Piper PA-12 Super Cruiser

What the 108 hp engine actually buys, in Aviation Consumer's words: "The later engine doesnt add to the cruise speed, but shortens the takeoff length and adds about 100 FPM to the climb rate." Not speed — climb and field length.

The utility category is a different airplane on paper. A-780 drops the gross weight to 1,500 lb, allows only one person in the rear seat, and then permits manoeuvres the normal category forbids:

"Utility Category - No acrobatic maneuvers approved except those listed below: Maneuver Entry Speed Chandelles 110 mph Lazy Eights 110 mph Steep Turns 90 mph Spins Stall Stalls (except whip stalls) Stall"

Spins are approved in a PA-12, in the utility category only. That is a real difference from the J-3, and it is one of the few places on A-780 where an operational speed other than a limit appears.

Every performance figure on this page except the stall speed comes from one Aviation Consumer paragraph, and it is worth reading whole:

With the original 100-HP engine, the Super Cruiser cruises at about 105 MPH. The later engine doesnt add to the cruise speed, but shortens the takeoff length and adds about 100 FPM to the climb rate. The book puts the takeoff run at 720 feet and the landing roll at 470 feet in the normal category. The maximum useful load is about 800 pounds per the factory and perhaps 750 pounds in a real airplane.

With full fuel, the Super Cruiser has a range of about 600 miles, burning 5.8 to 6 gallons per hour.

Cruise, 105 mph — and this one has two sources. The aerofiles compendium independently prints "v: 115/105/42" for the PA-12, the same 105 mph cruise, with no visible relationship to the magazine. 105 mph is 91 knots true, and it is explicitly the 100 hp airplane's figure.

The article's own arithmetic does not quite close, and that is recorded rather than resolved. Thirty-eight gallons at 6.0 gph is 6.3 hours; 6.3 hours at 105 mph is about 665 statute miles, not 600. At 5.8 gph it is nearer 690. So the 600 either carries an unstated reserve or is a rounded-down planning number. The page stores the conservative 600 (521 nm) rather than doing arithmetic the publication did not do.

Aerofiles disagrees on range and is not followed. It gives 300 statute miles, which on 38 gallons at 105 mph would need almost 13 gallons an hour — an impossible figure for a 100 hp O-235. Aviation Consumer's 600 reconciles; aerofiles' 300 does not.

Useful load: 800 lb per the factory, and the article immediately hedges it. "perhaps 750 pounds in a real airplane." The factory figure is stored because that is what the catalogue's useful_load_lbs means, and the real-world one is here because that is what a buyer will find on the weight-and-balance sheet. A third figure exists and is further away again: aerofiles gives 645 lb, which would put empty weight at 1,105 lb. The Smithsonian's own PA-12, NX2365M, weighs 1,000 lb empty — 750 lb of useful load — but it is the round-the-world airplane with ferry tanks where the rear bench used to be, so it proves nothing about a standard one. Weigh the airplane.

720 ft of takeoff run and 470 ft of landing roll are "the book" figures at 1,750 lb, per Aviation Consumer. No over-50-foot distance is published for either and none is stored.

No climb rate and no service ceiling exist in any source. The page used to say 600 fpm and 12,600 ft; neither is on any document. That gap is what Piper Report No. 551 would close.

The stall is 36 knots (aerofiles' 42 mph). The PA-12 has no flaps, so it has one stall configuration.

800 lb of useful load, 38 gallons and three seats — the combination that makes this airplane worth more than the two-seaters it descends from. Aviation Consumer's summary is exact: "That gives enough useful load to carry three FAA-standard adults and full fuel, or two people and more than you can fit in the baggage compartment."

Scenario 1: Solo cross-country, full fuel

Scenario 2: Two occupants, full fuel

Two adults, full fuel, full baggage and 151 lb still in hand. This is the configuration that separates a PA-12 from every other airplane in this family — a PA-11 in the same case has eight pounds left.

Scenario 3: Three occupants, full fuel

Three FAA-standard adults, full fuel and full baggage puts the airplane exactly at gross — which is what Aviation Consumer says, and it is a knife-edge. On the article's own "perhaps 750 pounds in a real airplane" this scenario is 50 lb overweight. Weigh the airplane before you plan it.

Scenario 4: Backcountry, reduced fuel, two up

The 41 lb baggage limit applies to the baggage compartment; the bench itself is a load-carrying station at +34 and this is where a PA-12 earns its Alaskan reputation. Work the CG, not just the weight — A-780's normal-category range is (+9.0) to (+18.6) and a loaded bench is well aft of that datum.

