it has no handles on the aft fuse for ground handling,seems like a crazy thing for a pretty heavy plane to be lacking, one of the first upgrades I'll be putting on for sure.
Couple quick questions/thoughts for you long timer Maule guys....right now I'm trying to learn the plane/engine and get a good feel for where I need to be on power/prop in cruise. When I take off I pull prop back to about 2350 after clearing obstacles, then pull power back to about 25" until I get to cruise altitude, which has been fairly low since my flights have been pretty short. At cruise I lean to peak and my hottest egt is about 1390 and cht is about 300. At that setting I'm burning about 11 gph. And OAT has been fairly cool at around 30-40 degrees. You guys seeing anything unusual or a technique I need to work on here?
So far loving the plane and with about 30 hrs on it now I've already started to get a good feel for the landing and take off phases. Even took the family for a burger run to Talkeetna today in 30 min., gotta love it!
Thanks for any thoughts/help.
Ernie

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gbarrier
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Post by gbarrier »

Glad to hear that you are enjoying your new toy.

You don't say which engine you have but if you, like me, have one that redlines at 2400 I don't see much use in pulling rpm back on climb. I just climb about 24 or 25 inches and 2400. 11 GPH is about what I show on the 235 at around 65%. I do however richen up a tad after finding peak, say 30 degrees or so. If you want to attend the school of "lean of peak" I am sure there are those here to help you too but peak is not the place to stay.

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Post by gbarrier »

Glad to hear that you are enjoying your new toy.

You don't say which engine you have but if you, like me, have one that redlines at 2400 I don't see much use in pulling rpm back on climb. I just climb about 24 or 25 inches and 2400. 11 GPH is about what I show on the 235 at around 65%. I do however richen up a tad after finding peak, say 30 degrees or so. If you want to attend the school of "lean of peak" I am sure there are those here to help you too but peak is not the place to stay.

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Andy Young
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Post by Andy Young »

gbarrier wrote:Glad to hear that you are enjoying your new toy.

You don't say which engine you have but if you, like me, have one that redlines at 2400 I don't see much use in pulling rpm back on climb. I just climb about 24 or 25 inches and 2400. 11 GPH is about what I show on the 235 at around 65%. I do however richen up a tad after finding peak, say 30 degrees or so. If you want to attend the school of "lean of peak" I am sure there are those here to help you too but peak is not the place to stay.
I'll respectfully disagree here. If you ask the lycoming factory (you can call their tech support ine) or read Mike Busch's articles on leaning, both will tell you the same thing:

At less than75% power, peak EGT is where you want to be. The WORST place to be is 50* rich of peak (30* is pretty close to that). 50* rich of peak gives you the highest cylinder pressures, and therefore the highest cylinder head temps. Peak EGT actually gives you lower pressures and lower temps. 100* rich of peak will do the same thing, but burns a bunch more fuel.

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cubnak
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Post by cubnak »

Thanks for the tips, I pull it back because it seems to just be smoother there, it's not going to hurt anything over time is it?
Yes, I have the IO540, w1a5.
That's the hard part for me, I've heard at least a half dozen different opinions about how to find the sweet spot with that engine, the concept of LOP is appealing but without GAMIS it sounds like it could be risky so I'd rather burn the extra fuel and be on the proven safe side.
I guess my main question was that at peak I'm seeing 300 cht at the hottest, is that warm enough, all the other cylinders are in the 280 range give or take a little. I would expect those temps maybe to come up a bit with the warmer weather but should I be trying to get all cylinders into the 300-350 range to get best longevity?
I'm not a rocket scientist or even that mechanical but want to try and get the best out of the engine and be the safest as this is my family hauler.
Thanks again for the input.
Ernie

