What's the deal with the Carbon Cub

[Esser]

I was just talking with a friend who was interested in the Carbon Cub and I have to ask myself, what is the big deal with this ridiculously expensive plane? The Kitfox beats it in almost every category except takeoff distance. Landing distance is within 50'.

The kitfox weighs less, has more baggage area/weight availability, and is 25mph faster.

It climbs faster but with John's prelim testing on the 180hp kitfox, it looks like when you have the same engine as the Carbon Cub it beats it at climb too.

The carbon cub takes of in 60' but that is useless when you need 250' to land.

With the Kitfox STOL wing you can go the same speed as the CC and land shorter than it, and take off almost as short as it (within 40')

Am I missing something of why people are shelling out 200K for this plane?


Edit, I was looking at the LSA model But still the regular one just does what a kitfox does....

[PapuaPilot]

Shh, don't let the secret out. John McBean and the KF team at Homedale are already very busy.

I don't get it either, but it reinforces why I got a Kitfox.

For around $250,000 you can get the Carbon Cub on Aerocet amphibious floats, fun yes but a quarter grand . . .
For about 25-30% of that you can build a similarly equipped Kitfox SS7.

[jmodguy]

And reinforces why I am going with an IO-340!

I think Phil means a quarter mil...! That is butt ton of $$ for a cub. Don't care what you put in it.

[PapuaPilot]

Like I said, a quarter mil . . . it was late last night.

[Norm]

The Carbon Cub has slightly nicer flight characteristics to some. They say it tracks nicer with less input control. (probably due to the longer tail) Some prefer the tandem seating because of the great view to either side. (not so nice for the passenger) Elbow room in a Carbon Cub is better than a KitFox because your not sharing it with a passenger. But then sitting next to your passenger (Co-Pilot) is nicer. The controls on the Carbon Cub are far heavier than the KitFox. As for Stol performance, most of us seldom get good enough to really use the full Stol capabilities of either plane. The Kitfox with a good 912 and maybe a Zipper kit or a Turbo may perform nicer than a Carbon. Notice I said nicer not better. A bird light on it's feet will feel easier to get airborne and get back on the ground.
One of our club members built a Highlander Stol and within months of finishing it he put it up for sale and is now building a Carbon cub. He said the Stol was too much work to fly in turbulant air. This guy is a builder. He built the Stol and is now finishing the Cub in the time my KitFox has been in my shop. (Has also built an Avid, and RV9 and an RV10 over the last ten years.)
Most of us here find it hard to understand why someone would spend the money on a Carbon cub or the reason's someone would. I would not. I am just pointing out a couple of reasons some do. Does not add up to me either.

[DesertFox6]

I don't understand it either. I believe the attraction to these planes is analogous to most modern car comparisons; they all look like genteel jogging shoes in profile to the point I can't tell one from the other. I don't know how they can survive in competition because they all invoke the same visceral reaction I get while watching paint dry. And yet they're selling along with enough web-based digital doohickeys to insure that driving-while-distracted will remain a national epidemic. I don't care what the Cub Crafter ads say, there's a universal, divinely-directed, limit to the top speed of anything even remotely looking like a Cub regardless of what's hanging on the engine mounts and that includes warp-drive technology ala Star Trek...whenever Lockheed gets around to inventing it. Seldom do cruise speeds of three digits mar a Cub's airspeed indicator. So there.

Having flown some Cub Crafter planes, to include the Carbon Cub and their S2 Sport Cub, a modern J-3 Cub (kinda) look-alike, I'd have some serious misgivings about owning one for myself. I found them both to be more of a one-person-only sport-plane due to severe weight constraints caused by very high empty weights. As a tandem-tailwheel instructor I immediately crossed them both off my list due to the back seat; it was a canvas or ballistic nylon hammock/sling contraption that flew directly in the face of the highly touted super-engineered-for-safety FRONT seat! Great! My student will survive the crash in his twenty-leben "G" rated seat while I'm already wrapped in my own custom-adjustable-strap equipped canvas body bag! I did like the placement of the flap handle though, so they had that going for them.

Following the Cub Crafter Forum threads a few years ago, there were some seriously irked Carbon Cub owners complaining of getting stranded out in the boonies when their batteries failed to re-start the machine. It seemed that any lower-than-some-unknown (at the time) battery charge value resulted in failure to start, as much of the remaining amperage was lost in the 8-Guage starter wire's resistance running from its home under the front pilot seat to the starter solenoid sited in a whole 'nuther area code. Again, weight and balance issues dictated the zoning laws for the battery's remotely-sited home, so many of the Carbon Cub faithful took to carrying an additional batter to insure they'd have enough oomph to get home. Howzzat for weight-saving LSA considerations? Did I mention they were rather irked?

At the time, General Manager Randy LeVold, now Cub Crafter president, acknowledged the problem and kept looking for solutions which many in the field felt lay with lightweight Lithium Ion (and similar) batteries. Randy wisely reminded them of such batteries' previous headline-grabbing escapades causing in-flight fires, the loss of a 747 and a ground fire on a new 787 among the reasons he wasn't going to buy into the lithium-lovers' arguments. "Remember where that battery is sitting" was good enough for most! I hope they've gotten past this problem by now; they've got a great company and a flawless reputation in the Super-Cub restoration field!

Add to this mix the fact that the Cub Crafters' homepage makes plenty of caveats (max 903 lb. empty weight!) about what pilots need to do to abide by the LSA rules and you'll probably come to understand why those who aren't interested in building are drawn to the Carbon Cub SS's "mystique" of the bush pilot aura while offering a city-sedan sensibility. People who aren't interested in actually racing stock cars will buy Shelby Cobra Mustangs for the same reason. And that's okay.

Bottom line: People in Yakima, Washington need to eat too; your gut reaction is always correct...for you...honor it by building and flying your Kitfox and enjoy the Kitfox Krowd on the happiest, best-represented builders' website know to Foxkind!

"E.T."
We might havta check with DF4 here, but I think Randy LeVold originally had something to do with the design of this website!

[WWhunter]

I concur with Desertfox6. I actually looked at buying a Carbon Cub a few years ago, but to fly it under LSA, it is extremely limited (legally). The plane is stout though, and built to a much larger GW if one wants to fly it AB.

1865 GW is the weight one can use if build to fly without worrying about LSA.

Having said this, there are a lot of items on the plane that are constructed at the bare minimum and I was concerned about the long term survivability of these parts.

Another thing I have noticed with these planes is the fact that guys buy them and think they can instantly fly them like a bush pilot or the demo pilot. Doing STOL type flying takes lots of practice. Flying on the edge is a learned trait, not something you get when you buy the latest and greatest.

I still think they are an awesome plane, just priced out of my budget.