Cub Crafters Carbon Cub FX3 Owner Overview, Walkaround, and Demo Flight
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- čas přidán 7. 09. 2024
- A brief walkaround and description of my Cub Crafters Carbon Cub FX3.
It an experimental/amateur built airplane operated with an experimental airworthiness certificate.
It weights about 1190 lbs empty equipped as seen here, except without the fuel pod or backseat; about 1225 with those two items installed. Maximum takeoff weight is 2000 lbs. It takes off in about 200 feet with just me in it and full fuel in the wings, with calm wind at sea level. It lands in about the same distance. Its cruise speed with the 31" bushwheel tires is about 130 mph true airspeed at 4000-6000 feet burning 12 gallons per hour of 100LL fuel. That's at full throttle and 2500 RPM. Its range is about 800 miles at long range cruise power, which gives ~ 110 mph True airspeed, burning 7.5 gallons per hour. I expect these performance numbers to improve/increase when I put skis on this winter.
The engine is a Cub Crafters "cc363i" which is built by Lycoming, who designates the engine a YIO-360-EXP128. It's a 186 HP 4 cylinder fuel injected engine with a dual lightspeed electronic ignition and a Hartzell trailblazer 83" composite constant speed propeller. Engine compression ratio is 9:1 so it's not approved for car gas.
Cub Crafters has a builder assist program, so my work on the airplane was done over 2 visits the factory totaling about 7 days. I completed 51% of a list specified tasks from the FAA in order to be designated the builder of the aircraft. I cut fuselage tubing, formed wing ribs on presses, riveted and installed the flaps and ailerons, installed the tires, installed the seats, cut control cables and electrical wiring, assisted in welding the fuselage, fabricated control surface bushings, installed said bushings along with all control surfaces themselves, formed/shaped stabilizer tubing then positioned it in jigs prior to welding, cut carbon fiber and poured resin into molds for cowlings and interior panels, cut the fabric for the fuselage and wing skin, and a lot more.
Never in my life have I so wanted an extra few hundred thousand dollars laying around. Beautiful and I’m sure very capable aircraft sir! Brilliant! Cheers mates!!
Absolutely beautiful plane. Just learned short field takeoffs and landings today and they’re a blast. Would love to learn on a tailwheel.
Thanks for the kind words, you should defnitely make it happen!
Absolutely gorgeous. Just came back from High Sierra Fly in and STOL drag got to see some amazing carbon cubs. I think I need one lol I don’t think the wife will like living in a tent though. Lol
You can live in a plane but you can’t fly your house!
That’s what I tell her. Lol.
Looks amazing flying out there in the valley. Soon to be A&P in less than a year from now and plan on eventually building my own plane eventually.
That plain looks amazing for adventuring 😍
Love the plane … And love the vid! Thanks for sharing! That just might be my future airplane!!! Blue Skies and Tail Winds to ya Brotha! 😎🇺🇸
Beautiful plane my friend, thanks for the tour!
What a beautiful looking aircraft, I love the color of it. Good for you man!
Very nice plane you got there bro, the panel displays look more advanced than whats in an A320neo! Enjoy it, its like a flying Land Rover!
Very cool airplane, fun watching all this nephew. Keep it up.
Beautiful aircraft
Thanks for making the video, much appreciated!
Beautiful cub...terrific performance...thx
congratulations!
Beautiful bird !
Nice setup, I an envious. My plane is on week 9 of its upgrade out of the 1970’s.
I like your colors, I think if I get a back country toy yellow or orange will be my color.
You have a very nice plane, congratulations, you did good.
Nice Cub! I’d love to get one of the NX Cub’s,,, but I think my mission is going to require 4 seats,, so 182 is my first choice.
Nice plane . The only downside is the gear attachment to the fuselage. It’s extremely weak. Very easy to break even when you’re mounting the gear. Once you break it you buy a new fuselage. And go through the whole, mounting of servos changing the engine, etc. Been there done that.
Nice work!
Bravo.Thenks
A very well done video.
G,day from Sydney Australia.
Thanks for the look around the STOL carbon cub. I'd like a closer look at how the horizontal stabilizers work and the trim system.
* Servo motor
* Cables
* Screw jack
🌏🇦🇺
G'day! I am going to send you over to Dave Embry's channel. Specifically this video: czcams.com/video/TJYzGPvnUk8/video.html might be what you're looking for. Check out his channel, it has detailed videos about the construction of these airplanes. The only difference between Dave's EX3 and my FX3 is that Dave builds his own his own from a kit and mine was constructed at the factory, the parts are the same.
Very nice airplane, sad that I can’t afford one! Lucky you…
Beautiful plane.
“Windshear” on approach? Go around.
Thanks for the feedback!
Such a sexy airplane 😂
Wow
very nice enjoy
Late model PA-18s have all metal flaps and ailerons.
Very good, I didn't know that, thanks for the feedback. Never been fortunate enough to fly any built in that timeframe.
Is there only one Com? Maybe I missed it. For IFR, I use two Nav/ Coms plus a handheld for backup. Great looking aircraft. Best quality.
