Membership: Transforming a Super Cub

Bush plane, seaplane, ski plane: AOPA’s Super Cub Sweepstakes can do it all. For the first time in AOPA’s sweepstakes history, the association will be giving away an airplane with tundra tires, amphibious floats, and hydraulic skis so that the lucky winner can land, splash in, or ski in for adventure.

The Super Cub will involve the most extensive sweepstakes refurbishment AOPA has ever undertaken. AOPA’s Super Cub Sweepstakes is getting a complete makeover with modifications and performance enhancements such as a gross weight increase to 2,000 pounds, vortex generators, three-inch extended landing gear, and a yet-to-be-announced engine with more horsepower.

Previously a ranching tool, the Super Cub sat derelict for the past 20 years. Bill Allison, a saddle artist and leather craftsman, rancher, and pilot, purchased the taildragger in 1991. The Super Cub enabled Allison and his wife, Brenda, to efficiently monitor their ranch near the Tongue River outside Miles City, Montana. “We used that plane for a workhorse,” Allison said. He could fly over the ranch and check everything in 35 minutes, he said, versus six hours of driving. “It saves you a million miles on your pickup.”

In July 1997, on their return home from a visit to Allison’s parents, the couple crashed propeller-first after takeoff. The two were hospitalized one night, and the next day, Allison was back in the fields baling hay.

The Allisons sold the wreckage to the mechanic who had previously restored the aircraft and intended to do so again. However, the aircraft sat in pieces for years until Roger Meggers of Baker, Montana-based Baker Air Service bought it when the mechanic retired. For AOPA, father-son master craftsmen Roger and Darin Meggers will transform the Super Cub into a completely restored, mint-condition, high-performing, heavy-hauling Superior Super Cub.

Once the Super Cub is restored, readers can follow its adventures as AOPA demonstrates its prowess in the backcountry, flexibility on amphibious floats, and superiority on hydraulic skis before giving it away in 2019.

See the official rules for details, entry limits, and alternate method of entry.