Hiya all,

Surfing around, I found you yesterday. COOOOL site! What else could I do but at least registering and saying "hi I like the place"? A short introduction of myself could be appropiated now:

Jose, this one writing over here, a guy living and fliyng in Spain. Not much more to say I guess. My plane? a Reims Rocket, nice little 172 skin hiding a 210HP Continental inside and all the fuel produced in Saudi Arabia today scattered all around the plane... around the tanks it has all around I mean!

Alaska is a little, just a little, far away from here, but what the heck I´d love to fly there... and who doesn´t? The closest I´ve ever been was in Canada, during my time building flying a Citabria. What a dream, a tiny semi-aerobatic taildragger, miles and miles of forest below, not a single road, but a megazillion grass runways all around (or at least I took them like that!). I hope I could come back and make of it a life style... what the... I can! Aaah, some day some day

Whatever, enough for an introduction!!

Pleased to meet you ladies and gentlemen!

Jose

Sure I will, just let me take a look at the how-to´s of the site. I don´t have many really, most are videos... in fact, you could find those interesting as are recorded where I mostly fly, in the mountains, some as high as 11,000 Ft, surfing around its peaks. The question is, how the hell do I do that? Well, let´s try some picture and see what happens

As for the Conti, yes, it´s always an interesting experience flying formation with some regular 172 and make fun of its performances hehe. Nice bird this one.

Talking about it, do you know of some Reims Rocket over there? I just knew of the demonstrator plane, and looking at the registers I have access to, there´s no other. How did you let that happen!!?

Yup, Skyhawk XP. Nice airframe, powerplant combination.

Yessir, the closest to a Reims Rocket is the XP, but then, those are de-rated to 195HP, trying to keep tham away from exactly what you said, their own 182!!

My parking neighbour has one, a XP, and these 15 extra HP that look nothing, are enough to over-perform him hehehe. Sorry for being like this, but she´s my little baby and for me she does everything better than the rest of the school kids.

Someone correct me if I´m wrong (I stole your phrase Jr.). Reims got the rights to make Cessnas for Europe (most of the non-jet models plus the 406). Being the 172 the most sold airframe, at some point they thought we needed some powerful 172 because of the mountainous terrain all around, so they went back to something Cessna built for your Air Force, the T-41 Mescalero. That thing had the 210HP Continental and seemed like a pretty good combination for their idea, besides, that was an already studied, developed and tried combination. They never made big numbers, mine is 476 serial number and it was one of the last, I guess due to the 182, but Cessna started to make the XP by that time.

Being almost as powerful as a 182, the Reims Rocket has different wings, greater wing surface, so it really does not perform like a 182, but watching the first and basic data, power, I guess most customers didn´t even give a chance to it. Don´t know why, 20HP less on a smaller engine can save quite a few $$, the MTOW is THE SAME than on a contemporary 182 and the Rocket "floats" better than a 182 while cruises at almost the same speeds (130 KIAS 75% power) with slightly lower fuel burnt and slightly cheaper overhauls. Whatever, sorry for them

I've flown a Hawk XP, awesome airplane. I can only imagine what a 210 HP version is like.

