CubCrafters will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Carbon Cub, the company’s most popular airframe series, during 2019.
Milestones from the Carbon Cub history will be commemorated throughout the year and will culminate in an open-invitation fly-in and reception in October, dubbed Cubfest 2019, at the company’s headquarters in Yakima, Washington.
“The original Carbon Cub SS, first sold in 2009 as a Light Sport Aircraft (LSA), was known for its jaw-dropping performance resulting from an all-new lightweight design incorporating a 180 horsepower engine under the cowl,” company officials said in a prepared release. “The model has proven so desirable that the SS became the best-selling LSA in America, and is now the benchmark by which other STOL aircraft are judged.
From the time of its launch, the Carbon Cub was a lightning rod for controversy.
“The industry, the media, and even the FAA told us all that an LSA could produce no more than 100 horsepower and fly at a maximum speed of 120 miles per hour,” says Jim Richmond, CubCrafters founder and CEO. “I didn’t see those limitations when I read the rule, and I knew that we could use a much more powerful engine and qualify for LSA.”
Carbon Cub LSAs were equipped with the newly developed CC340 powerplant, producing 180 horsepower.
That sort of independent thinking has inspired CubCrafters’ continued advancement of the Carbon Cub product line, now in its third generation. But the prevalent theme has remained “less weight, more power” since inception, company officials note.
“The rapid development cycle at CubCrafters is ambitious compared to many GA manufacturers,” said Pat Horgan, president and COO of CubCrafters. “The Carbon Cub now has more thrust, carries heavier loads, and gets there more quickly. The newest Experimental Carbon Cubs, equipped with constant speed props and more powerful engines, produce higher thrust-to-weight ratios than any airplane in their class. The aircraft is now offered in six different versions that allow more pilots than ever to build or fly the dream Carbon Cub that perfectly fits their adventure.”
Celebrating a full decade of the Carbon Cub, Cubfest 2019 will be hosted by CubCrafters from Oct. 11-13, 2019, at McAllister Field Airport (KYKM) in Yakima, Washington.
You can see a short video about how the Carbon Cub story began here and below: