How To Repair J3 Cub Cockpit Fabric

Simplicity and durability are defining characteristics of so many of the classic American products we love best: The Harley-Davidson Flathead. A well-worn pair of Levi'southward jeans. A Rawlings baseball game improved by the scuffs and scars and patina of apply. For generations of pilots, the object of our nostalgic affection is the Piper Cub. Introduced 75 years agone, the J-3 established the idea of a simple, cheap and piece of cake-to-wing trainer. In the 1940s and 1950s, more pilots learned to fly in J-3 Cubs than whatsoever other model. Even if you lot've never sat behind the controls of one, y'all sympathise the importance of the J-3 to general aviation history. If yous accept flown a Cub, well, you don't need to be told information technology's one of the best-flight light airplanes e'er made.

I started out learning to fly in a 1946 J-three when I was 15. That was in the late 1980s at a grass strip shut to my domicile in northern New Jersey. I can call up some days soloing in the Cub it would be just me and another airplane pilot in a Stearman and nevertheless another in an old T-vi, the three of u.s. circumvoluted the pattern as though we'd been transported through time to a summer afternoon when the only things that mattered were seeing which way the current of air moved the corn and making certain to get the stick all the way dorsum at the last instant in the flare. When you did it just right in the Cub, the consequence was magical. And when yous got it slightly wrong, the J-3 wouldn't let yous off the hook without a lesson that could stay with you lot for a long time. Possibly forever.

The story of the Piper Cub begins with two barnstorming brothers, C. Gilbert and Gordon Taylor, who together formed the Taylor Brothers Aircraft Co. in the tardily 1920s. Their goal was to produce and sell a small, two-seat, high-wing monoplane named the Chummy that cost $four,000 — nearly the cost of a new house in 1928. They'd built a handful of airplanes, but tragically Gordon Taylor was killed in an airplane crash and the visitor went bankrupt.

William T. Piper, a Bradford, Pennsylvania, businessman who was running his family unit's oil business, purchased a controlling share in the Taylor Aircraft Co. for $761 equally it emerged from bankruptcy in 1930. Piper retained Gilbert Taylor equally president and asked him to build an cheap, like shooting fish in a barrel-to-fly trainer that the average person could beget to hire. Nearly of the trainers in those days were heavy biplanes with big radial engines and every bit a event were expensive to fly. Piper reasoned that a small-scale, uncomplicated airplane might cut the costs in half, enabling more people to larn and creating demand for the company's products.

In September 1930, Taylor introduced a two-seat tandem taildragger, the Taylor Due east-two. This model featured wings mounted high on the fuselage, an open cockpit, fabric-covered tubular steel fuselage and wooden wings. Power came from a 20-horsepower Brownbach Tiger Kitten engine. The trouble was the Tiger Kitten didn't have the oomph to power the E-2. On Sept. 12, 1930, a exam flight ended well-nigh every bit shortly as it started when the airplane ran out of runway, the underpowered engine unable to lift the E-2 out of footing effect.

The visitor presently introduced an improved Due east-2 powered by the newly adult Continental Motors A-twoscore putting out 37 horsepower. The new Taylor Due east-ii, now affectionately known as the "Cub," earned its type certificate on July 11, 1931. Despite some early reliability bug with the engine, the airplane was a hit.

Taylor chose the lightly loaded USA-35B airfoil for the E-2, a design that provided good low-speed flying qualities — it was reluctant to stall and provided plenty of warning before information technology did. All Cubs, including the J-iii and Super Cub, accept used this aforementioned airfoil shape. For this reason, the Cub is a forgiving plane in the easily of a novice and downright divine with a skilled pilot at the helm. Many of us have marveled at the flying antics of the drunk, Cub-stealing farmer — a role played at airshows by J-3 maestros like the late Bob Weymouth, who could make a Cub do things you wouldn't believe if you didn't run across it with your ain eyes.

