Piper PA-18 Super Cub

Section I's numbers are four plausible-looking wrong answers for this page. Its airspeed limits are 82 / 96 / 120 / 70 knots against Section III's 83 / 105 / 133 / 74, because the "150" has different wings — 1A2 says so: "Models PA-18 '150' and PA-18A '150' same as corresponding models PA-18 '135' and PA-18A '135' except for the engine, wings, and revisions to the fuselage, fuel system and landing gear."

Within the "150", three further distinctions matter:

Sixty-eight pounds of empty weight across thirteen years is not a contradiction, it is an airplane gaining equipment, and Aviation Consumer dates the additions: a metal belly pan option in 1961, zinc chromate in the wings and heavier 4130 fuselage tube around 1965, Ceconite instead of Grade-A cotton in 1971, panel-mounted fuel gauges in 1976, a 60-amp alternator in 1977, aluminum ailerons and Cleveland brakes in 1978. A 1958 Super Cub will weigh less and carry more than the book on this page says. Weigh it.

The PA-18A is worth looking at harder for chemical corrosion, given what it was built to do.

Post-production. Piper stopped in 1994. Aviation Consumer records that a kit route existed — "A buyer could purchase a Cub kit and build it under factory supervision. The kit idea really never took off ... today owner-assembled airplanes are valued at some $12,000 less than their factory-assembled peers."

The cruise, the burn and the range are one row of one table, and the handbook states the condition in a sentence: "The cruising speed of the Super Cub at 75% of rated engine power, at gross load under standard sea level conditions, is approximately 115 MPH ... The correct cruising RPM will result in a cruising airspeed of 115 MPH with a fuel consumption of approximately 9 gallons per hour." That is 100 knots true on 9 gph at sea level, 75% power.

The range figure is in STATUTE miles and the arithmetic proves it. Section I prints "Cruising Range (75% power) 460" with no unit. Thirty-six gallons at 9 gph is exactly 4.0 hours; 4.0 hours at 115 mph is exactly 460. Had the book meant nautical miles the same three numbers would have given 400. So the stored 400 nm is a fuel-exhaustion figure — still air, no reserve, no taxi or climb allowance. A real trip with a 45-minute reserve is about 325 nm.

The propeller matters, and the book says so. "The metal propeller with which the Super Cub 150 is equipped as standard equipment is, unless specified otherwise, a 56 inch pitch propeller that favors takeoff and climb rather than cruising speed." Every figure above describes that climb-pitch propeller. A cruise prop changes them.

Real-world cruise is slower than the book, and Aviation Consumer says by how much: "Figure on cruise speeds in the 100 to 110 MPH range on 8 to 8.5 GPH." That is 87 to 96 knots. The two are not in conflict — the book is a sea-level, standard-day, gross-weight number and the article is what a real airplane does at altitude with a climb prop — and the article's band is what to plan on.

There is a slower published pair and it cannot carry the economy fields. Section III: "If the airplane is slowed down to about 100 MPH, approximately 5 gallons per hour will be used." That is a striking number — 44 percent less fuel for 13 percent less speed — but the book publishes no range for it and no power percentage, and runbook rule 3 requires all four econ_* fields together or none. It is recorded here rather than in the frontmatter.

200 feet of takeoff run, and a disagreement about the climb speed. Section I gives 200 ft to lift-off and 500 ft over a 50 ft barrier, both flaps extended; Aviation Consumer independently confirms "Book takeoff roll at gross weight is 200 feet" and adds what happens in the real world: "Heavily overloaded, a Super Cub may grind along for 300 feet before becoming airborne, pilots tell us. Now, with the addition of VGs and progressively larger engines, takeoff rolls in the double digits on calm days are being reported."

