Beating The Slot Machines
Imagine flying your Super Cub online baccarat site at a high angle of attack with the airspeed indicator reading 20 mph, then rolling onto a 60 degree cliff and starting a climbing spiral while selecting a power setting that is less than full throttle! It was a typical exhibit selling the Dakota Cub Extended Slotted Wing. The second most talked about quality of this wing is its ability to have full flight control authority at high angles of attack. No more soft controls, dropping it, or dropping the wing in the stall.
Mark Erickson, founder of Dakota Cub, began his mission in the 1990s. All he wanted was Cub's ribs. There was nothing from Piper available at a reasonable cost and because Piper's ribs were so fragile, he decided to make his own. He applied modern technology to an old Piper wing originally developed for the YL-14 bridge version of the J5C Cub. The YL-14's wings are hollow wings. According to Erickson, there were only 14 planes built before the end of World War 2. They were specifically engineered for short takeoffs of 100 feet and climbs at high angles of attack. There are only two of them still on the air today - one in Spain; the other is in Nebraska.
The Dakota Cub Extended Slotted Wing has some variance when compared to the original Cub wing and the L-14 wing for that matter. Erickson revised the original Piper US35B airfoil used for the L-14. He developed a special “T"-shaped extrusion with the same dimensions when used in constructing truss-style ribs, lighter, simpler to machine, and stronger than the original wing. Erickson obtained STC for the new wing in 1993.
Erickson's new ribs only add seven pounds to the weight of each of the original Piper wings. The new wing has been structurally tested to 2,200 lbs access, however, STC limits gross weight to 1,750 lbs for the original wing or 2,000 lbs for the Wipaire One Ton Cub STC equipped wing. This artificial reduction will hopefully be changed in the future. In subsequent years, Erickson has designed ribs and many other FAA PMA-rated parts for all cloth-wing Pipers. Erickson was awarded an STC for a full-length leading edge slot in 1998. This slot helps maintain the airflow boundary layer at slow speeds. In addition, Erickson engineered a square wing and removed the bow tip which gave the wing an additional 6% surface area, increased flaps resulting in 44% more flap area, and pushed the ailerons outward 23-inches to the wing tip. He called it the “Extended Wing.” The squared wing added about 8 lbs to the original Piper wing.
Adding slots to the Extended Wing adds another nine lbs per wing, but the increased safety envelope for flying is worth the trade-off. The flight characteristics of the square, slotted wing, which Erickson calls the “Extended Slotted Wing”, are the main advantage and emphasis when it comes to the choice of wings to include in your Cub project. The Extended Slotted Wing is the best performing wing offered by the Dakota Cub. It has 135 in. slot, square wing with 102 in. ailerons, and 90.25 in. flaps.The Dakota Cub also offers standard Cub wings and slotless square wings.
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