CubCrafters Carbon Cub ULT: Turbine to the Backcountry

In its grandest, most sophisticated Cub yet, the technicians in the skunk works at CubCrafters pulled back the hangar door on some seriously advanced engineering work with the debut of the Carbon Cub ULT, at midnight on July 7, 2026. What’s the big deal? The TurboTech TP-R90 up front, producing up to 141 equivalent horsepower and turning the versatile, easy-to-fly Carbon Cub into an even more incredible backcountry STOL machine. The dawn of the aircraft certification changes enabled under MOSAIC, as of July 24, opens the door to the integration of turbine powerplants in approachable airplanes for a wider range of pilots. The fully FADEC single-stage TP-R90 keeps fuel flows to piston standards with its regenerative combustion process, utilizing an innovative heat exchanger on the rear of the engine. In the panel, TurboTech’s proprietary engine control unit governs its push-button start sequence and annunciations to assist the pilot, and it joins Garmin G3X Touch avionics, with a Garmin com radio and autopilot. CubCrafters has completed about 22 hours of flight testing as of press time, with a few months remaining to finish up the path to certification. Once that’s complete, the Carbon Cub ULT will go out the door beginning in 2027, at a base price of $690,000. AvBrief contributor Julie Boatman prepared this overview video.