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New Cub Driver... reflecting on 14hr trip home. Heel brakes??!!

TxAgfisher

MEMBER
East Texas
Let me preface this whole thing by saying that I have already been chastised and Cub shamed by Steve Pierce for commenting on how slow this Cub was... anyway, 14.3hrs to go 1055 miles. That’s an average of less than 74mph! Granted, the wind was absolutely horrendous.

Seriously though, the trip was brutal. Least amount of fun I’ve had buying a plane and I’m on number 5.

The burning question though before I dump a bunch of money in upgrades or sell it - how in the hell do you get to the brakes for a wheelie roll out. If I get on the brakes I have to nearly bottom the pedal out for any effective braking whatsoever and in doing so I don’t get the braking I need to control the tail and I lose the rudder trying to figure out how to manipulate my feet. Do I need boosters? I serviced the fluid myself before I left so I know they are full.

I’m used to flying with a lot of brakes, tail low wheelie rollout like this...

Embedding the video didn’t work, here’s the actual link.
https://vimeo.com/445981121
 
1. A cross country in a Cub gives you more time to enjoy what you love! Fly!
2. Heel brakes take some getting used to. Be patient.
3. I have never had a problem with a wheel landing with 8.50 x6.00 tires. I have understand that brake boosters are nice with larger tires.
4. Give it time, it will be the most fun to fly airplane you ever owned!
 
Sooooooo, That was a tailwheel first landing not a wheel landing. When light I use full nose up trim, heavy a few turns back. When your prop it trying to find the ground the stabilizer is you only hope because the stick is all the way back!! The flare on a cub will put the tailwheel well below the mains (just like the Maul in the video) so you have to flare and let it go to get the tailwheel above the mains, MAF technique. Once the mains are on the ground use brakes/stick to keep the tail up. Boosters will help a lot!!! Give it some time A cub tail is not as heavy as a Maul so be careful. Fly the first 100 hours duck foot with you heels always on the brakes, this is how you should land, it will become natural.
DENNY
 
Double check to make sure the brakes are bled, and the linkage is properly adjusted.
 
Stock Cub brake cylinder diaphragms - the flat rubber discs pushed by the brake pedal that move fluid and create pressure - can stretch over time. New ones can be stiffer and offer better performance. Without boosters and when topping off with fluid pull the brake pedal back then fill to top, cap, and release the pedal. Test this first at slow taxi to make sure the system isn't over pressured and brakes too tight. I have no experience with boosters but see them with big tires.

Gary
 
To quote Herman Ruess: "You supposed to FLY the damn ting, not stop it!".

Mostly good advice on brakes noted above, but, initially, stay off those brakes till you've learned to fly/land the thing.

You'll get the hang of heel brakes after a while, but, especially with a Cub, you should be MOSTLY landing the thing using rudder.

MTV
 
If you have the original diaphragm masters, regardless of whether you have disc brakes or expanders, you can significantly improve the pedal by pre-charging the system through the bleeder ports. After getting the system bled, back-charge it with a pump can and lock the bleeder off while applying pressure. You can firm them up nicely. That being said, boosters and double puck Clevelands are the hot ticket.
 
I know it sounds cliche, but my Cub is much more about the journey than anything else. I’ve pushed big headwinds for days at a time and was amazed at how much more I saw. If I wanted transportation I would have something else..
 
If you didn’t fall in love with it in the first 30 minutes, I’m not sure there’s anything we can do for you- and yes, heel brakes are awful- my advice would be to donate this sorry excuse for an airplane to some delusional soul who thinks they’re content with 74 mph... Try to forget about this dark time in your life and look for a real airplane- I hear Cirrus owners love their planes; you might give those a look...
 
Want speed? Get a Taylorcraft so you can have camp set up and grub ready when the Cubs arrive.

Gary
 
For a long time I wondered what a champ would be like with t-craft wings. You’d have the visibility of the champ and the speed and performance of the T- craft wings not to mention it is easy to get in and out of


Sent from my iPhone using SuperCub.Org
 
I bet that Super Cub has brake boosters. If topped off correctly they should have a very firm pedal.

“Correctly” may be the missing link - I’ll text you a picture of what’s on there but doesn’t look like anything special. I’ll likely opt for the Steve’s kit.

For the other inquiry above, it has double puck Cleveland’s.
 
If you didn’t fall in love with it in the first 30 minutes, I’m not sure there’s anything we can do for you- and yes, heel brakes are awful- my advice would be to donate this sorry excuse for an airplane to some delusional soul who thinks they’re content with 74 mph... Try to forget about this dark time in your life and look for a real airplane- I hear Cirrus owners love their planes; you might give those a look...

And these are the replies I expected! A Wagon will spoil you.
 
75 is my normal cruising speed in my 150 hp cub with 31" tires and a belly pod without headwinds. Sure, there are times when I'd like to get there a little faster, but most of the time I absolutely love the slow flight of a cub. As for heel brakes, it took me a few hours to get used to them, but it becomes second nature pretty quickly.
 
