Hi folks,

A friend is looking at getting an M7-235 for a commercial operation. I have no experience with Maules - I have seen one a few times and its performance was not that impressive, although after reading a bit about them I suspect it was operated well overweight.

The numbers from Maule (1600 lbs empty, 2500 gross) indicate it would be a tight fit to legally haul the loads he needs to in a stock M7. He will need bigger tires and is leaning towards 4" extended gear and 31" ABWs (=weight). His mission is to haul two men in addition to the pilot (180 lbs each), 150-200 lbs of cargo, and fuel for 1.5 to 2 hours.

With real weights is an M7 a reasonable choice for this job?

At gross weight, what is a realistic (ie repeatable, with pilots of various skill) take off run from grass runways that may have some bumps/dips? I am guessing around a 450-500' ground roll since Maule says the M9-235 needs 406' (off pavement) at 2800 lbs.

The plane he is looking at comes with floats as well, no word what type. I see there is a 2750 lb gross weight on any floats. Do the float options tend to weigh more or less than the 250 lb weight increase (ie would the same load fit if operating on floats)?

There is a M7-260 option. I think it uses an IO-540.

The Maules come pretty well-finished and outfitted from the factory. It would be easy to get the empty weight down, but that's a project.

I have a customer with on. It's on 4" extended gear and 35s. It has a useful load of 800lbs. The factory markets it as a 5 place aircraft, but they didnt like it much when I asked them how a plane with 800lbs useful is supposed to be a 5 person aircraft.
The plane works well, is easy to load and unload. Working on them can be a bit of a pain, and I've had terrible experiences with customer service for parts and returns. If you are in Canada, the lack of STCs can end up costing a lot if you want to do common upgrades.
YMMV.

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Have him contact Isaac at this flight service:

https://www.godscountryaviation.com

Isaac has been operating a Maule M7 for a number of years and can tell you real world numbers and what can be expected. He just replaced his old M7 with a factory new M7 that was built to his specs. Competed at Valdez with it and did well in his class.

DeltaRomeo wrote:Have him contact Isaac at this flight service:

https://www.godscountryaviation.com

Isaac has been operating a Maule M7 for a number of years and can tell you real world numbers and what can be expected. He just replaced his old M7 with a factory new M7 that was built to his specs. Competed at Valdez with it and did well in his class.

+1

Also, look up the God’s Country Aviation Facebook page. There are lots of videos that show pretty clearly what a well flown Maule is capable of.

A 800 lb useful load would just work for most of the desired job. I guess I will suggest he keeps an eye on the weight and/or cuts some off somewhere.

There are not a lot of M-7s in Canada (30) and my friend does not want to deal with importing one (especially if common mods are not STC'd, since 337s are not acceptable). There is a decent M-7 for sale and we know of another one that might be available, both -235s, so that is the main reason for the choice. More power is always nice, but in this case a little more fuel burn and engine weight might be an issue (while staying legal). An M-9-260 would probably be the best choice, but it doesn't look like there are any M-9s in Canada and he definitely won't be buying new.

Marc wrote:A 800 lb useful load would just work for most of the desired job. I guess I will suggest he keeps an eye on the weight and/or cuts some off somewhere.

There are not a lot of M-7s in Canada (30) and my friend does not want to deal with importing one (especially if common mods are not STC'd, since 337s are not acceptable). There is a decent M-7 for sale and we know of another one that might be available, both -235s, so that is the main reason for the choice. More power is always nice, but in this case a little more fuel burn and engine weight might be an issue (while staying legal). An M-9-260 would probably be the best choice, but it doesn't look like there are any M-9s in Canada and he definitely won't be buying new.

Importing isnt bad if the plane doesn't have to many mods. Probably the biggest mod that most guys want and isn't STC'd up here is th MT prop. Bring another 3-4k for a LSTC to install an already expensive prop. Bushwheels and extended gear are STCd so no worries there.
Ideally buy one with lifetime struts so you dont have the strut AD to deal with, not a deal breaker but still nice to not have to pull the struts every couple years.
Theres a couple up in Fort Saint John, I think at least one of them is for sale.

