our northern michigan weather finally cooperated just enough to let me get the maule off the ground on skis for the first time. we have had freezing rain and melting snow, on and off for several weeks now. our runway is solid slick ice with about 1/2" of snow over it. so i even landed a few times right on the ice covered paved runway. even taxied right up to the fuel pump- on straight skis
even though the ceilings were reported at 600' (more like 1000') we still managed to get 2 hours of ski flying in on saturday and 1 more on sunday.
the old Federal skis work flawlessly. and i still managed 130 kts with those big sleds hanging down there what a blast. now i can't wait till the lakes get solid enough to land on.

Good on you! I feel for you and the long wait. Tell me a little about your tail ski. Or even a picture or two. I've talked to several about the use of them and it would seem that there is a split. Some like the drag, others don't. What's your take?
In any case, congratulations!

yellowmaule,

the t/w ski is a wheel penetration ski. it fits over the t/w fork and uses the exsisting tire. although mine is a scott 3200, not a maule t/w.

if it was a straight ski i would have left it off -for ease of ground handling.

i honestly don't have an opinion about having/ not having a t/w ski. i am new at this too. and this is the only combination i have tried. but the wheel penetration ski does offer the best of both scenarios. 3" or so of tire protrudes below the ski for drag. but it still has a ski for flotation. and the tire is a must when pushing it into the hanger.

The "in flight" shot is a beauty. Kudos to the photographer!

the inflight shots were pulled off the home video that was taken. my video camera hooks right to my USB port and makes it as easy as a click to capture an image from the video. pretty poor image quality, but its neat to play with.







i didn't realize the snow was trailing off the skis like this until i watched the video my buddy took. i thought it looked pretty sweet