Just so you know, when that stone tablet came down from heaven on Mount Sinai into Moses' hands, it was broken at the bottom. I have it on pretty good authority that the 11th commandment had to do with God intending man to use heel brakes...

sj
 
Just so you know, when that stone tablet came down from heaven on Mount Sinai into Moses' hands, it was broken at the bottom. I have it on pretty good authority that the 11th commandment had to do with God intending man to use heel brakes...

sj

Holy Smokes, I'm gone for a couple of hours to meet up with NY Glenn and his buddy Stewart and when I get home I find I'm being called a Dude, I'm in the same class as Caravan "cub eaters" and now I'm not even a man. I guess I'll just paint my Carbon Cub pink and with my tail between my legs sneak on back to CC Forum. I hope they take me back.
 
Give it time bud, I think I’ve regretted every plane I’ve bought on the flight home. Unfamiliar plane over unfamiliar territory, shakes different and flys funny. After 25 hrs it starts feeling ok, and by 100 hrs I’ve loved them all.

I’ll have to check it out next time you’re out this way.
 
Holy Smokes, I'm gone for a couple of hours to meet up with NY Glenn and his buddy Stewart and when I get home I find I'm being called a Dude, I'm in the same class as Caravan "cub eaters" and now I'm not even a man. I guess I'll just paint my Carbon Cub pink and with my tail between my legs sneak on back to CC Forum. I hope they take me back.
You’ve already started down the slippery slope- might as well just trade that CC in on an NXCub and own it...
 
Holy Smokes, I'm gone for a couple of hours to meet up with NY Glenn and his buddy Stewart and when I get home I find I'm being called a Dude, I'm in the same class as Caravan "cub eaters" and now I'm not even a man. I guess I'll just paint my Carbon Cub pink and with my tail between my legs sneak on back to CC Forum. I hope they take me back.

40M, I don’t even know how you convinced NYGlenn to be friends with you. Mr. low-power no flaps no brakes no panel fly home using your phone to see through the fog ..... hanging with Mr. Sky-Porsche with a G3x.
Probably only because you don’t have two glass panels... hahahahha


Transmitted from my FlightPhone on fingers...
 
Well, I know what you went through... When I flew my new-to-me RANS S-6ES (Rotax powered LSA side-by-side) home from Utah to Texas, I was flying directly into some brutal headwinds (35 mph, right on the nose) pretty much the entire trip. The plane cruises at 100 mph IAS, but I only averaged 64 mph for the trip. Lots of beautiful – but very rough – terrain between Salt Lake City and Albuquerque. I stayed as low as I reasonably could, because the headwinds got much worse at higher altitudes... Still, I was above 9500 ft most of the way.

But as others have alluded to, the view was incredible, and I thoroughly enjoyed the flight. Got a little bumpy a time of two, but that's to be expected. Flying over Canyonlands and the Cliff Dwellings was amazing. I got a few nice pictures, but it's probably the only time I've wished I had an autopilot so I could have taken more of them. It was just bumpy enough that I had to "fly the plane" most of the time.

For me, one thing made a huge difference with the RANS: The cockpit is quite roomy, and my plane has Oregon Aero seats that remained quite comfortable for the entire trip! I flew 7.7 hours the first day, and 8.6 the third day – day 2 was a weather day with thunderstorms and REALLY high winds – and the seats were comfortable for the entire trip. That was a whole different experience from my previous plane, a '65 Champion 7ECA. Even a 2.5 hour trip in the Citabria got pretty uncomfortable, and by the time I would get out of the cockpit, I really didn't want to just climb back in again. Just something about the seating position was "off" for me. Not so the RANS – by the time I got fuel for the plane (and me), I was ready to go again!

Love this plane!
 
Dont let anyone kid you. Cross country in s supercub on a hot day sucks. Throw in a good head windwind and they really suck. Supercubs were meant for early mornings and winters.
 
Just so you know, when that stone tablet came down from heaven on Mount Sinai into Moses' hands, it was broken at the bottom. I have it on pretty good authority that the 11th commandment had to do with God intending man to use heel brakes...

sj
I don't think the issue is heel brakes, he said the pedals bottom out before he gets brakes, sounds like low on fluid, rods aren't adjusted right or something else is amiss. Alyssa Cobb at AOPA was having issues with the new AOPA Super Cub too when I spoke to her at Sun & Fun several years ago. She owns a Cessna 170. I described to her in words how to rotate your heel onto the brake pedal as I instinctively rotated my foot. She looked at what I was doing with my foot and it was like the light came on. I talked to her some months later and she had no more issue with it.
 
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Make sure the brake channel isn’t cracked, when I bought my cub it had brake boosters and I remember thinking how in the heck do people nose these airplanes over, my brakes sucked. When I fixed that channel I had great brakes.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Make sure the brake channel isn’t cracked, when I bought my cub it had brake boosters and I remember thinking how in the heck do people nose these airplanes over, my brakes sucked. When I fixed that channel I had great brakes.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Brake channel?
 
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