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Membership: Transforming a Super Cub

AOPA’s sweepstakes airplane will have tundra tire, floats, and skis

Photography of Seaplanes Adventures float plane tour up to Churchill, Manitoba, Canada for Lazy Bear Expedition's outings for polar bear and Beluga whale spotting. Shown is AOPA President, Mark Baker's Super Cub on floats flying over God's Lake near the Elk Island Lodge.
 
God's Lake
Elk Island Lodge, Manitoba  Canada
Zoomed image

Bush plane, seaplane, ski plane: AOPA’s Super Cub Sweepstakes can do it all. For the first time in AOPA’s sweepstakes history, the association will be giving away an airplane with tundra tires, amphibious floats, and hydraulic skis so that the lucky winner can land, splash in, or ski in for adventure.

The Super Cub will involve the most extensive sweepstakes refurbishment AOPA has ever undertaken. AOPA’s Super Cub Sweepstakes is getting a complete makeover with modifications and performance enhancements such as a gross weight increase to 2,000 pounds, vortex generators, three-inch extended landing gear, and a yet-to-be-announced engine with more horsepower.

Previously a ranching tool, the Super Cub sat derelict for the past 20 years. Bill Allison, a saddle artist and leather craftsman, rancher, and pilot, purchased the taildragger in 1991. The Super Cub enabled Allison and his wife, Brenda, to efficiently monitor their ranch near the Tongue River outside Miles City, Montana. “We used that plane for a workhorse,” Allison said. He could fly over the ranch and check everything in 35 minutes, he said, versus six hours of driving. “It saves you a million miles on your pickup.”

In July 1997, on their return home from a visit to Allison’s parents, the couple crashed propeller-first after takeoff. The two were hospitalized one night, and the next day, Allison was back in the fields baling hay.

The Allisons sold the wreckage to the mechanic who had previously restored the aircraft and intended to do so again. However, the aircraft sat in pieces for years until Roger Meggers of Baker, Montana-based Baker Air Service bought it when the mechanic retired. For AOPA, father-son master craftsmen Roger and Darin Meggers will transform the Super Cub into a completely restored, mint-condition, high-performing, heavy-hauling Superior Super Cub.

Once the Super Cub is restored, readers can follow its adventures as AOPA demonstrates its prowess in the backcountry, flexibility on amphibious floats, and superiority on hydraulic skis before giving it away in 2019.

See the official rules for details, entry limits, and alternate method of entry.

Alyssa J. Miller
Alyssa J. Cobb
The former senior director of digital media, Alyssa J. Cobb was on the AOPA staff from 2004 until 2023. She is a flight instructor, and loves flying her Cessna 170B with her husband and two children. Alyssa also hosts the weekly Fly with AOPA show on the AOPA Pilot Video YouTube channel.

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