Few models in recent times have made as much of a stir as the Flight Maia, an electro acoustic baritone ukulele with steel strings, tuned DGBE. With a nice richness from the solid mango top, and a guitar-like jangle from the steel strings, the difference from the majority of ukuleles out there has led to it being much talked about and much in demand.

It has a Double C1U pickup, which is an active unit with a small control panel tucked just inside the soundhole, with volume and tone dials. It is used through an amp through a regular jack lead via the jack socket at the base, which doubles as a strap button. But it’s equally adept as an acoustic instrument too, with a good tone which is at once deep, and cuts through with a steel string sound.

The back and sides are laminate rosewood, and the uke (aside from the back of the neck) has a gloss finish, with a scooped cutaway too, for those adventurous enough to play at the far reaches of the neck. It has a 38mm nut width and a 19” scale, so it sounds guitarlike but definitely feels like a baritone uke.

There are a number of optional add ons at the bottom of this page, including being able to add a second strap button (remember, it has one - the jack socket). It does come with a really good gig bag though, so you can ignore the gig bag option. And the hard case? Well, it’s larger bottom bout means it won’t fit in my standard cases. Also, low G… it has one and a low D in that DGBE tuning. Those extras are standard across all products on the site, but really, there’s not much you need to add here!

The Maia from Flight is strung with a steel core set of 11's with Phosphor Bronze windings on 3 and 4. D’addario EJ26 custom light would be a good replacement set.