Starters and tailwheels

Belford D. Maule began designing his first aircraft, the M-1, at the age of 19, and in 1929 served with the US Army’s 19th Airship Company at Langley Field. His first business was not aircraft but parts for them. In 1939 he designed the Hummer engine starter, in 1940 he co-founded Mechanical Products Co. in Napoleon, Michigan, to sell it, and in 1941 he set up the B.D. Maule Co., which made tailwheels and fabric testers. The tailwheel connection would last: most Maule aircraft since have been built as taildraggers or amphibians.

Bee Dee and the Rockets

Design work on a four-seat aircraft began in the 1950s, and the prototype, called the Bee Dee after its designer’s initials, flew in February 1957. The steel-tube, fabric-covered M-4 received its type certificate in 1961 and production began in 1963, with ever more powerful versions called the Rocket, Astro-Rocket and Strata-Rocket. The M-5 Lunar Rocket added short take-off and landing performance, and from the mid-1980s the longer-cabin M-7 family, with piston or turboprop engines, became a favourite of bush pilots for its very low stall speed and tough landing gear.

A family on the flight line

In 1968, with about 250 aircraft delivered, Maule moved from Michigan to Spence Field at Moultrie, Georgia, for better flying weather and lower labour costs. The company stayed in the family. When B.D. Maule died in 1995, his widow June became president; in 2005, at 88, she was still in charge of a workforce of about 80 that included many of their children and grandchildren, and she remained involved in production until her death in 2009 aged 92. Maule delivered 2,500 aircraft in its first 50 years.

Fabrieken

• Napoleon works · Napoleon, Michigan — Original home until 1968
• Spence Field · Moultrie, Georgia — Factory since 1968, on a former air base

Mensen

• Belford D. Maule · founder and designer — 1911–1995; Georgia Aviation Hall of Fame 1992
• June Maule · president from 1995 — Died 2009 aged 92; Georgia Aviation Hall of Fame 1999