Flight safety is one thing all pilots discuss. They reside it, settle for it, and all the time hope to decide on it of their day-to-day lives within the aviation world. For the Tremendous Cub fanatic, the Prolonged Slotted Wing from Dakota Cub affords pilots the chance to boost their safety margin in addition to boosting the climb efficiency of the plane.
Think about flying your Tremendous Cub at a excessive angle of attack with the airspeed indicator studying 20 mph, then rolling into 60-degrees of bank and initiating a climbing spiral whereas deciding on a power setting that is lower than full throttle! That’s the typical exhibition that sells the Dakota Cub Prolonged Slotted Wing. The second most talked about high quality of this wing is the power to have full flight control authority at excessive angles of attack. No extra comfortable controls, plopping it down, or wing drop on stall.
Mark Erickson, the founding father of Dakota Cub, started his mission within the 1990’s. All he wished was a Cub rib. Nothing from Piper was accessible at an affordable price and because the Piper ribs have been so fragile, he determined to construct his personal. He utilized modern-day know-how to an old Piper wing that was initially developed for the YL-14 liaison model of the J5C Cub. The YL-14 wing was a slotted wing. In line with Erickson, there have been solely 14 of those plane constructed earlier than the tip of World Conflict 2. They have been particularly engineered for short take-offs of 100-feet and climbs with excessive angles of attack. There are solely two of those nonetheless within the air right this moment – one in Spain; the opposite in Nebraska mpo189.
The Dakota Cub Prolonged Slotted Wing has a number of variances when in comparison with the unique Cub wing and the L-14 wing for that matter. Erickson revised the unique Piper US35B airfoil used for the L-14. He developed a customized “T” formed extrusion with the identical dimensions that when utilized in constructing a truss-style rib, is lighter, less complicated to work with, and extra strong than the unique wing. Erickson obtained a STC for the brand new wing in 1993.
Erickson’s new rib solely provides seven lbs to the burden of every authentic Piper wing. The brand new wing has been structurally examined to in entry of two,200 lbs, nonetheless, the STC limits the gross weight to 1,750 lbs for the unique wing or 2,000 lbs for these wings outfitted with the Wipaire One Ton Cub STC. This synthetic discount will hopefully be modified sooner or later. Within the intervening years, Erickson has designed ribs and lots of different components which are FAA PMA-ed for all rag-wing Pipers. Erickson was granted the STC for the full-length forefront slot in 1998. This slot helps protect the boundary layer of airflow at gradual speeds. On prime of that, Erickson engineered a squared off wing and removed the tip bow giving the wing a further 6% floor space, elevated the flaps which ends up in 44% extra flap space, and pushed the ailerons outward 23-inches to the sting of the wing. He calls it the “Prolonged Wing.” The squared wing provides about 8 lbs to the unique Piper wing.
Including a slot to the Prolonged Wing provides one other 9 lbs per wing, however the elevated safety envelope from which to fly is properly well worth the trade-off. The flight traits of the squared-off and slotted wing, which Erickson calls the “Prolonged Slotted Wing”, is the first benefit and emphasis with regard to alternative of wings to incorporate in your Cub mission. The Prolonged Slotted Wing is the most effective performing wing provided by Dakota Cub. It has a 135-inch slot, a squared-off wing with 102-inch ailerons, and a 90.25-inch flap. Dakota Cub additionally affords the usual Cub wing and a squared-off wing with out the slot.
The Prolonged Slotted Wing is just a safer wing. It permits the next crucial angle of attack, slower stall pace, and virtually eliminates the sudden lack of carry versus a straight wing. It delays the separation of the air circulation from the wing floor, thus aileron authority is maintained and in lots of cases the one signal of a stall shall be a higher-than-normal charge of respectable. This phenomenon permits the sink charge of the plane on method to touchdown to be managed by power alone enabling a extra exact landing level with out worry of a wing stalling or falling off on one aspect. The wing additionally has an improved roll charge as a result of ailerons being prolonged to the tip of the wing.
If you wish to take full benefit of the Prolonged Slotted Wing in your Tremendous Cub, then it is strongly recommended to put in a 3-inch gear extension. The gear extension will enable the gradual pace capabilities of the wing to take full impact upon touchdown. Bigger tires will present for this as properly. Short gear coupled with small tires will lead to tail wheel first landings and a take-off run that’s longer than optimum as a result of it is harder to realize that greater angle of attack.
The tip results of all this innovation is a Cub that has higher climb efficiency, higher sink control, slower landings, and a a lot better margin of safety. A large-body fuselage from Airframes, Inc options an prolonged fuselage, and when mixed with the bigger control surfaces and the slot, a pilot can fly at a 45-degree nose-up angle, land at 25 knots, and nonetheless have a wing that hangs within the air.