I think the value of the nosegear Xcub is for pilots who are buying this as second fun airplane and are unlikely to fly it more than 20 hours a year. They may never gain and maintain the proficiency to be confident of landing with a strong cross wind which will limit its use. But to Mike's point they will also likely not become proficient in hardcore backcountry flying which is more even more challenging. But this plane probably fills a niche for pilots that want a fun flyer to take into shorter and rougher unpaved runways where they would not take their bigger airplane. For a pilot who plan to fly the plane 50+ hours/year, after the first year (or maybe two) I doubt that the tailwheel will be much a of limitation. I seem to recall after 200 hours of tailwheel time my insurance rates dropped a bunch which I assume is reflective of the reduction of risk.

What can possibly go wrong with this...

Damn...that landing and takeoff system must have been designed by Mr. Goldberg (as in Rube). With the time spent building that contraption, you could easily flatten out some ground that the light observation craft could land on...if it had a tailwheel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4SAsksi5Bs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTrNP755-7Q

I had a nosewheel on the PA-11 for several years. Sport pilot students. It worked GREAT

I could convert it back to TW for skis in the winter in about 4 hours. Sometimes i would leave the tailwheel on but most of the time I’d install a PA-22 tail skid.

Takeoff distance was shorter with nosewheel and higher deck angle.

I used J-3s for a long time before that as rental and trainer and it was funny to see the rental pilots terrified of the nosewheel PA-11 when I first installed it. They had never flown or taxied one before.

This is the old Testerman Tricycle gear kit which is on the J-3 PA-11 type certificate data sheet. TW was fine but for cross countries windy days and paved runways I was happier when the students had the PA-11. More fuel, electric start, radios and nosewheel.

Insurance co had trouble figuring it out until I sent photos. I took it to Lockhaven for Sentimental Journey. cub guys were throwing up in trash cans when I landed.

I tried to get the cub crafters rep to go for a ride and look it over but he wanted no part of it. something about customer base would reject it. This was probably 2009. I said that’s fine but there is an entire other market of flight schools and pilots that are buying Euro LSA’s and new design LSA’s that don’t hold up like the cub or have the flying qualities. I want a cub airframe with a nosewheel.

This setup was a lot simpler to add to an existing airframe. No fitting changes at all.

Let me see if I can sum this up:

If you factor out pilot ability, a tail wheel airplane can do everything an equivalent tricycle can do, plus some extra stuff.

This is not to say that
1) tricycles can’t do some things that taildraggers do
2) all pilots can extract equal utility from either platform
3) any taildragger can do all tasks better than all tricycles

I think to disagree with Mike C’s original point would be to disagree with one of the points above.

At any rate, it’s always interesting to see manufacturers innovating to reach new customers. Shucks, maybe for some pilots, the nosedragger Cub will be a “gateway drug” into a conventional platform.

M

I had a Citabria for a few years and just when I thought I had "mastered" tailwheel landings, the next one would humble me. It's just harder to do it well especially in a cross wind but the challenge is what made it fun. One could argue that a tri-gear is a better back country plane because you reduce the risk of ground loop and then being stuck in the bush.

I just took delivery of a CubCrafters FX3 at OSH. Got my TW endorsement in May in a SuperCub in Hood River, OR - where I didn’t have the luxury of NOT flying in gusty, crosswind conditions. Did my FX3 transition training at the same airport.

I had this very discussion with the OP - if CubCrafters had the NXCub available when I did my FX3 demo ride, I would have bought it instead of the taildragger because it would have seemed like an easier transition. My LSA was getting beat up at the grass field I was using and I wanted to do more short and unimproved strips in addition to more traditional recreational flying. The FX3 does a great job at all these missions.

I do want to fly the NXCub at some point to compare it, but I loved getting the TW endorsement. I had been flying a Cirrus, then bought a used Piper M600 with a partner back in March. Going from the glass cockpit back to a 4-pack on the SuperCub in Oregon was ... well, it was the purest form of joyful flying I could ever have imagined. Loved every minute of it, as challenging as it was (and is) to fly a taildragger. Now that I have the endorsement and the FX3, I’m super excited about flying it for a long time to come. And I like the challenge of it.

But I can definitely see the attraction of the NXCub concept - I believe they took several deposits for them at OSH - way more deposits on the NXCub than they have made XCubs in the last year. Don’t forget that in additional to being convertible between nose- and tail-gear, the NXCub also has a modified Lycoming IO-390 and 215 hp, plus a new Hartzell 3-blade prop, which adds a fair amount more oomph to the airplane. In contrast, I have a measly 186 horses in my FX3 ... lol. I think this plane will be a big seller for them.

BTW, the OP is a great guy, and the regional CubCrafters sales rep for the south central area. So if anybody is interested in checking these out, he will hook you up with a demo. That demo sold me in about 5 minutes *laughing*

Cheers!

The first landings I ever did where Dad did not intervene were a J3 cub on a gravel beach on Duke island in SE Alaska. Frankly the J3 did better on the gravel than it did on the 100 ft wide paved runway where we kept it. (Annette island back when it was an active coast guard base)

Given that I have not flown a tail wheel in 40 years.
I think there is a distinction between a fun plane to go play with where there is wide discretion as to weather and go/no go and a working airplane where your going to take
stuff into the back country and spend the day using it. (hunting, science, etc...)

I do a fair bit of stuff at a private rocket testing facility in the Mojave. I land my 182 on a private dirt road out there... Its a bit hard on the 182, and a cub or 185 might be more suited. Given that after spending 12 hours doing tough physical and metal work in the hot sun, leaving at sunset and landing back at KCRQ or KOKB after dark...
I'm pretty sure that I don't want a tail wheel...

What can possibly go wrong with this...

Spotted today at Galesburg IL
Everything old is new again.