Hey folks,

How is the Top Cub on Aerocet 2200s? Looking for a two seater with a good useful load but still fun to fly, and this seems like it would fit the bill. Any engine cooling issues?

I have experience in a Skywagon on straight floats, and a Top Cub on land.

Bruce

Super useful plane. I wouldn’t say it was that fun to fly on the stick, but I think that’s the case with a lot of planes on floats when comparing to their wheeled counterparts…

I think that would be a fantastic float plane. Depending on your empty weight and gross weight it could haul a good load. It would be a blast to fly.

Kurt

The Top Cub has a GW of 2300 pounds. They do tend to run kind of heavy, compared to Super Cubs....1300 plus on wheels, so over 1400 on straight floats, most likely.

Some funky things....unless it's a really recent build or been converted, not approved for night or IFR......go figure.

If you've flown one on wheels, you've likely got a pretty good idea about the plane. Works fine on floats in any case.

MTV

Not approved for night? Whiskey tango fox

For the price of some of those cub clones they should damn near be approved for space travel lol

Cub Crafters may have got in a hurry to get the Top Cub approved. Bear in mind that they'd been building "Super Cubs" (and highly modified ones at that) without Piper's permission for a while when the FAA told them they needed to get a TC.

They did, but it didn't include night or IFR certification.

After someone noticed, CC announced that they would get your (already built) Top Cub night legal if you brought it to Yakima and left it, along with a significant chunk of change while they did the mods.

I have no idea whether anyone did that or not, or whether they've built any Top Cubs since they sold the TC.

MTV

mtv wrote:Cub Crafters may have got in a hurry to get the Top Cub approved. Bear in mind that they'd been building "Super Cubs" (and highly modified ones at that) without Piper's permission for a while when the FAA told them they needed to get a TC.

They did, but it didn't include night or IFR certification.

After someone noticed, CC announced that they would get your (already built) Top Cub night legal if you brought it to Yakima and left it, along with a significant chunk of change while they did the mods.

I have no idea whether anyone did that or not, or whether they've built any Top Cubs since they sold the TC.

MTV

Any idea what the "mods" are, isn't basic lighting a FAR requirement even for DVFR. Other than internal cockpit what would/could be required. Any modern digital instrument already has what would be require for it's internal lighting I imagine.

A plane that can’t fly at night, so that’s almost like a fat ultralight lol


Personally I don’t get why piper doesn’t make the PA18/J3 anymore, huge market for it, yet they brought that sport cruiser atrocity to market, seems odd everyone makes money on Piper cubs…except Piper

Piper doesn't build Cubs largely because they left ALL the "stuff" it takes to make tube and fabric airplanes, including the people who knew how to do that, behind when they moved to Florida. It is too bad, but there's absolutely nothing left of the Cub in their wheel house except the TC.

As to night certification, turns out there's a lot more to it, thanks to the FAA, than one would think. CC listed a long series of mostly testing that has to be done for certification. Frankly, I thought they had all the required pieces on board already, but apparently not.

MTV