What is your mission?Wings getting rebuilt …. Should I put pstol flaps on or just have the stock flaps on…. Pro cons… worth the money?
After installing them on customer's airplanes and seeing what they would did it was that much better on my own since I am infinitely familiar with flying it.The real question is, does the price match the performance increase? Are PSTOLs an improvement? Sure! But does the performance directly correlate with the price? Or for the money, is there better mods to be had? Big tires, shocks (acme will be certified soon), and CF ground adjustable props just may give better overall bang for your buck vs performance then PSTOL.
All I know is, once you spend PSTOL money on a set of flaps, you will absolutely do everything in your power to justify them.
The real question is, does the price match the performance increase? Are PSTOLs an improvement? Sure! But does the performance directly correlate with the price? Or for the money, is there better mods to be had? Big tires, shocks (acme will be certified soon), and CF ground adjustable props just may give better overall bang for your buck vs performance then PSTOL.
All I know is, once you spend PSTOL money on a set of flaps, you will absolutely do everything in your power to justify them.
I think Stewart has nailed this question, maybe a blunter way to answer it would be after I spend $10k on PSTOL
flaps, will It make up the difference between an low experience Cub pilot and a pro.......... Not just NO it's more like "Hell NO". There is NO mod you can add that will........
Would it be nice to have a flatter deck angle landing in some goofy Tite spot. Of course it would, But the pro will land there anyway, with any Cub Unmodified. Can you now land there because you have PSTOL flaps???
Likely NOT.
Good Luck with your decision
E
I live in a neighborhood that includes several really good Supercub pilots. I haven’t noticed Pstol flaps on any of their planes. I like my own flaps but mine are deeper chord and wider span than approved flaps. Are Pstol flaps good? Sure. Those little ones are about 1/3 as good as mine. Mine are about 3/4 as good as Mackey’s. And so it goes.
If a guy has $10K to spend the best performance enhancement he can buy is avgas and seat time. If he has $20K and buys both? He’ll be marginally better at stol ops with improved flaps.
Bottom line. I’ve never been and will never be the best Cub pilot I know. For me adding performance mods closes the gap between me and the good drivers and allows me to operate in distances and at speeds I’m not used to. Not that it makes much difference to anyone but I enjoy the pursuit and my wife gave me the nod to spend the money. About a mile away there’s a guy with a plane very similar to mine. He uses standard flaps saying he’s not willing to spend the money to add the weight for Pstol flaps. He’s can do things in his plane that I can’t do. Proof that the pilot is still the most important part of the airplane.
….and after nitrousI have 1000 hrs in my cub, 600 or so before i rebuilt it. It is a light cub. 1080 on 31's. Last year they had a few stol contests locall. I flew in them. I think i have a pretty good feel for my airplane. Add up all of last years take offs and landings and average them total was 306.5 and after p stol flaps was 245. 25% shorter overall 35% shorter landings. I bet that over all is skewed a little as the engine got overhauled and had lycon flow the cylinders. Best part of pstol is the nose is lower at the same speed, and its easier to land short higher with a stabilized approach, and not nose high dragging the tail wheel for the shortest landing. I can do that with the pstol but its not much shorter and not pratical in the real world. Before the pstol flaps i would fly a faster stabilized approach off airport, and drag it in nose high for the stol stuff. Now i fly the same and it is slower and shorter than my old landings .