Certification for CC-18-180 for Night flying

[aleedy]

Can anyone tell me if the Top Cub has been certified for night flying in the US? I currently own a Top Cub that is not certified for night flying and am interested in obtaining a cert for it. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks!

[randylervold]

Can anyone tell me if the Top Cub has been certified for night flying in the US? I currently own a Top Cub that is not certified for night flying and am interested in obtaining a cert for it. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks!

The CC18-180 Top Cub has not had night VFR certification heretofore. Coincidentally we are currently working on that amendment to our type certificate. As an owner I believe you will be able to retrofit your aircraft with the appropriate lighting, glarshield pieces, and paperwork. This might take the form of an STC for existing owners, I'll need to check with our engineering department. It is premature for me to speculate as to when this might be complete or how much it might cost, but we do plan on completing the project.

[aleedy]

Thanks Randy. I have been told that the CC18 that you are recently building for the military are certified for night. Would it be possible for you to supply me with some paperwork outlining what equipment and/or changes were made to outfit those planes for night flying. What I am trying to do is to get a field approval for my CC18 and I would like to use the infomation as a basis for my approval. Any help you can give me in this regard would be greatly appreciated.

[randylervold]

Thanks Randy. I have been told that the CC18 that you are recently building for the military are certified for night. Would it be possible for you to supply me with some paperwork outlining what equipment and/or changes were made to outfit those planes for night flying. What I am trying to do is to get a field approval for my CC18 and I would like to use the infomation as a basis for my approval. Any help you can give me in this regard would be greatly appreciated.

We'd be happy to provide you with a list of the equipment once we extablish what it is. We might know by the end of September, but if our test doesn't pass FAA muster then we'll need an iteration.

Stay tuned.

[aleedy]

I am looking for SL002. This is the night flight equipment service letter required for the CC18. I have checked CC website with no success. Anyone come across this document or tell me how to obtain it?

[randylervold]

I see this thread goes back to 2012. Indeed we did finally get our night VFR approval after significant hassle with the newer human factor standards we had to meet with cockpit reflections. The project ended up costing significantly more to do given everything that had to be lit from fuel sight tubes to fuel selector gauge to every single switch, all all without any reflections whatsoever in any of the windows.

I don't know the status of the service letter, I suggest you contact our Customer Support Manager, Jon Delamarter, at 509-248-9491 or jon.delamarter@cubcrafters.com. One thing I can tell you for sure is that doing a night VFR retrofit will be hugely expensive and thus not likely cost-effective for an owner.

[aleedy]

Thanks Randy. Will follow up with John!