PA-12 against PA-18 Super Cub: the comparison that matters

Same gross weight, more seats, more fuel, more useful load, and about $63,000 less. What the Super Cub has is 50 percent more certificated power, flaps, and a factory book that publishes what it does. A PA-12 with a 150 hp conversion closes most of the performance gap for a fraction of the price difference, and that is the whole argument for the airplane.

Flight Training (4/10): Not really a trainer. Three seats, no flaps, usually no electrical system, and a heavier airplane than the Cubs it descends from. Useful for tailwheel time and for the spin training the utility category approves, and not much else.

Backcountry (8/10): This is what a PA-12 is for, and the fleet data proves it — 464 of 1,715 registered airframes are in Alaska. Three seats, 800 lb of useful load, 38 gallons and a huge modification catalogue behind it. A modified 150 hp PA-12 does most of what a Super Cub does, carries a third person, and costs a great deal less.

Business Travel (2/10): 91 knots, usually no radio, no IFR capability.

Aerobatics (1/10) in normal category. In utility the certificate approves chandelles and lazy eights at 110 mph, steep turns at 90 mph and spins. That is more than the J-3 gets and it is still not an aerobatic airplane.

Cross-Country (5/10): 521 nm on 38 gallons at 91 knots is a genuine touring range — better than any other airplane in this family except a long-tank Super Cub — and the third seat makes it a two-plus-baggage machine. The limits are speed and the absence of an IFR panel.

Cargo Hauling (3/10): 41 lb of baggage by the certificate, but 800 lb of useful load and a bench that comes out. Extended baggage bays are among the most common STCs.

Local Fun (8/10): All of the Cub character with room for a friend and their gear.

Surveying (3/10): Slow, good visibility, three seats. Held back by the absence of systems.

Most PA-12s left the factory without an electrical system, though the O-235-C brought "an electric starter and generator" to those that ordered it. The three tiers are the same as the rest of the family:

Purist ($0): Handheld radio, portable GPS, hand-prop. Adequate at uncontrolled fields.

Minimal electrical ($2,000-$5,000): A light electrical system, one COM and a wingtip ADS-B Out device. Opens towered fields and Mode C veils.

Panel-mounted ($5,000-$15,000): COM, ADS-B Out transponder, panel GPS. More common on a PA-12 than on a J-3, because the airplane is genuinely used for cross-country flying and has the useful load to carry a panel.

Aviation Consumer describes the modification catalogue as the airplane's defining feature, and its own summary is the honest version of what used to be a table of invented STC numbers on this page:

Hundreds of STCs have been issued for PA-12s, including vortex generators, new vertical stabilizers, flaps, 24-gallon wing tanks, and metal or fiberglass wing skins ... STCs are available for Cleveland and Bodell brakes, installation of skis or floats, PA-18 Super Cub landing gear, tundra tires and various tailwheels. You can also get extended baggage bays, left side doors, door removal, increased gross weight, various tail surfaces and auto fuel.

Approved powerplants include Lycoming engines with 125, 135, 150, 160 and 180 HP.

NO STC NUMBER APPEARS ON THIS PAGE. The previous version named "SA4-886" for the 150 hp O-320 conversion; no source read in this pass supports that number and it has been removed. Naming an SA-number nobody has verified is exactly the failure this catalogue is being rebuilt to end.

The 150 hp Lycoming conversion is the important one. Aviation Consumer: "PA-12's have migrated north to Canada and Alaska where they are usually re-engined with 150 hp." A fully built PA-12 — bigger engine, PA-18 flaps, PA-18 gear, tundra tires, vortex generators, extended baggage, tail bracing — competes directly with a stock Super Cub at a fraction of the price, and that is the airplane's market position. It is also, per the AD section below, the airplane that gets the short compliance clock on the new rudder AD.

Fuel and gross weight both have STCs. 24-gallon wing tanks take the airplane from 38 gallons to 48; increased-gross-weight approvals exist. Neither is stored in the frontmatter, which describes the certificated airplane.

Parts Availability -- Good

Univair is the principal source, and Aviation Consumer names it directly for the sealed replacement struts. With 1,715 airframes still registered and a very active modification industry behind the type, most things can be got. Rated good rather than excellent because PA-12-specific structure — the wider fuselage, the wing tanks, the gear — is a much smaller pool than the J-3's.