Both sources agree the book climb is 960 fpm — and then Aviation Consumer adds "although thats at 50 MPH, which generates a climb gradient of some 22 percent. That claim might be viewed with at least a raised eyebrow." The handbook disagrees: it prints "Best Rate of Climb Speed (mph) 75" and "Best Angle of Climb Speed (mph) 45" as separate lines, and its 960 fpm belongs with the 75. AOPA's flight report independently says "We climbed at 75 mph, the best rate, and at 4,000 feet were still showing 800 fpm."

The catalogue follows the handbook, two sources to one. Anyone flying the Super Cub at 50 mph on the strength of that article is five knots above the book's best-angle speed and fifteen below its best-rate speed — which is a meaningful place to be with an obstacle ahead, and Aviation Consumer's own accident review found "about 15 percent involved hitting an obstruction after takeoff or stalling while trying to clear an obstacle."

Service ceiling is 19,000 ft, not 21,300. The handbook prints both on adjacent lines — "Service Ceiling 19,000" and "Absolute Ceiling 21,300" — and AOPA has put the absolute ceiling in a cell labelled service ceiling. They are different quantities and the handbook settles it.

Stall: 37 knots with flaps, 41 clean. The handbook prints one figure, 43 mph asterisked "flaps extended"; AOPA prints both, and its 37 knots is exactly the handbook's 43 mph. Two documents agreeing on the shared figure is what makes the clean number worth taking from the one that publishes it.

No landing distance over a 50 ft obstacle is published. The handbook gives the 350 ft roll and stops. AOPA's 1975 flight report mentions "the 725 feet listed for obstacle-clearance arrivals" without saying what lists it, and that is a lead rather than a citation.

752 lb of useful load on the 1974-and-later airplane, 36 gallons and 50 lb of baggage. Early Super Cubs carry about 68 lb more — see the Variants table — and the gross weight STC adds 250 lb on top of that.

Scenario 1: Backcountry day trip, two up, reduced fuel

Half tanks and two people is a comfortable, well-inside-limits airplane, and it is how a Super Cub is normally flown for backcountry work — light, with margin in hand for a short strip.

Scenario 2: Solo, maximum cargo

The rear seat comes out and the airplane becomes a freighter. Work the moment, not just the weight: the rear seat station is +37 and the baggage station is +57, and at 1,750 lb the normal-category CG band is only six inches wide.

Scenario 3: Two adults, full fuel, cross-country

Two adults, full fuel, full baggage and 96 lb spare. This is the configuration the PA-11 cannot do at all and the J-3 cannot approach, and it is why the Super Cub costs what it costs.

Scenario 4: With the 2,000 lb gross weight STC

The STC turns a 752 lb airplane into a 1,002 lb one, which is a third more payload for the price of paperwork and placards. It does not make the airplane climb any better, and every takeoff and landing figure on this page describes 1,750 lb.

Against the modern Cubs

A fully built Super Cub — 180 hp, STOL kit, big tires, gross weight STC, extended baggage, a modern panel — is a $250,000 airplane by the time it is finished, which is why CubCrafters' Carbon Cub and XCub have a market at $300,000 and up despite being new. What the Super Cub still has is a type certificate, a factory handbook, 8,442 airframes of parts behind it and seventy years of shops that know it. The comparison is not really performance; it is whether you would rather own a new airplane or a supported one.

Flight Training (7/10): A superb tailwheel trainer with real power, flaps and a front-seat pilot. Docked because most examples have minimal panels and because the Super Cub's own accident record argues for doing the training somewhere less capable. Aviation Consumer: "the loss of control accident rate for the Super Cub is awful."

Backcountry (10/10): The reference airplane for the mission and the standard everything else is measured against. 200 ft of book takeoff run, 36 gallons, flaps, and the deepest modification catalogue in light aviation behind it.

Business Travel (1/10): 100 knots, two tandem seats, no IFR capability.

Aerobatics (1/10): Not approved. 1A2 Section III certifies the airplane in the normal and utility categories.

