Well it doesn't always work out with just stained under britches: Have an old friend that finally tore the fabric off his 125/18 and completely rebuilt the fuselage with bunch mods, new floorboards and glass, recovered fuselage and feathers. On the maiden flight, he took it out to see how it flew, and started looking for moose, with flaps down and around 2000 rpms, around 50 degrees with low overcast, So he did a bunch of orbits for 15 mins or so, looking until it was getting dark, He then decided to headed back to the airport. He had not checked his carb heat and not noticed any drop in his rpm's. So flying along about 150' above the trees, he had cleaned up the flaps, and went to add power to cruise, and the engine gagged a bit, so he pulled carb heat out and engine stumbled badly, tryed pushing it back in but as all this was taking place, lost nearly 100' of altitude, at this point he realized he had ALOT of carb ice and engine was running, but very rough! At this point more heat was making it worse and he was struggling to stay out of the tree tops, so in desperation he tryed the primer to bypass the carb, and that helped every stroke, but in between strokes, he was loosing altitude............ Weaving now thru the tops of the trees to the point it became obvious he needed to pull the flaps as he settled into a big hardwood tree still pumping the primer frantically, engine still running off primer in surges. He completely distroyed the Cub, but he was not seriously injured..... The Cub which was not insured was not hurt that bad on impact, but as it came down thru the branches, it sustained massive damage. There is a point with carb ice, and low altitude's that is dangerous stuff. Be safe.
E