Pawnee 235 vs Cessna Bird Dog vs Maule as towplanes

On 2014-08-22 14:10:42 +0000, kirk.stant said:

Note that we are looking at one of the rebuilt Bird Dogs from Air
Repair (http://www.airrepairinc.com/L-19.html), not an older one. Good
Pawnees, on the other hand, are getting harder to find - unless you
rebuild yourself or outsource - and now the costs go up fast.

Looks like a beautiful plane. $165,000 may even be a pretty good price
for what appears to be effectively a brand new aircraft.

Interesting that the useful load is listed as only 800 lbs vs 1500 lb
for the Pawnee.

Of course something on the end of a rope wth its own wings puts
different strains on the aircraft than something internal, but I've
always thought that one reason the Pawnee works well is a dry glass two
seater or a fully ballasted single seater is a similar weight to the ag
loads it was designed to haul.