Mechanic Familiarity -- Common

Steel tube, fabric, bungee gear, a small Lycoming. Any A&P with fabric experience can work on one. A heavily modified PA-12 is a different matter: the shop needs to be able to read the 337 package and understand which STC governs which component.

Annual Cost Range

Aviation Consumer's own annual figure of "approximately $400" is from the mid-1990s and is not stored.

Expensive Maintenance Items

• Fabric re-cover on a larger airframe than a Cub's.
• Engine overhaul, $35,000 for the O-235 class per the house reference, and more for a 150 or 180 hp conversion.
• Fuel tanks. Ternplate tanks with soldered seams and spot-welded baffles, eighty years old. Repair or replacement is a real line item.
• Wing lift struts, if AD 2015-08-04 cannot be answered by inspection.
• Rudder replacement, AD 2025-02-11: $3,000 on the FAA's estimate.

PA-12 values are driven by modification level more than by anything else, and the market data shows it clearly.

Asking prices observed on 7 September 2026 (AeroGurus, eleven priced listings of which two were the same Canadian airplane counted twice, one was Ecuadorean, one was a float shop's "2003" airframe and one a "2026 ... New" listing that cannot be a PA-12 at all — production ended in May 1948):

The airplane at the top of that list has eighteen hours on it. That is a fresh rebuild, and it is the same airplane as the $75,000 one only in the sense that a restored 1965 Mustang is the same car as a running one.

This is the weakest price figure in the family and here is why. The median asking price is $119,700 and the stored typical is that less ten percent. But AeroGurus' own market reference is $95,000, and the only two transactions it records went at $76,050 and $79,000 — a 39 percent gap where the standing allowance is 10.

The likeliest reading is that this market is genuinely bimodal: a stock 100 hp PA-12 changes hands in the high $70,000s, and a rebuilt 150-to-180 hp backcountry airplane asks two to three times that. A single "typical" price describes neither. Shop with the mid-$70,000s in mind for a stock airplane and $150,000-plus for a built one, and treat the frontmatter figure as the middle of a range it does not really have.

No Vref or Aircraft Bluebook value is obtainable; both sell values by subscription.

Key value drivers

• Engine. A 150 hp conversion is the largest single swing, and it is worth more in Alaska than in Ohio.
• Flaps. PA-18-style flaps transform approach and landing, and they bring AD 76-06-06 with them.
• Gear, tires and brakes. PA-18 gear legs and 29-31 inch tires are the backcountry package.
• Fabric condition, as always.
• The 337 package. A built PA-12 with complete paperwork is worth far more than the same airplane with gaps.
• AD 2025-02-11 compliance, which is $3,000 and — on a re-engined airplane — due in 2028 rather than 2035.
• Location. 464 of the surviving fleet are in Alaska, and that is where the built airplanes and the strong bids both are.

Airworthiness Directives

Every number below comes from the FAA's own AD index (adlistpipercubs). The previous version of this page described its ADs without numbering any of them, which is safer than inventing numbers and still less useful than naming them correctly.

AD 2025-02-11 — rudder posts — and the PA-12 is the airplane that caused it. Effective 20 March 2025, docket FAA-2023-1893. One of the two in-flight rudder failures behind the rule was on a PA-12, on floats in Alaska in June 2020 — the pilot reported the controls "felt strange" shortly after takeoff and the top of the rudder had folded over. The Short Wing Piper Club's public comment counts five rudder-post failures in total and says the majority were PA-12s.

PA-12 and PA-12S are both named in the applicability table. Any rudder whose post is not 4130N low-alloy steel must be replaced; the FAA estimates $3,000 per airplane. A stock 100 hp PA-12 with no rudder-post beacon is Category IV — ten years, so 20 March 2035. A re-engined PA-12 is not: at 150 hp or more it becomes Category II and the deadline is 20 March 2028, and with a rudder-post beacon as well it is Category I, due 20 March 2027. Given how many PA-12s carry a 150 or 160 hp conversion, this is a near-term expense for a large part of the fleet and it is worth asking a seller about directly.

AD 2015-08-04 — "Wings" — is the current wing lift strut AD. Effective 3 June 2015, docket FAA-2014-1083, naming PA-12 and PA-12S. It supersedes 99-01-05 R1, 99-01-05 and 93-10-06, "Corroded Wing Lift Struts or Cracked Forks", which is the number older sources still quote. Aviation Consumer describes the underlying defect from the owner's side: "The wing struts have had many service letters and ADs against them over the years, mainly because of internal corrosion that eats through them from the inside out, but also due to fatigue on the bottom end of the steel strut. A new style sealed strut is available from Univair Aircraft Corp. in Aurora, Colorado that solves the problem with corrosion."