Well, it is like that

Not like having a PT-6 on a Cub I guess, but sure those 210 horses improve the 172 can-do´s well beyond what you spect when you first fly it. I took it from Paris and flew it home without any previous flight on a Rocket and only a short circuit on this one. Of course I didn´t have time to check anything but the functionality of everything, besides, I couldn´t climb because of the "Patrouille de France" making aerobatics over us, so I couldn´t even check its real R of C. When I was filling the flight plan, all in a rush because of the weather coming, I didn´t trust much those 130Kts the old owner gave me as cruise speed because on that circuit it handled much like a regular 172. Holy cr**p!! Once again those Alpha Jets were over me, Paris has a restricted altitude of 2500Ft and the clouds layer were at 2000, so I couldn´t check the climb then either, but I could see the SPEED! The 130 Kts were for real, and flying almost tree-top altitude over an unknown airspace while trying to eye navigate helped much to the sensation. Then, around Poitiers, I found the predicted holes in the sky to climb over the top. Hehehe, that was the time to check its real climbing performances. From 1500 to 8500 in seven minutes while maintaining 100KIAS and only one notch of colw flaps. Goooood! Over there the GPS made a happy boy of me. The 130KIAS were almost 150KTAS, not bad for a 172, huh? And there I was, enjoying that nice view, hands on my noble parts, smoking (can I say smoke? ), contemplating the white peaks of the Pyrenees emerging far away in front of me, the sea, far away at my right and caressing my first airplane while thundering (Learjet owners please don´t speak now) home. Not a bad experience, not at all.

Out of those compliments to my little child, I have my eye on a Maule, a MX-7 180, but I have my doubts. As I can see a Maule in most of the member´s avatars, I think I can find some answers around here and start one of that classic discussions with no end. This is it: I´ve heard from the pilots who flew it before (that and some other Maules, M-7´s and M-5´s), that they perform "funny" at low speeds, funny in a way that scared them. Then, those are pilots used to fly Rallye´s, if you know that plane, and taught to fly taildraggers "Spanish style" as I call it, this is, always having a picture of Mr. Fear on the panel and taught to land ALWAYS three points, whatever the remaining runway, wind or plane, wich makes them get more and more scared as the touch and go´s go by because, of course, not always the conditions suggest you should land that way. Is it really that hard to land a Maule? Does it really handle funny when flying slow? And oh! They say it is a MX-7, but it has 5 seats; wasn´t that the M-7, without the X inbetween?

Oops, too darn late over here! I´m going to read the AIP to see if I can sleep!

The Isham conversion STC bumps the Cont. io360 up to 210 hp by turning the rpm up to around three grand. I'm curious to know what your engine redlines at. --AJ

The prop governor on the 210 hp version is set for 2800 rpm, 2600 rpm for the 195hp version. 195hp avoids high performance sign off and higher insurance cost.

Yup, you´re right again. My red line is in the 2800 and lowering the power just under 200 keeps the plane away from the high performances, at least on the paper. As we don´t have that "high performances" thing over here, the insurance companies don´t have that excuse to charge us a few more €€. The power is higher, so you´ll pay more, but they don´t have that "show me you have 300 hours on high performance planes or you´ll pay two millions for the insurance" excuse... problem is that as they don´t have it, the prices are set around two millions all the time

Rocket,
I have an M-6/235 and have flown most of the later Maule models. The higher power Maules can be a little more demanding, but that is a function of their power to weight ratio and not the airplane I think. They do seem easier to three point, but can be wheel landed as well. The old M-6 with the small ailerons and big flaps suffers from lack of aileron authority at slow speeds and full flaps, but if you follow the POH and use only one notch of flaps for crosswind landings you will have no problem. My early M-6 cruises at 130 knots at 23 squared and will only run 140 kts firewalled, so they are not speed demons, but they will carry quite a load into and out of relatively short fields.
Flight handling is very docile. However high power stalls come at a very high deck angle. That is a function of the high power I believe. The only thing you have to get used to is that on approach at very slow airspeeds there is no energy left for a flare, at slow speeds there is no float at all. A desirable trait I think, but it takes a little getting used to if your coming out of a Cessna. Fly the approach five to ten knots faster and it is just like a Cessna.

Yessiree, that pretty much describes it. VG's help the slow speed handling a lot too.

Good A64 (...Apache?). You took it to a field that I more or less know. That´s STOL light planes handling.I only needed to add the T/D to the equation and you already gave that data too.

