Maule: The Family That Builds Bush Planes | History of the Maule STOL Aircraft

How did a farm boy from Ohio, who taught himself to fly in an airplane powered by a motorcycle engine, end up founding one of America's family-owned aircraft factories? From B.D. Maule's starter and steerable tailwheel (1941), through the Bee Dee M-4 certified in 1961, the move to Moultrie, Georgia in 1968, and the M-5, M-6, M-7 and M-9 STOL aircraft, to the MXT-7-180 Star Rocket – and one of them, s/n 14111C, once OK-TOW, now D-ETOW, flying from Elbląg, Poland. Next on Air Ghost: flying D-ETOW. CHAPTERS 0:00 Intro 0:22 The farm boy who built things 1:05 The starter and the tailwheel 2:03 The Bee Dee M-4 3:06 South to Moultrie 3:41 The STOL secret 4:26 M-5, M-6, M-7 – the "Potato Head Factory" 5:27 A family business 6:34 The MXT-7-180 Star Rocket 7:23 D-ETOW 8:09 Credits SOURCES New Georgia Encyclopedia, "Maule Air": https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articl... Maule Air, company history (archived 2010): https://web.archive.org/web/20101217195911... AOPA, "B. D. Maule dies at 83" (1995): https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-ne...) AOPA, "Matriarch of Maule Air dies at 92" (2009): https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-ne... AOPA Pilot, "The golden Maule" (2012): https://aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2... AOPA Pilot, "Pilot Flight Check: The M-5" (1974): https://www.aopa.org/go-fly/aircraft-and-o... Plane & Pilot, "Maule M-4 through M-8": https://planeandpilotmag.com/maule-m-4-thr... EASA Type-Certificate Data Sheet IM.A.018 (Maule M-4 series): https://www.easa.europa.eu/en/downloads/74... NZ CAA Type Acceptance Report 5/21B/1 (Maule series): https://www.aviation.govt.nz/assets/aircra... Maule Air brochure 2025: https://mauleairinc.com/wp-content/uploads... Georgia Trend, "Small Size, Big Values" (2025): https://www.georgiatrend.com/2025/04/30/sm... Forecast International, Maule M/MT-7-420 (2011): https://www.forecastinternational.com/arch... AOPA Aircraft Guide, Maule M-7: https://www.aopa.org/go-fly/aircraft-and-o... Natural Earth (map data, public domain): https://www.naturalearthdata.com/ PHOTOS (Wikimedia Commons): Valder137 (CC BY 2.0); brewbooks from near Seattle, USA (CC BY-SA 2.0); ZLEA (CC BY-SA 4.0); Jerry Gunner from Lincoln, UK (CC BY 2.0); Ahunt (Public domain); SpotterSampa (CC BY-SA 4.0); Alain Rioux (GFDL 1.2); Tomás Del Coro from Las Vegas, Nevada, USA (CC BY-SA 2.0); Intersofia at English Wikipedia (Public domain); Adrian Pingstone (Public domain); Spartan7W (CC BY-SA 3.0); Jeroen Stroes Aviation Photography from Netherlands (CC BY 2.0); RuthAS (CC BY 4.0); DanielPenfield (CC BY-SA 4.0); MKFI (Public domain); Aeroprints.com (CC BY-SA 3.0); Aleksander Markin (CC BY-SA 2.0); Alan Wilson from Stilton, Peterborough, Cambs, UK (CC BY-SA 2.0); Georgiearl47 (CC BY-SA 4.0); Alan Wilson from Peterborough, Cambs, UK (CC BY-SA 2.0); Oscar Elvir Vasquez (GFDL 1.2); Andre Wadman (GFDL 1.2). Full list with links to each file and licence: see the end credits. Photos of D-ETOW: Air Ghost archive. Flight track redrawn from a Garmin log. Narration: synthetic voice. No music. #Maule #MauleAir #STOL #BushPlane #MXT7 #VintageAircraft #GeneralAviation #AviationHistory