CubCrafters NXCub: World's Best Flying Ugly Airplane

[Music] hey everyone it's paul bertorelli reporting for avweb and this this is what an airplane is supposed to look like it's a carbon cub fx so i was quite prepared to absolutely despise this airplane this is the nx cub also from cub crafters it's based on the popular x-cub tail whale airplane which as far as i'm concerned is the best tail dragger ever made now i am not exactly a tail drag or purist i'm not a guy who would ever say that only real pilots fly tail draggers people who say that i think are full of crap on the other hand when you add a nose wheel to an airplane that started out as a tail dragger doesn't always look right think about the tri-pacer in fact i told my friend chip allen at cub crafters this thing is butt ugly he said yeah well maybe so but you go fly it so i did well cub crafters saw a market opportunity and it was actually jim richmond who saw it way back in about 2009 where we wanted to make back country aviation more accessible prior to that point there was super cubs we had our own top cub scouts huskies out there and because the light sport rules came out cub crafters was able to introduce the carbon cub bring a lot more people into back country aviation through the light sport channel and then looking around at how can we bring more people in make it more accessible the answer was a really capable nose wheel airplane for back country aviation so when the x-cub was first being planned when it was first being conceptualized the nose wheel was part of the plan from day one the design always included gear attachment points for the aft position on the main gear and putting a nose wheel airplane on so we've had it in our mind since about 2009 when the airplane was first introduced in 2016 um it was carrying a lot of the structure in the airframe that was needed for the nose wheel and then in in 2019 we introduced it to the world so if you look back here you can see there's a fairing right here when the airplane's in its tail wheel configuration and the x-cub can be configured as a tailwheel airplane or a nose wheel airplane and can be converted back and forth but when it's in its tail wheel configuration the spring aluminum landing gear bolts on right here when it's in its nose wheel configuration it bolts on at this af station back here up here attached to the engine mount you've got a truss that you can't see but that carries the nose wheel we put the nose wheel as far forward as we can so we wanted the nose wheel to be forward so we could have a trailing link type landing gear the trailing link landing gear pivots on this point here so the overall diameter of tire that the airplane sees is really a big tire like this even though this is uh this is an 800 6x800 tire that we've got up front up here when this goes up and down when the when the when the trailing link action is is going up and down the loads are being carried right up through here into that truss and then the truss is bolted to the engine mount which is bolted to the airframe so unlike a cessna for example the firewall isn't carrying these loads it's not a weak spot for a nose wheel airplane in the back country it's free castering so it will there's no nose wheel steering there's no steering mechanism to brake on it so slow speeds it does require differential braking if i take this pin out here and drop out this keyway right here now this will pivot 100 360 degrees so ground handling is really easy if i want to push the airplane back and back it up put it into a hanger that'll spin all the way around so ground handling is easy but then i bring the airplane back forward twist the nose wheel around put that lock back in place and now it's limited to 95 degrees of travel in either direction so you can still pivot the airplane on one tire and maneuver it very well on the ground while you're taxiing but the nose wheel can't come around and get into the propeller arc on the airplane you can see we've just got a simple skid back here when the airplane's in its nose wheel configuration if this airplane was being set up as a tail tailwheel or converted to a tail wheel this skid would bolt off a normal tail wheel assembly would bolt right here and then the tail wheel itself would hook up right here to the rudder for the normal tail wheel steering it takes two guys about four hours to convert the airplane from nose wheel to tail wheel or from tail wheel to nose wheel so when a buyer buys the airplane they're going to specify whether they want us to initially deliver it as a nose wheel airplane as a tailwheel airplane has an amfib float airplane lots of different configurations available when the airplane leaves the factory in the nose wheel configuration like this one we badge it as the nx cub when it leaves the factory in the tail wheel configuration we badge it as the x-cub same airplane different bolt-on landing gear configuration if a buyer in the future wants to convert the airplane they can buy the parts from us to convert the airplane from nose wheel to tail wheel or from tail wheel to nose wheel the nx cub is powered by a what we're calling a cc393i it's assembled by lycoming for us it's a io 390 that we've done some things like we've done in the past with the 340 and with the 360 to lighten the engine up so you've got a fuel injected 215 horsepower engine it's a lightweight engine the installed weight is only 10 pounds more than an 0360 it's got dual electronic ignition the surefly electronic ignition it's a certified engine um and we've had great success with it we're really enjoying having the higher horsepower available to us the nose wheel configured airplane has to have this larger higher horsepower fuel injected engine the 180 horsepower carbureted engine that's also available as a in the tailwheel version of the x-cub um the downdraft the carburetor below the engine uh interferes with the nose wheel truss that carries the load so it's got to be the fuel injected larger engine for the nx cub so maximum gross weight on a x-cub is 2 300 pounds um same as cupcrafter's top cub and the goal on the x-cub was to have around a thousand pounds a useful load this airplane here with the leather seats the full the full option you know instrument panel it'll have around 900 pounds of use below so 900 pounds of useful load is respectable but what can you really do with it well it depends the nx cub is intended for outback flying and that's frequently hauling a lot of stuff tents coolers hunting and fishing gear into remote unimproved airstrips here's a for instance idaho is a popular outback destination and lemhi county airport that's northeast of boise is about 30 or 40 miles from a cluster of outback runways 25 gallons of fuel would be plenty so that leaves 750 pounds for people and stuff two gravitationally consequential guys in the cabin would still leave 250 pounds for camping gear the annex will carry the weight but because of cargo area weight limitations it'll bust the scg lighten the gear a little and it'll just make it if you're a lonesome cowboy kind of pilot and you don't need the rear seat bring the espresso machine and a generator to run it you'll have the room but don't plan on getting there in a hurry with those big tundra tires and the three wheels hanging in the breeze the nx cub will cruise about 120 miles per hour on nine gallons an hour cupcraft's