The rise of the taildraggers

By BILL WILSON

The new fire in the belly of general aviation is coming from the exhaust stacks of the meanest bunch of muscled-up Super Cub variants ever to crack the wilderness.

With tires that you can barely see over, engines finding previously hidden horses, and airframe modifications putting the redoubtable original Super Cub to shame, these beasts have their tri-gear brethren running for cover.

So who’s going to wrestle these monsters to the ground and then, of course, back into the air?

New, and renewed taildragger pilots, that’s who.

It’s taken a few years, but the hottest trend in personal flying is backcountry flying in taildraggers. And the trend, which continues to grow, has introduced, or converted, a growing number of pilots to taildragger pilots.

And sales figures for any company producing backcountry aircraft prove there is plenty of market share for everyone.

But the rise in taildragger flying comes with some serious challenges in aircraft design and pilot training. It’s like that Beach Boys song “Kokomo” — we’ve got to find a way to get there fast, then take it slow.

When you think of the most hallowed airframe designs in the history of aviation, two come to mind immediately, both taildraggers: The Douglas DC-3 and the Piper Cub and, by extension, the Cub’s final iteration, the Super Cub.

When old Bill Piper’s first Super Cub peeked its spinner out from the company’s facilities in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, in 1954, who knew it would inspire almost 70 years of updates, changes, and modifications to its original type certificate?

Along the way, like the DC-3, it would develop a worldwide reputation for aviation utility.

The companies behind the resurgence of taildragger production have put years into designing aircraft that can cruise along at a reasonable speed and upon demand drop down into a heavily forested backcountry strip with nary a ripple of worry.

And business for these folks is good. Order books are out several months, in some cases even years, and the prices…well compare what you paid for a nice car in 1954 and what it costs today, then add the “aviation premium.”

Who’s buying?

A large swath of orders come from people who have been flying big iron in the airlines and military. Flying, to them, has been a job, a task, and not necessarily fun. They want to get back to the days when it was a thrill to go out to the airport and preflight an adventure. They are putting down deposits of several thousand dollars and checking off days until delivery.

These pilots — and many more — are behind the growth of several firms that have been around for years making kits and replacement parts, but are now riding the wave and attracting new competition.

One of the newbies is Patriot Aircraft USA in Alabama. Patriot debuted at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2022 and was at the 2023 SUN ’n FUN Aerospace Expo with the Super Patriot.

Like most of the other Super Cub clone producers, Patriot offers its new aircraft with all the desired amenities: More room, better visibility, greater comfort, enlarged panel, bigger brakes, and more horsepower.

Interestingly, the company’s new version weighs in within a few pounds of the original Super Cub’s empty weight.

And putting the “nobody learns to fly in taildraggers anymore” myth to bed, Patriot’s owner Don Wade told me the person who purchased the company’s first aircraft is getting his pilot certificate in that aircraft.

What’s been missing, in the mind of Backcountry Cub’s Bruce Reed, is a true big leaguer to complement the Super Cub clones. If backcountry exploration is good in a two-place aircraft, it’s better in a four-place aircraft capable of hauling more cargo.

To that end, Bruce is designing the Boss, a 3,600-pound gross weight metal wing, fabric fuselage, Lycoming IO-540 powered behemoth with the kind of strength and performance to match the Cessna 206, except, of course, it will be a taildragger.

“This is the airframe that has people interested,” says Bruce. “I think we can build this plane and sell it for a whole lot less than a 206.”

He plans to have at least a mock-up — and maybe the whole plane — on display at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2023.

Van’s Aircraft, the highly successful manufacturer of thousands of low-wing all metal kit aircraft, has bitten into the backcountry with its RV-15, the first high-wing in the company’s 50-year history.

But Van’s has taken a different tack and modeled its offering after the Cessna 180.

With side-by-side seating, a big engine, tough landing gear, and lots of room inside, the RV-15 is bound to be a hit with the homebuilt adventure-seeking crowd.