Cross-Country (4/10): 400 nm of book range — about 325 with a real reserve — at 100 knots. Better than anything else in this family and still slow, and the airplane is loud and unpressurised for four hours at a stretch.

Cargo Hauling (3/10): 50 lb of baggage by the certificate, 752 lb of useful load, and an enormous aftermarket of extended baggage bays and belly pods.

Local Fun (9/10): Everything the J-3 offers, faster, with flaps and a climb rate.

Surveying (6/10): Slow flight, excellent visibility, long endurance and a history of exactly this work — the Smithsonian's own PA-18 came from the US Atomic Energy Commission's survey fleet. Aviation Consumer notes the same: "border and pipeline patrol, fish spotting or banner towing".

The Super Cub is the only airplane in this family that routinely carries a real panel, because it has the useful load and the electrical system to support one. Aviation Consumer dates the change: "In 1977, Piper switched from the old-style DC generator to a 60-amp alternator."

Basic ($1,000-$3,000): Handheld radio and a portable ADS-B In receiver on a 1950s airplane with no electrics.

Typical ($5,000-$12,000): A COM, an ADS-B Out transponder and a panel or yoke-mounted GPS. This is where most flying Super Cubs sit.

Backcountry-equipped ($15,000-$30,000): A modern EFIS, a GPS navigator, ADS-B In and Out, an engine monitor and often an inReach or similar satellite communicator. On an airplane worth $200,000 this is proportionate, and the useful load carries it.

The Super Cub has the deepest modification ecosystem of any light aircraft, and entire businesses exist to work on it. The tables below are the April 2026 generated pass, retained because they are useful, and no STC number appears in them — the previous version named none either, which was the right instinct. Cost figures are indicative and were not re-sourced in this pass.

Engine upgrades

1A2 Item 111.A is the certificate's own engine list and it contains only three entries — O-320, O-320-A2A and O-320-A2B, all 150 hp. Everything above is an STC installation, and the STC paperwork is part of the airplane.

Item 112 is worth knowing about because it is an airworthiness item rather than an option: "Oil cooler Niagara Development Division P/N 20377A installed in accordance with Piper Drawing 89301-02 (required with Lycoming O-320 engine on Model PA-18 '150')."

STOL and aerodynamic

Bush and backcountry

The 2,000 lb gross weight STC changes the payload arithmetic completely and is worked as its own scenario below.

Parts Availability -- Excellent

8,442 airframes, a still-active type community, Univair and Wag-Aero behind the common structure, and a modification industry that manufactures much of the airplane in improved form. Practically everything can be got new.

Mechanic Familiarity -- Common

Steel tube, fabric, bungee gear, a Lycoming O-320. Any A&P with fabric experience can work on one, and in Alaska and the mountain west most of them have. A heavily modified Super Cub needs a shop that can read the STC package, which is a different requirement.

Annual Cost Range

Aviation Consumer, from around 2006 and not stored: "Annual inspections typically run in the $500 to $700 range, although some get by for next to nothing if the owner does a lot of the work himself. On the other hand, the fabric covering and steel tube fuselage means that the potential for catastrophic annuals is always just around the corner."

At 8 to 8.5 gph — Aviation Consumer's real-world band rather than the book's 9 — the fuel line falls to about $5,300.

Expensive Maintenance Items

• Fabric re-cover. Aviation Consumer's "catastrophic annual" is usually this one arriving unannounced.
• Engine overhaul, $42,000 for the O-320 per the house reference, and more for a 180 hp conversion.
• Wing lift struts, if AD 2015-08-04 cannot be answered by inspection.
• Rudder replacement, AD 2025-02-11: $3,000, and sooner than on any other airplane in this family.
• Landing gear. "The Super Cub gear is likely to have taken a frightful pounding over the years."

These are US asking prices observed on 7 September 2026, and the US-versus-Europe split matters more on this airplane than on any other in the family.