promotional copy gives a cruise speed of 150 miles per hour but given the fuel burn and capacity that's not really a practical number topped off with 46 usable gallons of fuel you could stretch this still air range to maybe 550 miles with a reserve but that will cut into the payload and it's really driving a square peg into a round hole if you want to fly from chicago to miami buy a cirrus and speaking of cirrus despite being a rag wing the nx cub is electronically sophisticated with moving map gps autopilot adsb and electronic ignition which actually the cirrus doesn't have here's how the surefly electronic ignition system works certified dual electronic ignition system so no magneto at all um you can argue the merits of that uh back and forth all day long but if you look at the statistics of the reliability of electronic ignition systems versus magnetos the electronic ignition systems are more reliable this airplane here has dual redundancy in the fact that there's three power sources to run the electronic ignition there is the alternator which is turning all the time there's the main battery on the airplane which if you lost an alternator belt for example the main battery would continue to run the electronic ignition and the avionics for about an hour but if you were in a scenario where you lost the alternator you depleted the main battery uh there's a right ignition backup battery which will run just the right side of the electronic ignition for half an hour to 45 minutes to give you enough time to safely go find a spot to land the airplane diagnose what the problem is everything about the nx cub is optimized for short takeoff and landing work into and out of rough airfields super cubs were always good at this and the nx just refines it further but with a twist that nose wheel means that you can pull off impressive short field performance with less chance of balling the thing up in a ditch because like in pipers and cessnas a nose wheel soaks up and buries your worst piloting mistakes to a point chip allen told me that the nx has so much power why you can just fire it and haul the stick back into your lap he was right just don't try it with a gopro on the tail skid one limitation of the nose wheel version is that it's not the airplane you want to roll over logs and folders with 35 inch tundra tires you'd want the tailwheel version for that besides the nose wheel the nx has two other things that keep the would be back country pilot out of trouble it has a ton of surplus power so even on those days you don't believe your flight app when it says the density altitude really is 9000 feet the airplane has a good chance of dragging you over the trees anyway the wing is festooned with vortex generators that keep the airflow stuck to the wing so the nx has a low stall speed about 33 miles per hour indicated that means you gotta work at it to get a stall break fair amount of pitch change with flap [Music] kind of got anticipated a little bit is more exaggerated the faster you're going so um a lot of us when we're flying these airplanes will slow down to 50 60 miles an hour before we start putting a lot of flaps and that minimizes the pitch change okay coming up on 47 indicated about a couple miles an hour slower you should hear the stall warning horn chirp at you 35 34 33 [Music] is that right 33 for the break [Music] maximum effort landings require minimum energy touchdowns which means approach speeds in the low 40s or even high 30s the nx cub will do this but it takes practice to get there with even a breath of wind 30 or 40 foot roll outs are achievable brad dam sent me this video of his short field attempt on the hard surface runway i think with a day of practice a pilot of average skills could be a player in a stole competition with a lot less effort than it would take in a tailwheel x-cub or any other tail dragon just to test its versatility we picked a random farm field in florida for an off-field landing after dragging the field for wires plopping the airplane down and 200 feet was the easy part those big tires roll right over the ruts and holes left side west side [Music] which one you have in mind oh it's kind of big one over here okay got lots of room it looks like there's i saw some tracks in it from some vehicles so it looks like there's been some vehicles in it recently so it's not going to be too soft remember one seven two three one terrain terrain pull up pull up pull up pull up well i was hiding being high it was okay [Music] i picked a spot with lots of room and straight ahead take off sure still got lots of room to take off you have to kind of adjust your head to this thing with that much power even with two people aboard the airplane is a strong climber i was flying a tight pattern and found myself overshooting pattern altitude before the turned downwind you have to remember to haul way back on the throttle during pattern work even with two people aboard although the basis for the nx cub remains the original super cub the cub crafters versions are far more upscale with top of the line glass panel avionics packages luxurious seats and modern seat belts the cabin has nice touches like these little storage bins and a tablet mount for the rear passenger as of mid-july 2021 the nx cub is still awaiting final fa certification and is currently sold as an experimental aircraft certified price will be about four hundred and twenty thousand dollars fully equipped plus the gear swap and or float hardware if you want that so what are we to make of the nx cub well you know the first time i saw this airplane it was in a press release photograph i thought what the hell seriously but what i didn't realize at the time is that the nose gear design on this airplane isn't like the typical only of strut confection you find in a cessna or a piper but it's more related to the health or strong steel struts that grumman put into world war ii navy carrier fighters so what that means is uh well let's draw a little envelope here and this is the standard light envelope for the airplane we can extend a little corner of that and that little corner is exceptional stall performance without having to have verified skills and a low probability of bending or breaking the airplane now if i were buying this airplane personally i would get both options the nose gear and the tail wheel and i'd throw in a pair of whip line amphibious floats because it's a great float airplane and make the airplane really versatile and i'd hire me a guy to change over all that stuff because i don't know i don't want to break a nail when it's on the nose gear what it allows you to do is plop it on the runway haul back on the stick and stand on the brakes and stop the thing in like 20 or 30 tire screeching tire burning feet and if i actually own the airplane i'd fly exactly that way because remember i got a guy to change out those flat spotted twelve hundred dollar tundra tires so chipboard when the airplane is on the nose gear it's still butt ugly but in a sexy perverse kind of way bravo i'm paul bernarelli reporting and if you made it this far god bless you thanks for watching and don't fly like me you can find a full report on the nx cub in the july 2021 issue of aviation consumer magazine

Channel: AVweb

Views: 159,652

Keywords:

Id: Eb7XvAUJahM

Length: 18min 23sec (1103 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 12 2021