Super Cub Gallery

Photo by Bill Brine - CC by 2.0: Flickr

Super Cubs weren't born with big tires. In fact, giant round appendages like these weren't very popular until recent decades. The tires don't help with cruise speed at all but they transformed the rough field capabilities from really god to otherworldly. Here the big wheels are used as impromptu floats.

Photo by Bill Brine - CC by 2.0:Flickr

Super Cubs are known for their short field capabilities. Unlike many modern GA planes, the landing and takeoff distances for these taildraggers can be represented in triple digits. That comes in handy, as above, with this PA-18, which can't seem to get away from the pavement soon enough.

Photo by Aleksander Markin - CC by-SA 2.0/Flickr

Big tires help make gravel beds into perfectly suitable landing sites. The technique is often to skim across the water surface leading up to the gravel, thereby extending the landing run and perhaps just as importantly, greatly increasing the fun quotient.

Photo by Bill Brine - CC by 2.0/Flickr

What's wrong with this picture below? Nothing, right? Well, if you look closely enough, you'll find that there's not a conventionally suitable landing surface anywhere to be found, and this Super Cub isn't on amphibious floats. The big tires can get properly trained pilots into and back out of some otherwise inaccessible spots, like this one.

Photo by Steve - CC by-SA 2.0/Flickr

Super Cub owners are some of the most ingenious and inventive airplane tinkerers on the planet. Stock Super Cubs have the typical horizontally split door on the right side. Why not add on the left, too? And why not make it completely out of glass? No good reason.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

The Super Cub came about as a program evolved not into a single product but through a series of intermediate designs that feautred many of the Super's powers. The end result, the PA-18, was a long way numerically from the J-3, but it wasn't quite finished when it debuted in 1949. There were a few additions, including flaps and more fuel, but the big change was more power.

Public Domain

Lower 48 types think of the Super Cub as being a relatively recent import into Alaska, but the PA-18 was there from the beginning, even before Alaska was a state, you know. This vintage, undated shot of a Super Cub shows the bird far from anything resembling civilization and its pilot not the least concerned about the fact.

Photo by Thayer Avery S, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - Public Domain

Floats were bolted on to Super Cubs from near the beginning. With its high-lift wing, powerful engine, rugged construction and light weight, the Super Cub was the float plane that pilots had long wished the J-3 could have been.

Photo by nwflightdesign - CC by 2.0/Flickr

Some think of the tandem configuration as being quaint, a remnant of bygone times, but when you fly down low in a Super Cub, you immediately get it. The visibility is just as good on either side, so you can maneuver with greater precision and confidence.

Photo by nwflightdesign - CC by 2.0/Flickr

When they're on floats, Super Cubs give their owners access to some of the most pristine and hard to reach places on the planet. This body of water is massive. Super Cubs, especially those with more powerful engines, can do with relative puddles.

Photo by nwflightdesign - CC by 2.0/Flickr

An old PA-18 on straight floats backed up against the rugged shoreline of a remote lake. While the Super Cub's lines are strongly reminiscent of its J-3 forebear, it's somehow a stronger, more substantial and more powerful-looking plane. Maybe we see that in it because that's precisely what it is.

Photo by nwflightdesign - CC by 2.0/Flickr

The big tires aren't at all necessary on this billiard table of a grass strip. But then again, who knows what remote or rugged landing site this bird is heading off to. And if you're wondering, how can you tell if it's taking of or just flaring too high? With just a smidgeon of flaps, we're guessing this Super Cub is headed out and not getting home.

Photo by D. Miller - CC by 2.0/Flickr

It wasn't introduced on the PA-18, but the front-seat solo position of the pilot is a major upgrade from the J-3. With dog pilots, the regs are less clear.

Photo by Steve - CC by-SA 2.0/Flickr

This is the June Issue, but we knew we'd hear from ski fans if we failed to show a ski-equipped Super in this spread. Yeah, it's as much fun as it looks like it would be, and yes, we agree that the tailwheel ski is adorable.

Photo by Aleksander Markin - CC BY-SA 2.0/Flickr

Rocks like those in this photo are child's play for a Super Cub with big tires.

Photo by Bill Brine - CC by 2.0/Flickr

This last Super Cub in our gallery, you might have noticed, isn't a Super Cub at all, but a Cub Crafter's Sport Cub. The PA-18 is not only still with us in great numbers, but it has influenced a generation of aircraft designers to come up with their own versions of new and in many ways improved super planes. From the Aviat Husky to the Legend Cub and Cub Crafter's X-Cub, the genius behind this classic utilitarian design lives on.

Photo by Cory W. Watts - CC by-SA 2.0/Flickr