As you may know, CubCrafters has been offering a nosewheel option on their popular XCub.
The company has mentioned they understand the skepticism among the community, and has been testing to see how the market would respond for about a year and a half. Pilots have been getting used to seeing the nosewheel option and since the aircraft has been on the market, that skepticism has been noticeably fading.
According to Mark Keneston, Sales Manager at CubCrafters, pilots have been coming out of the woodwork to purchase these aircraft. We spoke with him at Sun ‘N Fun 2021 to get his inside perspective on how the aircraft has been received and what the future looks like.
“Well the market has responded very favorably, as you know early on when we brought it out it was kind of in a mode where people were like, ‘What’s going on here,’ and we wanted to see how the market would respond,” Keneston says.
“People that were flying 182’s and Saratogas, those types of airplanes, wanted to get into the backcountry, and you're just not gonna do it with that airplane,” he continued. “The response has been favorable, we are building many of the airplanes and the orders are lined up.”
The Cubs have already been sold into a US Air Force Test Program, and tailwheel devotees have been reporting that the Cub is exceeding their expectations.
Equipped with a 215 horsepower fuel-injected Lycoming powerplant, the nosewheel option limits rollout compared to a tailwheel for adventure pilots. Performance-wise, the takeoff and landing distances are 120ft and 80ft in the NX. For its category, its speed is impressive at 150mph (TAS) at 6,500 feet.
Keneston invites anyone who is on the fence about the nosewheel to come out and fly the aircraft. Certification was about 80% completed at Sun ‘N Fun, and the company continues to move forward with the process. For now, the aircraft is being sold as an EAB (Experimental Amateur Built).
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