Piper PA-18 Super Cub: prices, price cuts and days on market

Buyer's notes

About the Piper PA-18 Super Cub

What it is

The PA-18 Super Cub is the two-seat tandem tube-and-fabric taildragger Piper built from 1949 into the 1990s, with a production run of roughly nine to ten thousand including the military L-21 versions. It is the J-3 idea taken seriously: a bigger engine, flaps, aluminum wing spars, an electrical system, wing tanks and a gross weight that lets it carry a pilot, a passenger and a real load out of a short strip. Power grew from a 90 hp Continental to the 150 hp O-320 that became the standard in the mid 1950s.

Nobody argues about what a Super Cub is for. It climbs steeply, lands short, handles big tires and floats without complaint and forgives most things except a crosswind ignored. It cruises slowly and loudly. Owners in the bush treat it as a truck and owners in the lower 48 treat it as a toy, and both pay a lot for one.

Variants that matter for price

Sellers list the horsepower with the model: PA-18-95, -105, -125, -135 and -150. The 150 hp airplanes are the mainstream, and a routine 160 hp conversion is treated as standard on a working airplane. The 95 hp version is a different airplane, light and slow to climb, for the low-and-slow crowd rather than the bush crowd. The STC list is what really sets one Super Cub apart from another: a gross-weight increase, extended baggage, a skylight, vortex generators, a Borer prop, big tires, wing extensions and sealed struts. An airplane with the right mods, fresh fabric and a mid-time engine is worth a great deal more than a stock one. An original 1950s airplane restored to stock sells to a different buyer.

What buyers check

Fabric and the tubing under it come first. The fuselage is inspected at the tail post, the lower longerons, the gear attach clusters and the floor under the front seat. Lift struts on all the fabric Pipers corrode from the inside; sealed replacement struts are the expected fix. Wing spars are aluminum, but the spar and strut fittings and the aileron and flap hinges are inspected for cracks and elongated holes. Most Super Cubs have been on their back at some point. The question is whether the repair was done right. The O-320 is as trouble-free as they come. A full recover with synthetic fabric in the last fifteen years, a documented gross-weight STC and matched paperwork for every mod add value. A stack of undocumented field mods subtracts. An annual usually finds cracked exhaust, worn hinge bushings, tired shock cords and small fabric repairs.

Who it suits

A Super Cub suits a pilot who has somewhere unimproved to go, wants to carry a passenger and gear, and either has tailwheel skills or is going to get them. It is not a cross-country airplane, and on floats on a hot day it will not carry two adults and baggage. Buyers cross-shop the Aviat Husky (newer, a bit faster), a CubCrafters Top Cub or Carbon Cub, the PA-12 for a third seat, a Maule for four seats and a Cessna 180 for a metal airplane that goes somewhere.