Cub Crafters makes it to 37,609 feet!

Nice! Looks like it took only a little less than an hour to get up there and that it made ~130kts in the thin air.

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Whats the point of flying that high if you can't land?

 
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine."
- Gustave Whitehead
 
Racerx said:
I think I'm more impressed by the 1951 30,000' record.
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Same here. 1951. I was wondering what engine. This said a 125 Lycoming. Musta been super charged.
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Caro Bayley Bosca | CAF RISE ABOVE

Caro Bayley Bosca March 29, 1922 – September 13, 2007 WASP Class 43-W-7 Planes flown: AT-11, B-25, B-26, P-47 Assigned bases: Mather Army Air Base (Sacramento, Calif.) and Deming Air Field (N. M.) Aviation legend: Set world altitude record in 1951 in a class II aircraft; inducted into Ohio...
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Zeldman said:
I am cheap and could probably be bought off to try to break the record, just not sure how hard I would try...
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I've spent too many hours in freezing cockpits with windows open for aerial photography already. I suppose at some price and with good equipment I'd try it, but it would definitely not be a thing to do repeatedly.
 
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Nauga,
who thrives under pressure
 
RyanShort1 said:
I've spent too many hours in freezing cockpits with windows open for aerial photography already.
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I’ve been known to tell my photo subjects how warm it looks in their planes!!
 
There's a link in the first post.....


This project was a team effort. The turbocharged Rotax 916 iS engine was developed by Rotax in collaboration with CubCrafters and Rotax served as a technical advisor on the project. At extreme altitudes, Kotwicki relied on supplemental oxygen supplied by project partner Mountain High Equipment & Supply and wore a parachute as a precaution due to the unknowns.
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Ed Haywood said:
Turbocharged, maintains full takeoff power to 15K, operating limit is 23K. Do you think they tweaked it further? Would high octane fuel make a difference?
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Considering he still had 23in of manifold pressure at 37k feet, I'm thinking significantly larger turbo at a minimum.
 
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flyingcheesehead said:
Rotax 916iS Turbo.

There's a long way between 23K and 37K, but they said it was a "Factory stock" airplane.

I'm kinda curious for the reason behind the 23K limit.
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Cub Crafters doesn’t say what the Service Ceiling is for the UL. The Controller said he was doing 400 FPM up there when he asked. Does anyone know of another plane that uses this engine and publishes it’s Service Ceiling?
 
luvflyin said:
Cub Crafters doesn’t say what the Service Ceiling is for the UL. The Controller said he was doing 400 FPM up there when he asked. Does anyone know of another plane that uses this engine and publishes it’s Service Ceiling?
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The 23K limit is on the engine, not the aircraft. I'm still curious why that exists, and whether CubCrafters does anything to change how the engine operates to justify removing that limit, if in fact they did.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
The 23K limit is on the engine, not the aircraft. I'm still curious why that exists, and whether CubCrafters does anything to change how the engine operates to justify removing that limit, if in fact they did.
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Yeah. I’m wondering wha CubCrafters says the Service Ceiling of the plane is. I guess maybe because the engine has a limit of 23K then that’s what they’d say the Service Ceiling is. But they don’t.
 
luvflyin said:
Yeah. I’m wondering wha CubCrafters says the Service Ceiling of the plane is. I guess maybe because the engine has a limit of 23K then that’s what they’d say the Service Ceiling is. But they don’t.
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I looked for a POH, but while they have some others on their site, they do not have that one, even though Google will take you to a page for it, the file isn't there.
 
Maybe they "optimized the turbo performance" by installing a second in series, with co ordinated controls and limiters?

An airline crew at 30,000 plus seeing that Cub out the windscreen would feel a little like the cartoon crew looking at the mountain goat in the clouds.
 
re: 23K I would assume, based on what I did in yea olde automotive industry... You gotta draw the line somewhere - tables have limits, diagnostic software can have "if we see this number something is wrong" limits, limits on how low an ambient pressure sensor can read (if there is one). Then there is the "we don't bother testing beyond this line because no one is ever going to go there." High voltage electronics can get weird when ambient pressure gets lower. Any number of reasons that a 24K limit might be in the books even if the engine can (and apparently did) physically operate at higher altitudes.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
The 23K limit is on the engine, not the aircraft. I'm still curious why that exists, and whether CubCrafters does anything to change how the engine operates to justify removing that limit, if in fact they did.
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Is that an actual operating limitation?
 
flyingcheesehead said:
The 23K limit is on the engine, not the aircraft. I'm still curious why that exists, and whether CubCrafters does anything to change how the engine operates to justify removing that limit, if in fact they did.
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Addressed, but not addressed here

The Rotax relies on blowby to push oil out of the crankcase, apparently it doesn't work well above 23K - they tested it and found the limit was 26K, but they did some "secret" modification
 
I know the Cub isn't flying near mach 1, but does stall speed/coffin corner become a concern when flying a slow airplane that high?
 
What is the importance of this accomplishment? Are we going to take a cub into space and to the moon or something?
 
Sierra_Hotel said:
Breaking a record that has stood for almost 75 years isn't accomplishment enough? Does there need to be some bigger reason to try to break a record?
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If a record exists for chariot racing for over 1500 years. I don’t believe anyone needs to break that record nor does anyone need to celebrate it. Like taking a cub to 37,000 feet, it’s meaningless.
 
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Clip4 said:
If a record exists for chariot racing for over 1500 years. I don’t believe anyone needs to break that record nor does anyone need to celebrate it. Like taking a cub to 37,000 feet, it’s meaningless.

When records are milestones to the advancement of mankind, then it is worth discussing and celebrating.
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Thanks for the hearty chuckle :lol:
 
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