What I´ve flown that handles more or less like that, was a Rallye 220. As you write about your M-6-235, the high power stall came with a HIGH angle, in fact, if you pull slowly, you can see how the slats start to deploy when you are near the end of the green arch; keep pulling and they are fully deployed when you are starting to touch out of even the white arch; keep the power high and the joke in the guts and you are flying a helicopter. It simply doesn´t seem to stall. Of course you are falling, so as you describe the landings, if you do a really short one, full flaps, slats fully out and power, there´s no flare at all either. If I don´t like them, the Rallyes, is mostly because they all have spend their entire life towing banners, with awful maintenance and most are "tricked" here or there with home-made solutions. Buying one 20 years ago should have been a different experience, but most of what I´ve seen today have something: an alternator that doesn´t belong to the model, a home-made CHT that tends to burn, radio installation that burns them after 30 minutes on, log books showing half the real hours the engine has, wood made cowling... nope, that´s too much emotion for me, I prefer finding myown problems

By the way, when you say "it can be wheel landed as well", it seems like you write it like needing to add "if you are capable of doing so". For me the wheel landings were easier to the point that I think everybody could perform one of them better than a three point; you come down faster, so you have more time to control the plane on the ground, more authority to play with one wheel landings if needed (or just plain wanted), but then, I didn´t fly a Maule. Are they a dog to land that way? Does one need to be the heir of Bob Hoover to play one wheel landings, changing it to the other, back to the first one... ? That´s what I enjoy better on a T/D and if I´m going to need a genetic intervention to do it on the Maule, I´m not sure I want one

Another LOOOONG message. How the hell do I do that!!?

By Rocket I go wrote: Are they a dog to land that way? Does one need to be the heir of Bob Hoover to play one wheel landings, changing it to the other, back to the first one... ? That´s what I enjoy better on a T/D and if I´m going to need a genetic intervention to do it on the Maule, I´m not sure I want one

Nah, Maules aren't tough to do any of those things in, it just takes a little practice to do them well. I think the angle of incidence of the wing predisposes them to making three pointers the easiest, and the 540 powered Maules are a little heavier in the nose which can cause problems if you're not good on the brakes when doing wheelies for short field ops.

Oh! Another believer of my religion! The less wheels I have to put down at the same time the easier it gets

Those with a huge 540 have a heavier nose, more power to inch-inside-the-throttle and longer blades. Sure, it should be harder. The one catching my eyes has a tiny 360, so that´s not going to be a problem... in case I don´t find the whole plane´s falling appart.

Regarding the three points against the wheel landings (I need to start some discussion to be happy. The funny handling of the Maules didn´t work, so I´ll try this one), the other Maule for sale I checked had a crash due to a three points landing. The guy came in in a cross wind day. Once he was about to touch down, a harder gust inclined the plane and made its nose point to the wind with the resulting sideways touchdown, wingtip scratches and prop strike. He had been landing on the wheels, he´d have had the controls better settled to fight that gust. I know, bad airmanship played an important role in that incident, but one has a softer mattress to fall in if landing on the wheels.

And now an illustrative video. Soldier Meadowns Field, 2003 Maule Fly In. Maybe some of you is on it, in fact, if the blonde girl with the sunglasses is a member of this site, I promise I´ll never leave you!! Marry me!!

http://canuckinvenice.com/Assets/video/Maule2003.mov

There's time and place for both types of landings and ya really should be able to do them both pretty well in most conditions. You can get your ass bit doing both types of landings, and a ground loop doing a wheel landing is usually much more severe than one done while three pointing...and that's all I have to say about that.

I used to have that haircut.

zane wrote:I used to have that haircut.

Threadjack?

Rocket,
I'm retired, retarded? Army aviator. AH-64A&D test pilot.
THe Maule seems to like to three point better than wheel land in my opinion. On the other hand the other tail wheel aircraft I fly quite often is a Thrush Ag plane. You can't three point one of those worth a crap. It's not that I prefer a three pointer, actually I like to wheel land better. Generally I think you three point until your good enough to wheel land. But my Maule seems to prefer a three point

With a title like "Say Hi to Me", anything goes.