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Andy Young
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Post by Andy Young »

cubnak wrote:Thanks for the tips, I pull it back because it seems to just be smoother there, it's not going to hurt anything over time is it?
Yes, I have the IO540, w1a5.
That's the hard part for me, I've heard at least a half dozen different opinions about how to find the sweet spot with that engine, the concept of LOP is appealing but without GAMIS it sounds like it could be risky so I'd rather burn the extra fuel and be on the proven safe side.
I guess my main question was that at peak I'm seeing 300 cht at the hottest, is that warm enough, all the other cylinders are in the 280 range give or take a little. I would expect those temps maybe to come up a bit with the warmer weather but should I be trying to get all cylinders into the 300-350 range to get best longevity?
I'm not a rocket scientist or even that mechanical but want to try and get the best out of the engine and be the safest as this is my family hauler.
Thanks again for the input.
Ernie
I also have the IO-540-W1A5D. I also pull the rpm back a little bit after takeoff. Not strictly necessary, but won't hurt anything. Your cylinder head temps are the same as mine. No harm in having them low like that; in fact, it's preferable. It's the oil temp that you want to keep up to a minimum if you can. At least 180* is required to cook off the moisture. 180* to 200* is perfect. It can be hard with that engine to get the oil temps up where you want them, unless the weather is very warm. You might need to partially or completely cover your oil cooler (depending on outside air temps) to acheive this. Most folks use duct tape for that. I built a cockpit-controllable flap in front of mine for this reason, but that's not practicle for most people. Requires a field approval and all that.

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cubnak
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Post by cubnak »

Andy, thanks for that info on the oil cooler, I did have mine taped off partially before flying north and I'm not pulling it yet as I don't think my oil temps are getting that warm yet. It's a little hard to tell on that gauge as it just shows it in the middle of the green arc, my best guess is that I might be getting to the bottom end of the right temps, maybe 180 but would like to know it gets to 190 or better so I'll keep it taped up for a bit.
Nice to know everything looks normal on the chts, and I don't need to do anything different there, thanks!
So if I was just wanting to putt around, maybe do some slow flight, looking fir gravel bars for touch n gos, and generally dinking around low level any thoughts on a power/prop setting? Like 20", 2200 rpm? Is there low power settings I should avoid, or is it fine on the low end as long as it's still turning the prop? I would imagine the temps would be really low so it's prob more about running too cool or rich to foul plugs or something else like that?
Appreciate the input!

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Post by Andy Young »

I generally cruise at 22"/2200 rpm. For slow flight, you can run the rpm down to the bottom of the green (2050, I think, but check your tach markings) and as low as you need to go on manifold pressure to get the soeed you want. The only limitation is to not exceed a certain manifold pressure (can't remember what it is off the top of my head) when below a certain rpm (again, 2050 I think). It should be placarded on your plane, with the correct numbers on those limitations. The basic idea is to not have the throttle shoved in with the rpm dialed really low. Same as not trying to stomp on the gas pedal of your car or truck while in too high a gear. Think about it this way: you can cruise around town quite happily in fourth gear, as long as you are light on the gas, and just loafing along. But you have to downshift before you stomp on the pedal to accelerate. Same in the plane; dial in the prop first if you're going to add manifold pressure (throttle).

As far as running too cool and fouling plugs, as long as the mixture is set appropriately for the power setting, I would think you should be ok, but it might not hurt to power up now and then for a bit to heat things up and burn off any deposits. I haven't done really long periods at very low power settings, so I can't speak from experience on that.

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30 hours later

Post by cubnak »

So I have a little more time under my belt in trying to get a feel for the new plane, and I still have to say I'm more impressed and happy with the results/performance each time I fly, it's been a very easy transition from the Pacer, actually it's much easier to fly than the pacer was and still easy to jump back and forth to the Cub.
Some new observations I've had...first thing is that it's tail is so heavy I have no elevator authority and very little rudder input on taxi, basically I just ride my brakes to steer, is this pretty normal? Even empty I can't get my tail to get light on taxi, definitely different than what I'm used to but not a big deal. Along those same lines on final I'm trimmed completely to the stop nose up and it just barely feels light, it seems like I could still trim a touch more aft if I could get it, again seems normal in a maule to you guys?
I also did my first beach landing on a slant of about 10%, in the cub this is very easy and I just push the wing into the slope and give a little opposite rudder and land on one wheel, with the maule it's the first time it felt like I didn't have the aileron authority to keep the wing low uphill and so basically landed on two wheels and couldn't keep the tail up very long so it hit with about half of my ground roll left and it immediately wanted to come around downhill, even a bit more than my Pacer had, some heavy breaking kept it straight but was a little surprising to me. I'm sure a little practice would make that a no brainer but I don't think I'll tackle any steep beaches just yet!
I'll try to add a couple pics from recent flights if I can figure it out.
Good flying to you all!
Ernie