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Probably would be a good idea to give Wup a call. He would be my go-to Maule guy.

http://www.backcountryconnection.com/

A1Skinner wrote: I've had terrible experiences with customer service for parts and returns.

My experience was the same. Until this year.

The previous parts person is no longer with the company and the new one seems much more on her game.

rw2 wrote:

A1Skinner wrote: I've had terrible experiences with customer service for parts and returns.

My experience was the same. Until this year.

The previous parts person is no longer with the company and the new one seems much more on her game.

It was only partially the parts peoples fault. Kasey was great to deal with. It was Brent the owner who was brutal to deal with. In reality I think they were to busy trying to build the new M7 for Gods country and pimping it around to worry about anyone else. I found him to be very unprofessional. I understand that you have to sell new airplanes, but treating existing customers so poorly is going to catch up with them...
As I said, YMMV, I'm just sharing my experiences.

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Hi Marc. I operate a 2018 M7 235 commercially in Alaska. It weighs 1540 on 31” bushwheels and extended gear but I run it on 35” bushwheels at 1,570 lbs empty.

I routinely run me and two passengers with a all of their caming gear in and out of 200-400 foot off airport landing sites.

I would avoid the M9 if off airport ops are important to you or your friend. The M9 is too heavy and the gear is too stiff.

Isaac

Looking at Isaac's post the weights make sense.

I have a M5-235 C at 1516 empty wt. 2500 gw. and has full IFR and have done nothing to lighten it up. I know from experience that getting it off the ground at full max weight in a reasonable distance is not a problem. The extra wing length with the M7 would yield even better take off and landing performance.

TD

It sounds like the weight shouldn't be a huge issue, or he may need to go on a weight removal program. He is looking to get into 4-500' strips, so again it sounds like it will work well. Hopefully there are no hidden surprises in the one he is looking at.

I believe the Maule M7-235B has the best useful load, stock, of the M7 series. At 895Lbs useful load, you're obviously not gonna be hauling the whole household in the aircraft. However, the aircraft I believe can be STCd for 1100lbs max gross. In terms of rotation at max gross... I have heard at 600ft, the maule " floats " off the runway. Vso is about 35KIAS, and, at 10gph, you should be seeing about 110KIAS, and cruise @12gph claims 158KTAS. From this information, I would make a safe assumption that 450ft at 900-1100lbs of payload, might be realistic with a good amount of skill, until you add 50ft objects and high altitude into the mix. there is a 260HP version of this aircraft which I believe runs a Lyc. I/O 540 Injected. It's gonna be a little more thirsty for fuel, at 14gph@162KIAS, and you'll also see a tad bit less useful load, and the landing roll is gonna be a bit longer.
Hope this helped

You might want to take Isaac’s landing and take off figures with a grain of salt. He and his family have a long history of off airport flying and I believe he took his class in that plane at Valdez last year.
Kind a like when Magic Johnson tells you layups are easy .

Turns out the Maule ended up on floats for the time being. So far no major questions about the airframe, everything is straight forward although the fuel system venting fuel overboard when full and standing on a float is annoying.

I was curious which belly fuel drain at the left step went to which side?

I have some questions about the IO-540 (W, although I imagine they are all essentially the same). What power settings do you like and what fuel flows were you getting? Based at 1,500', generally cruising from 5,500'-7,500', and departing lakes from 4-5,000'.

The engine operating handbook says 2000 RPM/65% power for economy cruise (10 gph); 2200RPM/75% power for performance cruise (12.5 gph); and a local with Maule time always ran at 2400 RPM, so plenty of options.

The engine stutters and starts dying at the same time that it finds peak EGT. Is this typical of IO-540s (or perhaps an engine monitor issue)?

I can agree with goldinthecreek about that last statement. Isaac Bedingfield is one of the best pilots I’ve ever flown with.