Birth of the J-three
For the next few years after the E-two's introduction, Taylor Aircraft struggled. The company sold a handful of airplanes and showed merely small profits. It was during this fourth dimension, nether the management of a young aircraft designer named Walter Jamouneau, that the East-ii Cub was redesigned with rounded angles and other alterations and reintroduced in 1936 as the Taylor J-2 Cub (the "J" standing for Jamouneau, co-ordinate to Piper lore).

The changes to the original Cub pattern angered Taylor, who disagreed with Piper'due south philosophy that airplanes should exist mass-produced and sold cheaply. Piper loved what he saw in the J-2, so much so that he green-lighted further changes for a new model to be known as the J-3 Cub. The modifications from the J-2 to J-iii included integrating the tail's vertical fin into the rear fuselage, changing the rearmost side window's shape to a smoothly curved half-oval, and replacing the J-2'southward leaf-leap tailskid with a steerable tailwheel.

The price for a brand-new Piper J-3 Cub was ready at $1,300 — less than twice what the average new car cost in 1937. It was all likewise much for Taylor to accept. He quit, selling his share to Piper and moving to Ohio (where he would go on to achieve success with the institution of Taylorcraft Aviation Co.).

With Taylor out, Piper assumed the role of president and chairman of the lath and eagerly prepared for the J-3'southward public introduction. Then disaster struck — or, as Piper would later say, perhaps it was serendipity.

On the forenoon of March 17, 1937, a spark from an electric drill ignited dope-soaked rags and other debris in the original Taylor Brothers Aircraft factory paint room in Bradford. The blaze quickly grew out of control, destroying the mill and everything inside information technology. The company held no insurance on the main plant, and the town wasn't willing to pitch in for rebuilding. Piper decided to move all manufacturing equipment and the visitor's 200 employees to an available factory in an empty silk manufacturing plant in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, more than than 100 miles abroad. At the same time, he renamed the company Piper Aircraft Co.

Despite the damage from the fire, Piper production in 1937 grew to 687 airplanes and the work forcefulness doubled. The new J-three Cub made its debut belatedly in 1937, and Piper shortly introduced a compatible colour scheme for the model — Piper Cub Yellow trimmed with a black lightning commodities. Engine horsepower rose from xl horsepower to 50 horsepower and and then to 65 horsepower by 1940. A number of air-cooled engines, about of them flat-fours, were used to power J-3 Cubs, resulting in differing model designations for each type: The J3C models used the Continental A series engine, the J3F the Franklin 4AC, and the J3L the Lycoming O-145. A very few examples, designated J3P, were equipped with Lenape Papoose 3-cylinder radial engines.

In 1938, the J-3'due south first full year of production, Piper congenital 736 airplanes. The outbreak of war in Europe and the growing realization that the The states might before long exist drawn into the conflict led to the germination of the Noncombatant Airplane pilot Grooming (CPT) program, for which the J-iii Cub would play an integral role, condign the master training aircraft for the plan. More than than 75 percent of all new pilots in the CPT were trained in Cubs. By state of war'due south end 80 percent of all U.South. military pilots received their introduction to flight in Piper Cubs.

The Legend Grows
In 1940, the year before the United States' entry into the war, Piper built three,016 J-3s. Soon, wartime demands would push the production charge per unit and so high that one Piper J-iii Cub was being congenital every 20 minutes. In military machine versions Cubs were variously designated as the L-4, O-59 and NE-one, and generically nicknamed Grasshoppers. They were used extensively in Earth War Ii for reconnaissance, transporting supplies and medical evacuation.

During the J-3's relatively brief production run from 1937 until 1947, Piper built 19,073 J-3 Cubs, the majority of them L-4s and other military variants. Postwar, thousands of Grasshoppers were civilian-registered under the designation J-3. Hundreds of Cubs were assembled from parts in Canada (past Cub Aircraft every bit the Cub Prospector), in Denmark and Argentina, and nether license in Oklahoma.

