Things I'm stoked about: Your posts about ski flying and having great fun.
Things I'm not stoked about: You not stopping in for a visit and a beer on your way north...
Haha. Glad they are working out for you man. Keep posting your adventures!

A1Skinner wrote:Things I'm stoked about: Your posts about ski flying and having great fun.
Things I'm not stoked about: You not stopping in for a visit and a beer on your way north...
Haha. Glad they are working out for you man. Keep posting your adventures!

I know I know I know haha.

We ended up flying the trench due to snow storms all over the east side of the mountains, so we bypassed ya. Also had to bypass Zane. Made it from Kentucky to Talkeetna in 32 flight hours over 4 long days. Changed route due to weather but never got delayed or stuck.

asa wrote:

You're getting 120kt indicated?

I was 105kt IAS with 29's before rebuild. Will be curious to see what it is after. Surprised it could be so different.

twofingers wrote:

asa wrote:

You're getting 120kt indicated?

I was 105kt IAS with 29's before rebuild. Will be curious to see what it is after. Surprised it could be so different.

The 300fpm decent might have something to do with that.

StillLearning wrote:

twofingers wrote:

asa wrote:

You're getting 120kt indicated?

I was 105kt IAS with 29's before rebuild. Will be curious to see what it is after. Surprised it could be so different.

The 300fpm decent might have something to do with that.

With the descent, the true airspeed in that pic is about 128 kts, so yes I’m getting about 120 true when level.

I wrapped (faired!) my gear legs in gorilla tape for the trip which got me an honest extra 6 kts. It’s wild it does that much. I estimate that saved me $120 on gas and is a 5000% return on investment. I have told other maule pilots and they see similar results.

But yes, with the duct tape on the extended gear and 850’s, I was doing about 118-120 kts. Without the duct tape fairings, I plan for 105 kts on 31’s/BBW and 114 kts on 850’s and small tailwheel.

I’m planning on semi-permanently fairing my gear legs with aluminum or oratex whenever I get time. 6 kts is a real bonus.

You can sorta see the duct tape in this pic in Whitehorse.

That is really surprising. I stripped the fabric off my cub gear to paint and never put it back on. Now I wonder what its costing me in speed?

I think the Maule sits in a sweet spot where it has lots of drag but also is relatively fast. Since parasitic drag increases by the square of speed, reducing drag gets real gains. Cessnas are faster but have had most of the draggy bits designed out, only thing to be reduced is interference drag which the snider kits do. Big tire cubs are so slow, reducing parasitic doesn’t result in big gains. So if I owned a cub, I probably wouldn’t bother. I cut the tape off when I got to AK.

Good words. Think I'll tape up my gear also for the trip home. CA->NC in a couple of weeks. Can't afford not to!

But to be honest, I do like the way the raw gear looks.

asa wrote:.....I wrapped (faired!) my gear legs in gorilla tape for the trip which got me an honest extra 6 kts. It’s wild it does that much. I estimate that saved me $120 on gas and is a 5000% return on investment. I have told other maule pilots and they see similar results. ...

Nice trick! I never would have thought of that.

asa wrote:The copilot right pedal is firm but pilot is soft so I'm thinking theres air bubbles between the two. Will try to take off the cylinders and bleed it with them strung up vertically. Sure is nice to not have a firewall and boot cowl in place for this kind of work. Thought I had a couple leaks but in reality the only leak was in my brain and a call to Andy Young fixed all that.

Having the same issue with mine, have any advice?

What’s the thing that you’re inreach is attached to? That’s pretty sweet.

twofingers wrote:

asa wrote:The copilot right pedal is firm but pilot is soft so I'm thinking theres air bubbles between the two. Will try to take off the cylinders and bleed it with them strung up vertically. Sure is nice to not have a firewall and boot cowl in place for this kind of work. Thought I had a couple leaks but in reality the only leak was in my brain and a call to Andy Young fixed all that.

Having the same issue with mine, have any advice?

The upper fitting on the copilot cylinders is likely the culprit for air because it’s a high spot. You can suck all the fluid out of the pilot side reservoirs with a syringe, then flow fluid in through the brake caliper bleed fitting really fast. Just try to push the air through the high spot with force basically. The faster you add the fluid the better because you don’t want the little air bubble to keep rising back to the high spot. That’s what’s worked for me. If you’re using one of those little oil squirter cans, it takes on the order of like 200 pumps to fill the reservoir.

Citabrialaska wrote:What’s the thing that you’re inreach is attached to? That’s pretty sweet.

It’s Garmin’s spine mount system. It’s cheap and works perfectly. I bought the RAM spine mount then removed the ball so it’s a spine mount with two holes. Mount that to the panel then get the spine adapter for inreach mini. Full size inreaches have a built in spine system.

RAM spine mount:
https://a.co/d/6865ocA

Inreach mini spine adapter:
https://a.co/d/224bFlH