Nine US listings on Controller: $129,900 (1953), $159,000 (1979), $165,000 (1952), $169,000 (a "2003" airframe — production ended in 1994, so a replica or a rebuild), $190,000 (1990), $195,000 (1955), $196,000 (1959), $197,500 (1955) and $215,000 (1953). Median $190,000, and the stored typical is that less the standing 10 percent.

AeroGurus' median of $128,000 is a different market, not a different answer. Only 21 of its 46 listings are in the United States, and the first ten cards on its page are in Denmark, Switzerland, France, Finland, Germany, Belgium, Germany, Bosnia, Canada and the UK, asking $55,204 to $101,474. European Super Cubs ask half what American ones do. That is worth knowing if importing is on the table and it is not the market a US budget filter should describe. AeroGurus' own market reference of $180,000 sits within five percent of the Controller US median, which is the cross-check that matters.

Note that year buys almost nothing on this airplane: a 1953 airframe asks $215,000 and a 1990 one asks $190,000. Condition, engine, gear and modification level are the whole story, which is what you would expect of a type that has been rebuilt repeatedly.

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

Key value drivers

• Engine. A 180 hp conversion with clean paperwork is the largest single swing.
• Gross weight STC. 2,000 lb instead of 1,750 is 250 lb of payload and it is what a working airplane needs.
• Gear, tires and brakes. The bush package.
• Fabric and covering age.
• AD 2025-02-11 compliance. $3,000, due March 2028 on a stock airplane and March 2027 with a rudder-post beacon. Almost nobody has done it yet.
• Provenance. Aviation Consumer: "owner-assembled airplanes are valued at some $12,000 less than their factory-assembled peers."
• Damage history. With the accident record above, a Super Cub with no history at all is the exception rather than the rule; what matters is whether the repairs were done properly and documented.

Airworthiness Directives

Every number below comes from the FAA's own AD index (adlistpipercubs), except where the AD's own text is cited.

AD 2025-02-11 — rudder posts — and the Super Cub gets one of the SHORT clocks. Effective 20 March 2025, docket FAA-2023-1893. PA-18-150, PA-18A-150, PA-18S-150 and PA-18AS-150 are all named. Any rudder whose post is not 4130N low-alloy steel must be replaced, and the FAA estimates $3,000 per airplane across 30,992 US-registered airframes.

A stock 150 hp Super Cub is Category II — "either a rudder post mounted beacon light OR a 150 or greater hp engine installed" — which is three years, so 20 March 2028. With a beacon on the rudder post as well it is Category I: two years, 20 March 2027, which is the shortest deadline in the rule. Piper Service Bulletin 1379B of 7 May 2024 explains how to identify the steel.

This is a near-term, certain, three-thousand-dollar expense on an airplane that is otherwise cheap to keep, and it is new enough that most sellers have not done it. Ask for the rudder's paperwork specifically.

AD 2015-08-04 — "Wings" — is the current wing lift strut AD, effective 3 June 2015, docket FAA-2014-1083, naming every PA-18 model. It supersedes 99-01-05 R1, 99-01-05 and 93-10-06, "Corroded Wing Lift Struts or Cracked Forks".

Aviation Consumer names 93-10-06 as current and that is now two supersessions out of date — the article is from around 2006 and was right then: "Theres a significant AD on the wing struts, AD 93-10-6 (this was once two ADs, 77-3-8 and 81-25-5). Part of the AD calls for annual inspections of the struts for corrosion, as well as treatment with a rust inhibitor (linseed oil). The service bulletin the AD specified using a Maule punch tester on the strut; however, some mechanics doubt the effectiveness of this test." Cite 2015-08-04, not 93-10-06, and treat the mechanics' doubt about the punch test as still live.

Two ADs name the PA-18-150 and NOTHING ELSE, and both are structural in the lower fuselage:

• AD 69-23-03 — "Lower Longeron Inspection"
• AD 81-06-08 — "Lower Fuselage Attachment Tab"

Ask to see the compliance record for those two by number. They point at exactly the area Aviation Consumer's own maintenance list opens with: "Corrosion in the steel fuselage tubing and wing struts and forks. Particularly check the lower rear tubes, and be extra careful if the plane has done any spraying duty."

