April 2nd was probably the last day to play on the ice around here.

^^^^ Wow! Looks like Heaven!

ozy wrote:Nice Diana, thankyou for the post.
To all who go to the considerable effort to create these clips as a labour of love, to give us all a look into their aviation lives ,
" thankyou!"
Maybe we could have a best video for the season; spring, summer, autumn (fall),winter, comp. The winner gets a pullover or cap from BCP, just a thought because there is considerable talent displayed on the site.
John

excellent idea! mabye voting?

People who make video's have different styles, and viewers also have different likes. I think they are ALL excellent - so all video makers get a cap? Zane?

The first of the high country strips are opening up around here.

Stunning scenery, what a beautiful place to live. Thanks S12

test

I hesitate to post this Trip Report, because it was about as far from backcountry as you can get. I flew my Maule to Sun-N-Fun with a stop in Moultrie so Maule Flight could do my annual. I had good tailwinds on the trip to Moultrie, so the GARMIN said my MX7-180 was doing 147 kts over the ground. Now that is nice to have. Too bad we can't order the winds we want for each trip.



The annual in Moultrie went well and was completed in a day and a half. No major issues, but I do have some baffle flaps that must be too short because they flip back and open air leaks when flying. I didn't discover that problem until after I left Moultrie. Sigh.



Flying from Moultrie to Lakeland, FL took me over some really inhospitable swamps - like Georgia's Okefenokee. That swamp extends across the horizon - This is when the engine goes to auto rough and each creak gets your attention!


Arrival into SNF was a piece of cake, there was only 1 other plane in the pattern with me. I had to land long, and that is not what Maules were made for, but the plane agreed to do it once. I had to taxi for almost as long as my flight, but I wound up parked right at the approach end of 9R, right under all the arriving show planes. Here is an F-22, and then an F18 coming in to land with my wingtip in the picture!



There were a couple of fat tire homebuilts on display and Maule had a booth, but they didn't bring an M9 so I didn't take any pictures of Ray, Susan or Brent.





Here I am having my morning coffee. An M7-235C was parked just 4 spots away from me, and a fellow in a Cherokee 6 said he had to leave his Maule at home because of fabric problems. I spent some time with soyAnarchisto and learned a bit about his cub and flying in the higher elevations of Colorado. As much fun as the hardware was to look at, it is the people that make these events so special and there were some great folks I shared tall tales with over meals and drinks. I'd go again in a heartbeat, even though this trip took over 16 hours of flight time.


Since it was an airshow, here is the obligatory shot of a cool plane (a Beech 18) trailing smoke during an acro routine

Nice radio stack and airplane dude! Are both the CDIs coupled to the Garmin 430? Clean.

Edit: Ray is really nice! He flew me around when I was at the factory.

Hey 8GCBC - One CDI is coupled to the 430, the other is coupled to the Apollo radio. That gives me some redundancy. Ray is a great guy - heck, the whole family is great, but compared to the other manufacturers on field, they seem to lack marketing mojo. Every time I stopped to look at planes from another manufacturer, someone came out to chat with me about the kind of flying I do and where I live and whether I had any questions about their planes. The Maule family ran a very passive booth by comparison. No flashy videos of what the Maule can do, no catchy graphics, and the plane on display was not their latest and greatest creation. Not everybody wants a hard sell, but I worry that in a tight market Maules aren't being pushed as hard as necessary to complete. I really want the Maule brand to succeed, but the folks at Legend cubs gave me a margarita, and wanted to talk about what their planes can do even though I was wearing a Maule hat. Designing and building great planes may not be enough to compete in a tight market. I hope I'm wrong...

Yeah the factory mojo is low at Maule now. Seems they lost interest in Dad's bird. Hope they weather the doldrums at get the boat sailing in the trades again!

I did not see the Apollo radio! Sorry for the dumb question!

Fly strong Mr. Hound!

Spring is coming (finally!!), sunlight was reflecting water on the ice last evening while heading home:

Here's a composite video of my trip to Sun-N-Fun. It duplicates some of the stuff in the still pictures I posted earlier. Sorry about that. I'm betting that practice with video editing software will be like practicing with the plane. Hopefully my video editing learning curve will be shorter than my Maule handling learning curve. I really love how easy it is to remove the back seat in the Maule, and how much stuff you can pack in with that massive open space! What a plane!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToTw9v2miII

A flight down to Utah, up a canyon to check out an upcoming solar water pumping gig. I sure like it when the terrain starts to match my paint scheme!

Beautiful video and great music selection.

Didn't wanna hijack the other flying job thread anymore but thanks all u guys for the good luck wishes etc.

It's so dang cool to finally be done with all the hoop jumping and actually be flyin these Turbine Thrushes now. Here's some shots from this afternoon flying the S2R. It's powered by a garret -6 roughly 800HP. Like nothin else I've flown, really fun



And a big thanks to all u BCP guys for posting all ur experiences on here over the years. I started lurking here before I even got my ticket or bought my 180 just over 3 years ago. So many pilots/instructors tried to talk me outta starting out in tailwheel an especially a 180. Luckily, there is a site like this that helped me realize that I could do it and to follow my dreams!!!

seriously awesome mate! talk about living the dream!

Flew to Dulles today. Now I'm sitting here waiting on a flight that's been delayed three times. I smell a cancellation coming.

This was a number of years ago, but just remembered this flight of some Cubs and 170B to the hunting shack at the farm. Time so quickly passes...

DrifterDriver wrote:seriously awesome mate! talk about living the dream!

Yeah, what he said!
I always imagined those spray planes would be about as close to a warbird/ dogfight feeling as you could get nowadays. And get paid to do it!
-DP

Super cool, Skaly!