Sport Pilot Talk

Last Sunday reminded me of why we went through the ordeal of building a hangar home on an airstrip.

This past Sunday was a gorgeous day to fly in E TN. The owner of the airport invited me to go for a quick flight in his Maule. I kind of expected it to be coarse noisy and truck-like, but it was anything but. Certainly heavier on the controls than most Light Sports, but well harmonized. The Lycoming O-360 was very smooth. Very nice plane overall.

Karen shot a video of the takeoff. Here's a screenshot:



As we were landing, we noticed an orange Light Sport parked in front of our house. Turned out a friend, Dennis Long, had been in the area and dropped by with an Aeroprakt A32:



Dennis is the US distributor for Aeroprakt. He took another friend, Alan, for a test flight and he came back thoroughly enamored.

I was quite impressed with the build quality. It's an aluminum-bodied Light Sport from Ukraine, with fabric control surfaces. ROTAX 912 (not -is), full-span flaperons and a chute. Reasonably light EW, enormous long-range tanks (30 gals?) and good cruise speed combined with a comparatively low price (about $130k I think, depending on options).

Like I said, impressive. I think it would be very high on my short list of Light Sports were I ever to consider something other than my Sky Arrow.

That !

Last year before I got my Sting I contacted Dennis for availability of A32 in the US and at that time he could only offer A22 with vague mention of A32 being available sometime in 2018/2019 so I passed.
The A32 has been available since 2016 in Australia and having read many positive reviews, it seemed to me that, unlike A22 which is a STOL plane, the A32 was a direct competitor to CTLS and similar fast, large cabin high wings.
You get 115 knots cruise, 50 inch wide cabin and , if you opt for simpler avionics like MGL , you can get a brand new one for about 115-120k.

Can your Maule friend do a Maule takeoff from inside of your hanger?

The Aeroprakr looks pretty nice. Were you able to fly it?

December AOPA PILOT has a 'fly off' between an A-22 and a Super Cub, both on amphibious floats. Seemed to me is came out as pretty much a draw but it was interesting that the A-22 with 100 HP gave a close performance to the Cub with 180 HP.

Of course the A22 is an LSA

Jim Hardin wrote:Can your Maule friend do a Maule takeoff from inside of your hanger?

Not with 180 hp!

The Aeroprakr looks pretty nice. Were you able to fly it?

Not yet. Would really like to.

I've never seen a Maule trike before...seems weird!

MrMorden wrote:I've never seen a Maule trike before...seems weird!

Taylorcraft built a tricycle gear before too, and it looked weird. Back in the day my dad flew a J3 that was on tricycle gear.

3Dreaming wrote:

MrMorden wrote:I've never seen a Maule trike before...seems weird!

Taylorcraft built a tricycle gear before too, and it looked weird. Back in the day my dad flew a J3 that was on tricycle gear.

Looks pretty good: Oops wrong pic. Close to a Tri Pacer

One of my good friends has a 250hp Maule. It's an amazing airplane, though the useful load is surprisingly small and the 17gph full cruise burn rate is pretty painful.

MrMorden wrote:One of my good friends has a 250hp Maule. It's an amazing airplane, though the useful load is surprisingly small and the 17gph full cruise burn rate is pretty painful.

When I sold my Cirrus, I went so far as to visit the Maule factory in Moultrie, GA. I like the plane, but on any given trip it would have burned substantially more fuel than my Cirrus. But the prospect of flying sans medical was strong, leading me to Light Sport. And realistically, I didn’t need the “back country” credos of the Maule.

But now with BasicMed, with the right partner...