Others naming the PA-18-150 by subject: 62-02-05 Rudder Cable Attachment Lug, 53-04-01 Control Stick Attachment, 60-10-08 Fuel Selector Valve, 61-16-05 Control Cable Replacement, 85-06-04 Fuel Tank (effective 4 May 1985), 78-10-03 Fuel Venting and 68-05-01 Exhaust Mufflers.

One AD is easy to over-read: AD 72-01-07, "Failure of Engine Mount", does NOT name the "150". Its model list runs PA-18, PA-18 "105", "125", "135", PA-18A and PA-18A "135" and stops. An AD titled "Failure of Engine Mount ... PA-18" looks as though it covers every Super Cub. It does not.

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 Pre-Buy Red Flags

Aviation Consumer's list, quoted, because it is a good one:

Corrosion in the steel fuselage tubing and wing struts and forks. Particularly check the lower rear tubes, and be extra careful if the plane has done any spraying duty.

Fatigue cracks in the threaded clevis bolts on the wing struts.

Worn out landing gear hinge and shock strut bolts and bushings. The Super Cub gear is likely to have taken a frightful pounding over the years; inspect it closely.

Worn top rudder hinge bushing, especially on aircraft with rudder-mounted beacons.

Loose or worn-out elevator trim jackscrew, especially in aircraft used for glider or banner towing.

The rudder-mounted beacon appears twice in this page for different reasons, and that is not a coincidence: it is a wear item in the pre-buy list and it is the thing that moves an airplane from Category II to Category I under AD 2025-02-11.

And one dated check worth making by eye, from the same source: "About 1965 (even Piper couldnt tell us the exact date), zinc chromate anti-corrosion treatment was added to the wings. If youre considering a mid-60s model, remove an inspection cover and check the color of the metal. Yellowish green is good, anything else is not so good."

Fabric. Ceconite from 1971; Grade-A cotton before that. Aviation Consumer: "the fabric covering and steel tube fuselage means that the potential for catastrophic annuals is always just around the corner."

The safety record, stated plainly

This is not a page that will soften it. Aviation Consumer:

There are only a few thousand Super Cubs in existence, yet, on average, every two-and-a-half weeks one of them comes to grief in the process of taking off or landing.

That being said, the loss of control accident rate for the Super Cub is awful. The heel brakes come in for some share of the blame, but tailwheel airplanes are more demanding than nosewheel models. Because almost half of the Super Cub landing and takeoff accidents we reviewed occurred at off-airport sites and because the PA-18 is so capable, it may be causing pilot egos to write checks their skills cant cash by attempting to operate on strips that are simply too short or too narrow for the pilot to handle.

Its lack of dihedral means it has no roll stability. Bags of adverse aileron yaw require that a pilot learn to use the rudder, something that is essential when maneuvering because it is vicious in an uncoordinated stall, rolling rapidly and losing 300 to 400 feet of altitude quickly.

Note the last sentence against the CG range. 1A2's normal-category forward limit moves aft by 3.5 inches between 1,300 lb and gross, so a Super Cub loaded to 1,750 lb has a six-inch CG band, not a nine-inch one. That is the arithmetic behind the type's reputation for being easy to load out of limits with a heavy passenger and full baggage — and an uncoordinated stall out of limits is the accident the paragraph above describes.

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, they were not re-sourced in this pass, and they are almost certainly low — a $2,000 premium implies a far smaller hull than the $190,000 this airplane actually asks.

Two underwriting realities specific to this type, neither sourced from a broker: off-airport operations are a separate conversation from operating off pavement, and the loss-of-control record above is priced. Float and ski operations are separate again.

See GA Insurance Underwriting for context.