Fellow Maule Fans

Below check out some photos of my recently completed Maule M-5. This is a .40 size kit from the now defunct Powerplanes International (Wales, UK.) This plane was kitted by PI in the late 1980's (?) into the mid 1990's. I saw the kit in Ireland in 1994 or so, but couldn't bring it home at that time. A visit to the same Dublin hobby shop a couple of years later while on vacation found that the kit was no longer available. After searching for YEARS for a kit, one finally came up on eBay a year or so ago. It was in the Channel Islands of all places, but I bought it and received it quickly (with surprisingly inexpensive postage.)

This was a nice kit - simple construction, sheeted foam wings, nice molded windows, and really good wood. The cowling was vacuformed, and was REALLY thin. I used it to make a plaster mold, from which I pulled a nice, sturdy fiberglass cowling. This was my first experience with plaster molding. It took some practice, but the end results were very good. The other change I made was fabrication of aluminum landing gear to replace the 5/32 wire unit supplied. I built the gear in my engineering lab at work. It reasonably replicates the spring steel (optional) gear available on full size Maule aircraft.

Specs are as follows:

Wingspan: 66 in.
Wing area: 750 sq. in.
Weight :8 lb. 0 oz.
Wing loading 24.6 oz./ft. sq.
Engine: OS .56 alpha four stroke (nice engine!)
Radio: Standard JR fare, 4 channels.
Covering: Monokote on wing, Solartex and Coverite on fuselage.
Paint (fuselage): three coats nitrate dope, sand, spray three coats of clear Behr latex high gloss house paint. Same type paint for stripes and on leading edge of wing, three coats also. Clear coat all painted surfaces with acrylic enamel DupliColor gloss clear. This clear coat is good fuel proof at 15% nitro. Only disappointment was slightly yellow tinge to the clearcoat.

The paint scheme duplicates typical contemporary full size Maules.

This was also my first try at water slide decals. I used Papillon clear decal stock, downloaded the Maule insignias, prop decals, and N numbers from various online resources, then printed on my HP inkjet printer. I coated the decals with a couple of coats of the DupliColor clear that I put over the whole plane. After some practice, produce good results. Applied decals and then clear coted entire plane. The N numbers were from a font I downloaded from the internet free.

Do any of you now or in the past have experience with this kit/airplane?? I would like to know your thoughts and recollections!