AD 76-06-06 — "PA-14 Wing Flaps" — names the PA-12 and not the PA-14. The title is not a mistake: PA-14 flaps are a common STC installation on a PA-12, and the AD reaches the airplane they are fitted to. If the PA-12 you are looking at has flaps, expect this one. If it does not, you should not see it.

Two landing-gear ADs match a defect Aviation Consumer describes. AD 47-47-01 "Landing Gear Reinforcement" and AD 47-22-03 "Landing Gear Tie Strap", both PA-12-only. The magazine, from the other direction: "The landing gear assemblies on some of the earlier models have also had their share of troubles. They had a thin steel strap running from the inboard end of the axle to the inboard end of the main gear tube where the shock cords are. The welds at each end of the strap were prone to cracking, so Piper modified the part in the field by welding a streamlined tube over the strap and beefing up both ends."

AD 85-06-04 "Fuel Tank" (effective 4 May 1985), AD 78-10-03 "Fuel Venting" and AD 68-05-01 "Exhaust Mufflers" all name the PA-12, as does AD 74-17-04 "Fabric Reinforcement", AD 60-01-07 "Tail Brace Wires", AD 51-21-02 "Aileron Hinge Brackets" and AD 49-27-02 "Aileron Bellcrank Castings".

The remaining PA-12-only entries are all from the 1946-48 production period and are the shakedown of a new airplane: 48-14-01 Fuel Line Elbow, 48-13-03 Battery Hold Down Brackets, 48-13-04 Fuse-Clip Attachment, 48-01-02 Cowl Support Braces, 47-47-02 Battery Box Insulating Spacer, 47-47-04 Starter Solenoid Replacement, 46-36-02 Airscoop Rework, 46-36-03 Muffler Brace, and 47-47-03 Seaplane Fuselage Inspection (PA-12S only).

This is not a compliance list, and engine ADs are not included — those are issued against the Lycoming type certificate and were not searched here.

Common Problems and Pre-Buy Concerns

The fuel tanks, and this is the one that could hurt somebody. Aviation Consumer: "Made of thin-walled steel known as ternplate, the tanks were soldered together. Inside, two longitudinal baffles were spot-welded to the upper and lower skins of the tank. After decades of fuel sloshing inside the tanks, the baffle welds can tear loose. In addition, the seams can crack, leading to fuel leaks."

And the behavior that follows from the tank design: "The fuel lines run from the back of the fuel tanks, and during descent the tanks can unport if the fuel quantity is low. Unfortunately, lousy fuel gauges mean you dont really know when that will happen." Fuel is drawn from the BACK of the tanks, so a nose-down descent on low tanks can uncover the pickup. Piper's two-gallon header tank was the fix; it was leak-prone, and later airplanes had it deleted, which made the problem worse. Ask which configuration the airplane in front of you has.

The wing struts, per the current AD and the corrosion mechanism above. Sealed Univair struts are the usual terminating answer.

The landing gear strap welds, per the two 1947 ADs. Even on modified gear, inspect the welds at every annual.

The aileron bellcranks and hinge brackets, per AD 49-27-02 and AD 51-21-02. Cast aluminum bellcranks crack, characteristically from over-torqued hardware.

Fabric condition, as on every airplane in this family, and the PA-12's airframe is bigger than a Cub's so the re-cover costs more.

STC documentation is a PA-12-specific problem. With hundreds of approvals in circulation and a fleet that has been rebuilt repeatedly, the paperwork is the airplane. Ask for the complete 337 package and check it against what is actually installed — engine, flaps, gear, tanks, gross weight. A missing 337 on a major modification is an airworthiness problem and a resale problem at once.

Fuselage structure at the front wing attach. Widely reported among owners as the PA-12's structural weak link, particularly for float and big-tire operations, and commonly reinforced. No document read in this pass states this, so it is recorded as a thing to have a mechanic look at rather than as a fact, and the tail bracing that usually accompanies it is in the STC list above.

The bands below are the April 2026 generated pass, from reference/insurance-costs.md's tailwheel fixed-gear class. They are not quotes for this type and were not re-sourced in this pass.

Tailwheel time is the primary driver. A built backcountry airplane insured for off-airport operations is a different underwriting conversation from a stock airplane flown off pavement, and float operations different again.

See GA Insurance Underwriting for context.