I've been avoiding this posting for a week now, but I can't keep the truth from you guys any longer. My Maule is for sale again. It's for a lot of reasons, but it comes down to the fact that it's too expensive. So I bought into a Pitts S2B instead. Believe it or not the Pitts is cheaper.
I'm sad about missing flyin's and such, but with a wife that doesn't camp, and a baby just weeks away, those things are not gonna happen. For awhile anyway. I hope you will tolerate a wanna be acro guy throwing screwball ideas around here from time to time.

Seems like most guys are forced to sell their aircraft through divorces. Probably due to the fact the guys start spending more money and time on their aircraft than on their wives.

Can't be all bad...your still airborne.

Do Alaskan Bushwheels have an STC for the Pitts S2B?

As long as you have a second seat in the thing and take me for a ride. I want to learn the upside down thing. Good for you and the new baby and good for you for finding a way to keep flying. We will still acknowledge you when you show up for the get togethers.
Keep flyin', your family may catch up.
The rest of us will have an opportunity to tease you about your "training" wings!
Kurt

Sorry to hear the Maule must go! Your priorities are right on, however. Family first. T-minus 2 weeks and counting for us!...

Matt

speedbump wrote: So I bought into a Pitts S2B instead. Believe it or not the Pitts is cheaper...
I hope you will tolerate a wanna be acro guy throwing screwball ideas around here from time to time.

Jeff, we can't fault you for doing right by your family and getting rid of that money-sucking Maule, but a Pitts S2B????? My balls tingle at the mere mention of it. My acro instructor has one and it frightens me. I prefer the Decathlon.

Well, I hope you show up to a fly-in with that thing so we can take turns sitting in it and taking photos like some Japanese tourists. No reason to go running off and ditch your BCP buddies...at least it's a taildragger.

Thanks for the kind words fellas, it means a lot.
There's a little more to the story.
Maybe it will help explain the switch.
What I love to do is go out and look for places that no one else has ever landed. In the desert there are thousands of such places. The problem for me is that it's hard to find other folks who want to do the same, and landing in some 500ft wash 100nm from home without someone overhead seems kind of dumb. I bought that silly helmet and survival vest in an attempt to make myself feel better about it. It didn't work, the desert is too big, and you have to be awake to activate PLB's. (I don't trust ELT's at all.)
I also couldn't reconcile the feeling that at some point I'd bend this expensive plane. A new prop for a Super Cub is a couple thousand bucks, a new Maule prop is more like ten thousand, and insurance companies don't like to pay when you're doing first landings.
So, for now, I'm done. Maybe in a few years when my daughter is old enough to start camping, I'll get back into this. I'll buy a nice PA-12 and we'll fly to Red Creek for lunch on Saturdays.
As for the Pitts, when I fly everybody knows where I'm going, (the box), If I really screw up, I can bail out, and all my mistakes will be made way up high as opposed to near hard things. I my fragile little mind, it seems safer.

What are the specs and price on the Maule? Is it in TAP or Barnstormers?
Keith

My plane is listed on both Trade a Plane and Barnstormers. It is a 1986 MX-7-235, I completed the airframe restoration last year, and ran out of juice before I could overhaul the engine. Please PM me and I'll give you my contact info.
Jeff