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cubnak
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Lunch with my son at Bold Airstrip

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Beach landing on north Kenai beach

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Post by andy »

I haven't flown a Pacer but my Maule has a heavy tail. I jacked up the tail wheel and weighed it once with 40 gals of fuel in the mains - 250 lbs. The horizontal stabilizer produces no lift since it's flat on both sides. Even at full power my O-360 will not raise the tail with brakes applied or during taxi. Folks with 235 hp engines might be able to do this but I can't. Maules are designed to shift weight back toward the tail to improve short landing characteristics as I understand it. Others who know more should weigh in here.

Besides the weight of the tail resisting rudder input on the ground, the amount of slack in the tailwheel springs has an effect on rudder pedal steering effectiveness on the ground. You want some slack in the chains attached to the springs so they don't prevent the tailwheel from reaching the point where it breaks out. Take a look at this tail wheel rigging video. The slack in the tailwheel chains means that you lose some rudder pedal steering effectiveness on the ground and you'll have to make it up with differential braking.

Because the tail is heavier than your Pacer, it exerts more force that you have to overcome on a side slope. You might need some power to keep the tail from moving down hill. I can't speak to the rudder surface area and whether or not it's larger on the Pacer. I couldn't tell what kind of tail wheel you have in your pictures. Is it a Scott 3200 or 3224A? If it's a Maule tail wheel, I'd switch to an Airframes Alaska Baby Bushwheel with the bent steering arms since you have Bushwheels on your mains. I'd also add the wider Airframes Alaska leaf spring, which is tougher than the Maule leaf spring and has a good bracket that prevents sideways movement of the leaf spring.
Andy
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cubnak
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Post by cubnak »

Thanks Andy, I'll check into the tail spring tension, didn't think about that one. I do have the Bushweels tail spring/wheel and I like the handling characteristics ok it's just so different not having some authority with rudder/elevator, just takes some getting used to. I did have 3 adult passengers on my beach landing so that didn't help any with control as it was slowing in the sand and gravel, none of this stuff scares me but it's something that has popped out to me in learning this plane, maybe will help others that might be thinking about buying. Really these are such minor flaws and it's the only thing I've noticed in a negative way about this plane, I could come up with the same sort of thing for both the Cub and the Pacer, not every plane is perfect but they all have some good and bad characteristics.
The Maule sure makes it hard to hop back into the Cub for any sort of leisure flying anymore, it's sure a pleasure to fly and I just love getting places quickly, especially now that I've flown over the majority of Alaska it's not so much about enjoying the ride but getting to the destinations that I really like.
Thanks again for the tips, enjoy your flying!
Oh, I wanted to ask if anyone puts vents in the rear windows? I took the kids for a ride the other day and it was downright hot for Ak and my poor kids were sweltering in the back seat, any easy solutions for window vents back there?

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Post by andy »

My 1986 MX-7-180 has vents in the windows on both sides in the rear seat. I guess they don't automatically come that way. If you position the scoops correctly in the air stream, they do a pretty good job in flight. Not so good on the ground. You'll need to open the two front windows to make it more comfortable when taxiing. The newer style windows and gas struts make this a lot easier.
Andy
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Post by maules.com »

Perhaps the rear windows were replaced and vents not added. Usually they are there from the factory.
The tailwheel turntable may be internally dirty or have a friction ring riding up the rollpin dowel thus tightening the swivel action. Wrong type or lack of grease in correct places.
The empty M7-235 tailwheel weight is about 120lbs.
If you trim full aft on approach to land, you have basically eliminated up elevator as the trim tab servo's the elevator to full up.
If a go around were needed the forward push on yoke forces are great indeed and will catch you by surprise.
Trim aft about 1/2" on marker and you will still have elevator effect for landing.
Use left arm instead, or put a load in rear of the airplane. Of course, now the tail load is even heavier.
Jeremy
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