Carbon Cub – 40% Scale, 14’ Wingspan, 70 Lbs.

This is a 40% Carbon Cub from Horizon Hobby. The wingspan is 165” and it weighs about 65 pounds, depending on enhancements. I added different wheels and a larger engine. My engine is the Desert Aircraft DA200, a 19 hp 4-cylinder boxer that weighs 11 Lbs. The propeller is a Mejzlik Carbon Fiber 33/12, painted to match the real Carbon Cub from Cub Crafters. With 4000 sq in of wing area and 38 oz of wing loading, it is very light on the controls and effortless to fly and land. AMA requires the LMA1 certification for this size plane. The radio control system is the Jeti Duplex System. The airplane has 4 receivers, 3 of which are capable of independently controlling the plane and all the systems. The 4th receiver turns on power to the plane, no switches anywhere. The 4th receiver is on 900 MHz just in case 2.4 GHz becomes unusable, just enough to get you home. We fly in an urban environment with radio interference possible from TV and microwave transmissions to industrial 2.4 GHz equipment. Redundancy is the name of the game in these conditions. The transmitter is the Jeti DC-24 and the plane has a full array of telemetry sensors. I can find out the speed, altitude, fuel consumption, my distance from the plane, and GPS position on the field, to avoid flying outside preset no-fly zones. I flip a switch on the transmitter and a voice reads off the information. The airplane has about 12 flights on it. Today we decided to practice a full flap landing, 60 degrees of flaps, to make a short soft-field landing. Like with a real Carbon Cub, the landing needs to be soft and easy. That’s the reason I chose 10” tundra tires. The airplane has no brakes, so care must be taken to control the speed and direction while taxiing. Once it gets moving, it must roll to a stop.