Piper PA-18-150 Super Cub

fully in one direction. The only thing to do is land, immediately, with the controls crossed and the banner dragging along behind. Once the pick-up has been made, the tow is flown at 43 to 52 knots (50 to 60 mph) on about 75-percent power. Any faster and the letters and numbers will disintegrate, or the banner may break and flutter down onto a packed beach; any slower and you risk a stall, which can be disastrous. The banner can be released, but there is little time and altitude to recover. In addition to tom banners and a narrow perfor- mance envelope, the biggest threats are birds, kites, blimps (Goodyear bases one of its blimps in Fort Lauderdale), low-flying sightseeing pilots, pop-up thunderstorms and an on-shore breeze that ricochets off beachfront high-rises and buffets the banner. 70. JULY 1986 , A gentlemen's agreement among pilots holds that the banner mes- sages are arranged so they can be read from the beach as the aircraft fly north. The pilots fly a racetrack pattern, hugging the coast on the northbound leg and staying offshore on the return. Occasionally someone will have a backwards banner and must fly south. This can lead to a test of nerves between converging pilots, as each jockeys for the prime inside position. John S. Bergeson, who describes himself as a 19-year-old airline hopeful, also tows banners in a grizzled, multi-thousand-hour Super Cub, building time by flying for Benz Aviation of Ionia, Michigan. Bergeson also has logged much time in the J-3. (He is the son of John B. Bergeson, president of the Cub Club, Post Office Box 2002, Mount Pleasant, Michigan 48858.) How does Bergeson compare the two aircraft? "The J-3 is delightful. It is lighter, and weight makes a tre- mendous difference in the flying qualities. The Super Cub doesn't fly as daintily, but you have better control because there is more power. The front seat is much more comfortable, and you can see out the nose a lot better." The Super Cub is Bergeson's vocation, the J-3 his avoca- tion. If the J-3 can be characterized as a grand old lady-Bergeson's description-then the Super Cub is a career woman. -MRT Powerplant Length Wing span Wing area Empty weight Gross weight Maximum speed Cruise speed Rate of climb Service ceiling Range Super Cub options included an elec- trical system, Edo floats, Federal skis and an agricultural spray rig. Piper even offered a bizarre four-wheel Whitaker main landing gear-that looked like a set of training wheels-for operating out of extremely soft, rocky or uneven ter- rain. Alaskan bush pilots have proven to be among the most creative Super Cub modifiers. Many of the dozens of modi- fications that have been developed for the Super Cub, such as huge 36-inch low-pressure tundra tires, enlarged bag- gage compartment, constant-speed pro- peller and 180-horsepower engine, orig- inated in Alaska. The Super Cub initially could be bought for $3,595 with the Continental C-90, or $2,995 with a 105-hp Lycoming 0-235. The 90-horsepower Super Cub was in production until 1963. The last one was bought by a Piper employee. The 0-235 was offered for only one year, then was dropped in favor of a 125-hp Lycoming 0-290. In 1951 Piper also doubled the Super Cub's fuel ca- pacity by adding a second 18-gallon wing tank, and added flaps and a bal- anced elevator. (The 90-horsepower version was not offered with flaps or the second wing tank.) In November 1950 Piper distributed a photograph that showed a 125-horsepower Super Cub with two people aboard taking off from Flushing Airport in Flushing, New York. 72· JULY 1986 URSA MAJOR The pilot began the takeoff roll with the flaps stowed, then dropped full flaps af- ter traveling about 50 feet. At the 100- foot mark on the runway, the Super Cub was airborne. In 1952 Piper offered a 135-hp Super Cub, and in 1955 the PA- 18-150 was introduced. The 150-hp Lycoming 0-320-A2A engine and Super Cub airframe proved to be a good match. Gross weight in- creased to 1,750 pounds for a useful load of 820 pounds, just 110 pounds shy of the empty weight. Even with a 200- pound pilot and a full load of fuel, 400 pounds of payload remained. Piper in- creased the number of ribs in each wing from 13 to 16 and increased the wall thickness in the structural tubing to sup- port the higher gross weight. The big Lycoming gave the Super Cub takeoff and climb performance just short of spectacular. With flaps extended, the takeoff roll at gross weight is 200 feet, and the landing roll is 350 feet. The Su- per Cub will climb at just under 1,000 feet per minute fully loaded. Piper built nearly 8,500 Super Cubs in 34 years, including 2,650 A-models with chemical spray tanks substituted for the rear seat. The price climbed steadily, with the increase averaging about $1,000 annually. Then, between 1975 and 1976, the base rose from $15,920 to 1958 Piper PA-18 Super Cub $18,580. Four years later, it had zoomed to $27,110. Production plummeted from 200 units in 1979 to 61 the following year. In September 1981, WTA, Incor- porated, in Lubbock, Texas, a distributor of Super Cubs and Piper's two agplanes, the Pawnee and Brave, bought Piper's existing inventory of Braves and Super Cubs. WTA had arranged with Piper to be the exclusive worldwide distributor of the Super Cub and Brave. The Super Cubs were sold within a year, and WTA ordered a batch of 50 new aircraft. Most of those were sold within the next year despite a retail price of $47,000 each, which included electrical and vacuum systems, radios, a night lighting pack- age, emergency locator transmitter, large tailwheel and stainless steel con- trol cables. The last Super Cubs were delivered in early 1983. WTA, which has first refusal rights to purchase the PA-18 type certifi- cates and tooling, made an offer, but Piper insisted that the new owner carry $100-million worth of product liability insurance to cover all the Super Cubs that had been sold since 1950. No agree- ment was reached. WTA believes there is a worldwide annual market for about 100 Super Cubs and still maintains the hope of either going into production or convincing Piper to build more on its own. The Super Cub tooling is in storage in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. 0 Piper PA-18-ISO Price (1955): $6,595 Lycoming 0-320, 150 hp 22 ft 7 in 35 ft 2.5 in 178.5 sq ft 9301b 1,7501b 113 kt 100 kt 960 fpm 19,000 ft 400 nm (36 gal) ,-. I I