This is absolutely a personal, subjective opinion and has nothing to do with how the thing may play, which I obviously cannot know at present, but that is one UGLY flute! I love maple/sycamore as a timber for its looks, so that is not my objection, and it is an excellent tone-wood for recorders. I just don’t like the lines of it - it really does look like a chair-leg!
Can’t give a precise answer, however it is common
practice to soak maple used for woodwinds in tung oil,
(R .Sweet does this) or permeate it with wax.
So one can make a pretty porous wood impermeable
to moisture. The Maple sweets sound quite good,
in fact, as do the cherrywood flutes.
Here I thought someone was finally being a great philanthropist and aiding fledgling Irish flute players by offering a competent conically bored wooden instrument for under $200! This could’ve been the start of a whole new trend. With the declining prices and corresponding increasing of demand. The great snowball effect could ultimately lead to Irish flutes becoming more common place than computers. Think of the possibilities…
I could see the Great Bright Tomorrow, when all American school children would learn to play Irish flute in school and the world would reel to their exuberant pure and youthful arias. Instead of vainly seeking acoustical shelter from the ceaseless petulant squawking and squealing of their tortuous plastic fipple weapons.
Oh what great clouds of gloom and despair have obscured my bask in the warm rays of Idealism. Now it rains upon my parade.. Oh woe is me! (Well, not really too woeful.)
Soprano and alto recorders and penny whistles are for kids. Children can learn to play a simple tune quite easily. Small flutes and fifes are probably not the best for children because they take a more developed embouchure and are harder to play.
I have a Weiss (West German) maple alto recorder. When I purchased it second-hand years ago, most of the wax used to impregnate the wood had bled to the surface and was a big mess. I scrapped off the wax and used varnish remover to get down to the bare wood. I think that the oiled, natural wood maple is attractive, although it appears darker than the Tony Dixon maple flute.
I was curious to see what the new price was for the flute in question. I couldn’t find any mention of wooden flutes made by the craftsmen at Tony Dixon’s shop. With the current exhange rate between Euros, pounds sterling and US dollars, instruments made or sold in the USA are an excellent value in Europe, whereas the opposite is true the other way around.
I thought that, but then you have to add import duty, VAT and shipping costs. Once you do that, the price for a flute imported from the USA and one of equivalent quality from a UK maker is pretty much the same.
Finally a competent inexpensive flute to start on. Kudos to Tony Dixon! 