Yes, just a single gnc-355 comm radio. It has a monitor function for the standy frequency but there is no second radio. No VHF nav radio at all, only the two GPS's in the G3X and GNC-355. Cub Crafters can put in a second remote vhf as an option. I seldom fly it IFR because of icing issues in Alaska where the airplane is based, I just wanted the bare minimum to do so legally in a pinch.
I have a Legend Super Cub (see my channel) equipped very much the same way, but I have to say the Carbon cubs take the refinement of manufacture quality quite a lot further. I love the Legend, but Theres a lot of velcro holding interior trim in place, and over time, it looks like crap. But man does it fly. Its slower in cruise than the CC, but the full flaps stall is only 23 KTS, and will take off in one stripe on the runway! Its VERY hard to get it to stall, even accelerated stalls. I just LOVE the way it flies, but man would I love the refinement of a Cub Crafters!!
Legends are great too! It's good to have competition and choices! I used to live in Sulphur Spring so I was quite tempted to buy a MOAC! The MOAC Slats would be awesome, but I also enjoy my 130 mph cruise on the FX3.
Hey beautiful cub, how do you think it compares to vans rv7a it seems like in paper they're very close. Only maybe the rv has more power. Thoughts??
RV-7's are great, very different mission than any cub though. If you need to go fast and do light aerobatics, you want the RV-7. If you want to takeoff and land short, especially in places that aren't airports, you would need something closer to a cub. It's like comparing a Ford Mustang to a Ford Bronco; even though they might have the same engine they perform very differently.
31 freakin' inch of rubber? that's bigger than some compact SUVs are sold with these days!
Many, maybe most, super cubs in Alaska run 35's so mine are relatively undersized.
Beautiful scenery! Where is this?
Palmer, Alaska
😍😍🤟🏾🤟🏾
Just curious, how does the Earth X battery vent? I thought that you could not have a belly pod as the battery vents out the belly. How did you get around the venting issue?
Cub Crafters installed a couple of tubes that go from the battery case to a vent on the belly of the fuselage, aft of the the fuel pod. There are vent attachments on the battery itself from what I understand. I'm sure I will learn more about it during the first condition inspection this April with my mechanic. I didn't participate in too much of the electrical system construction at the factory aside from cutting wires to length.
@@EricMassey748 Good they did that for you. They said I could not have the belly pod with the earth X battery as it need to vent directly under the battery. Probably more important you have the extra fuel in Alaska, not super important here in Illinois, so I went with the battery. Keep the videos coming!! thanks - John
@@Cubonaut875 yeah, I don't think they enjoyed doing it but since they sold me both options they felt obligated to try it. I'm not sure they realized they would need to do what they did when I turned in my order form.
I can’t help but wonder…What does L and R actually control on an EI engine? Is it still plug 1 vs plug 2 or top vs bottom?
With the key switch in "R" only the lower plugs are firing, and with the key switch in "L" only the top plugs are firing. There are two 12v powered ignition modules which recieve tach and manifold pressure inputs from system sensors and use that information to set spark timing and intensity. Each module in turn powers 2 ignition coils each (4 total). Each coil in turn powers 1 spark plug on 2 opposing cylinders. The manifold pressure and RPM are passed to the engine instruments by the ignition modules. You can search for the Lightspeed Plasma III CDI manual online for further details, I believe the manual is publicy listed.
We would like to investigate. We’re San San Antonio. We’ve got a runway. 3280 Ft. Who would you recommend we talk to about acquiring. ?
Thank you.
boomerangair.net/contact/ contact these guys, they are the cubcrafters dealership for Texas.
Base Price $312,000
"Comfortable" and "800 mile range" are not terms that belong in the same sentence that describes a Cub.
Nothing wrong with comfortable and 800 mile range…
In remote places the range can be needed since many destinations do not have fuel available.
love this plane...but your avionics cost the same as my whole plane :)
How an Engineer with master degree, with a salary around $100K, can afford a beautiful machine like this?
I just had to work a lot of overtime and save up for many years.
About how much does the whole plane add up to cost?
This one I paid about $350,000 for, the current base price in 2022 is about $300,000, mine was more because of the IFR panel, fuel pod, acme shocks, 31" tires, factory float kit, reinforced belly /tail fabric, autopilot, earthx battery etc. Cub Crafters has an airplane building tool on their website that will tell you the price with various options.
@@EricMassey748 how can you afford to have 350k laying around? what am I doing wrong that even 35k is a lot of money to me
@@zackriden79 I'm old and I saved my money for a long time, I don't have kids and I live in a small apartment. Also this might be one of the absolute cheapest new airplanes you can buy that is built in a factory and not in your own hangar/garage.
Section 179 and you can afford it also
Thanks for the info! I'm not savvy enough to pull off anything like that unfortunately!
All very interesting but the aircraft doesn't seem very practical.
Hi: Why do you feel this Carbon Cub is not practical?? Very curious……
Thanks for watching, I appreciate your thoughts!
Beautiful! Congrats!
Sure would like to chat with you I get my FX3 in a couple weeks Neal Culiner has my phone or Zack at CubCrafters
Thanks
Is that a “fixed pitch prop or constant speed prop ?
Constant speed
2 Savage Norden in 1 plane...
Thanks for the comment, Savage Nordens are no doubt great airplanes!