_______________________________________________________________________________________ History: The Super Cub is one of aviation's most successful aircraft stories. In close to 40 years of production, over 9,000 were built, and a number of speciality companies continue to produce replicas and further developments to this day.
Introduced in 1949 by Piper Aircraft, it was developed from the Piper PA-11, and traces its lineage back through the J-3 to the Taylor E-2 Cub of the 1930s.
The Super Cub remained in production with Piper through until 1981, when almost 7500 had been built over an uninterrupted 32 year production run. Piper continued building Super Cubs on behalf of Texas based WTA who held the manufacturing and marketing rights from 1981 until 1988. In 1988 Piper resumed marketing responsibility for the Super Cub and continued low rate production. Financial troubles meant that Super Cub production ceased in 1992, before resuming once more the following year. Finally in late 1994 Piper announced that the Super Cub would not form part of its model line for 1995 and that it would cease production after the last of 24 on order for distributor Muncie Aviation were completed. (source: Airliners.net)
Famed as a Bush Plane on wheels, floats and skis, Super Cubs can be found all over the world in a great variety of roles, from a general GA aircraft to banner towing and glider tug.
Today, companies such as CubCrafters, Backcountry, Turbine and Mackey offer kits, parts and fully assembled aircraft for those who want to continue flying this outstanding aircraft design. The aircraft in the Flight Replicas packages depict modern (e.g.. restored/modified) versions of the older models.
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