I've had really good luck with air drying maple. (someone correct me if I'm wrong please) I think it's max safe moisture content loss per day is like 7% which is significantly higher than something like oak or sycamore, which is right around 3% per day. So I guess what I'm saying is it's a pretty forgiving wood to air dry and similar to air drying walnut or cherry. Only bad thing about maple is it likes to check on the end grain - it needs to be forced with endgrain sealer to loose it's moisture out of the face and not the endgrain. Otherwise it will loose to much out of the end grain and splitting will result. This is true of most woods and sealing with endgrain sealer should be considered a best practice when drying any lumber of value.
U.C coatings sells Ancorseal for $65.00 for a 5 gallon bucket or $32.00 a gallon (that includes shipping via the big brown truck) it's a good investment to have on hand - you know. And besides when you get the 5 gallon bucket the UPS man will ask you what's in the box
Thanks