True, Van’s has produced plenty of taildragger kits, but this one is destined for a new crop of pilots who seek fun and flexibility over speed. The RV-15 is still in the prototype stage before final release.

Another heavy hitter in the backcountry market is CubCrafters, the Yakima, Washington-based company that produces the Carbon Cub, the Top Cub, and the newly introduced Carbon Cub UL powered by a new Rotax engine.

With an order backlog of more than two years, the company recently went public to raise up to $50 million in investment capital from its fans, customers, aviation enthusiasts, the investment community, and the general public. Proceeds from the public offering will be used to expand the company’s facilities to meet demand for its aircraft.

Most of the Super Cub clones on the market today are in the Experimental-Amateur Built category. But if you want to do backcountry flying in a commercial operation, choices get smaller. Other than light sport aircraft, if you want to go American made, it’s Cessna, Piper, CubCrafters, Aviat, and an outfit in Moultrie, Georgia, that’s been around since 1941 and is still family owned: Maule Air.

“In 2018 a customer came to us asking for modifications to one of our models, the M7-235, that would make it more suited to backcountry use,” says Maule Air President Brent Maule. “We built his plane with a longer wing, carbon fiber interior, and slimmed down some of the other enhancements we usually put in the model and now that is one of our best-selling planes.”

That particular plane is in daily use in Alaska as a commuter, moving people who, in many cases, cannot get where they want to go by land. But under federal rules, commercial operations must use FAR Part 23 certified aircraft for their applications, so the E-AB Super Cub clones won’t work.

Of course the popularity of backcountry flying isn’t the only thing attracting pilots — and potential pilots — to taildraggers.

Mark Schaible, Sonex Aircraft’s owner, says he was constantly questioned at SUN ’n FUN this year about his company’s new high-wing taildragger design.

“Our new aircraft aims at the same market as our current low-wing taildraggers: Good value for the money, good cross-country performance on 100 to 130 horsepower, aerobatic capabilities, and more cabin room,” he says.

Sonex officials are hard at work to put a full-size prototype in the company’s AirVenture display in 2023 and to ship the first tail kits by the end of the year.

“We won’t be competing with the Super Cubs,” Mark adds. “But we are looking at developing economical kits and later offering an S-LSA from the high wing.”

The Sonex high wing doesn’t have an official name yet, but it looks suspiciously like Steve Wittman’s Tailwind.

“That’s on purpose,” Schaible says. “There is definitely a connection to the Tailwind. Many of the traits of our existing aircraft use Steve Wittman ’tricks,’ including a flat fuselage bottom and airfoil shaped fuselage top — it’s just more obvious in the high-wing configuration.”

Fueling a lot of the enthusiasm for backcountry flying are the efforts of the Recreational Aviation Foundation. This growing and effective organization has done wonders to open — and keep open — many of the scenic airstrips around the country, providing deep access into excellent camping and hiking areas.

Taildragger pilots are lining up to test their mettle on RAF-sponsored strips, and are supporting the organization.

What’s interesting about the renewed taildragger interest is how it confirms the value of the original designs from which all of these new aircraft come.

Back in the 1940s and 1950s it was standard aircraft design. The bare bones norm. No super electronics, elaborate wing modifications, or shock absorbent landing gear, but a basic “conventional gear” look that just took a little tweaking to meet a new demand.

And there is an aviation cohort happy to see the additional benefits of what is happening. Many old-time flight instructors are alarmed at the modern trends in pilot training that give short shrift to the lessons learned by taildragger pilots who get to know their aircraft early and well, by sound and feel.

Taildragger pilots realize how critical stabilized approaches are and the value of the rudder pedal dance in crosswinds. Straight down the centerline, despite the wind, means more to taildragger pilots who know firsthand the difference between a slip and a skid.

If it takes the wholesale adoption of backcountry flying to teach — or renew — those skills, there is a strong argument that all of us will be better off for it.