Super Cub Sweepstakes: Bare Bones

Baker Air Service in Baker, Montana, has spent more than 500 hours disassembling, cleaning, repairing, ordering replacement parts, corrosion proofing, and repainting the AOPA Sweepstakes 1954 Super Cub’s airframe. The company’s network of parts suppliers spans the country from Alaska to the East Coast. One of the main sources for this project is Aurora, Colorado-based Univair, a three-generation family business that specializes in parts for older GA aircraft. Baker Air Service’s father-son duo Roger and Darin Meggers drove from Montana to Colorado to pick up replacement parts for the sweepstakes aircraft.

“Some of our earliest PMAs are Super Cub parts,” said Univair owner and President Jim Dyer, whose grandfather co-founded the company in 1946. Univair owns type certificates for the Ercoupe and Stinson 108 series and produces manufacturer-approved replacement parts for older GA aircraft. Univair started building replacement parts in the 1950s when factory-new replacements weren’t available “We’ve got 98 to 99 percent of all the parts to rebuild a Super Cub,” he said.

Univair makes its airframe parts from industry-standard high-strength chromoly 4130 tubing, which is much stronger than the type of steel tubing that comprised early airframes. Univair’s parts include “minor modifications and improvements” based on experience and customer input.

AOPA’s Sweepstakes Super Cub will include modifications as well, many of which must be accommodated in the base airframe before it is covered with fabric. For example, the 1954 Super Cub will feature extended-range fuel tanks and a gross weight increase, both of which require modifications to the wings. Dakota Cub Aircraft, a Super Cub parts supplier in Brandon, South Dakota, is discounting 24-gallon fuel tanks for the Super Cub, providing about an hour of additional endurance per tank over the standard 18-gallon tanks, according to Dakota Cub Aircraft Partner Brian Morford.

Morford said the tanks also come set up for a headerless fuel system—which the Sweepstakes Super Cub will have—and the option for sight glass or electric fuel senders (the sweeps airplane will have CiES electric fuel sending units). Minnesota-based Wipaire donated a 2,000-pound gross weight increase kit, part of which has already been installed on the wings. The gross weight increase makes a great addition with Wipaire’s donated Wipline 2100 amphibious floats and the extra fuel-carrying capacity.

“Everything is coming together nicely,” Baker Air Service's Meggers said, adding that the extra time spent making sure everything is correct on the airframe saves time because “once the cover goes on, you can’t do a lot to change things.”

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