The manufacturing chapters that churned out record numbers of Cubs during the war was quickly exploited to satisfy demand for light aircraft afterward, and the affordable cost of the J-3 Cub in postwar dollars, $2,195, was carefully priced to be inside the reach of returning war veterans. Just despite its success, Piper Aircraft presently ceased production of the venerable Cub to concentrate on the development of its more than advanced Vagabond, Pacer and, eventually, Tri-Pacer models. The era of the J-3 Cub at Piper was over, but the airplane had cemented the reputation of the company and laid the path for Cub variants to follow. In the late 1940s, Piper replaced the J-three with the PA-11 Cub Special, 1,500 of which were produced. The Piper PA-xviii Super Cub soon followed, which Piper built from 1949 until 1983 and again from 1988 to 1994.

Cub Renaissance
Piper's Lock Oasis constitute closed in 1984. Every summer since and then Cub lovers have returned to Lock Haven for the Sentimental Journeying Cub fly-in. This yr's result, featuring a special celebration of the Cub's 75th anniversary, was one of the biggest ever.

Because the J-3 meets light sport aircraft guidelines, there has been a resurgence of interest in the airplane, both the original and remakes of the design, including the models built by CubCrafters, Legend Aircraft and others (encounter story on page 57). Of the incredible number of original J-iii Cubs built, more than five,500 remain on the FAA's aircraft registry today, a testament to the design's longevity. Prices for used Cubs showtime at under $20,000 and can ascent well above $50,000. Thanks to simple structure and low fuel consumption (nether v gallons an hour), the care and feeding of a J-3 Cub requires less cash on hand than about any other production airplane.

The J-3's 75th altogether was a perfect alibi for me to get reacquainted with the Cub, which I hadn't flown in a few years. For my reintroduction to Cub flying, there was no question virtually whom I would call. Damian DelGaizo runs Andover Flight Academy, a bush-flight school in northwest New Jersey that relies on J-three Cubs and other tailwheel airplanes including a Stearman and a modern CubCrafters Tiptop Cub on tundra tires. DelGaizo has more twenty,000 hours under his belt, most of it in taildraggers teaching people how to fly — or how to wing better. (When Harrison Ford trained for his role in the film Half-dozen Days, Seven Nights, he flew with Damian in New Jersey.)

My impressions of the Cub were about the same as when I was taking lessons as a teenager. The airplane is a joy to fly, with splendid control harmony at low speed that makes you want to proceed on flying — unfortunately, the Cub's 12-gallon gas tank limits endurance to nearly two hours. At its max cruise speed of around 85 miles per 60 minutes, you can't go very far either.

Our program was to depart Andover-Aeroflex Airport (12N), which has a ane,981-foot paved runway flanked by an equal-length turf rail, and head a few miles west to Trinca Aerodrome (N13), a 1,900-foot grass strip. I was thrilled almost the adventure to try some takeoffs and landings at Trinca because that's where I learned to fly, under the tutelage of my teacher, Ernest "Pete" Billow, in N91949. When he was still live, Pete was 1 of the foremost Cub experts in the country. Born in 1922, he started instructing in Cubs at Trinca in 1950. When he died in 2005, scores of friends and former students turned out at the airport for a moving tribute and fly-over.

"Yous want to fly with the door open up?" Damian asked as I was climbing aboard.

"Of course!" I said.

Information technology was June, after all. This was a J-3 Cub. Was there actually any other way?

Information technology didn't take long to refamiliarize myself with the basics of Cub flight — probably considering it's about every bit basic as information technology gets. As Damian pulled the prop through, I dug my heels into the brakes and kept one mitt on the magazine switch. The engine fired and I was striking with a blast of air thick with the wonderful smells of gasoline and motor oil and freshly cutting grass.

This particular Cub, NC6114H, has been upgraded with an 85 hp Continental, so information technology would have a little more get-up-and-go on takeoff, merely otherwise it handled pretty much exactly how I remembered. I started past Southward-taxiing to the track, made necessary because of the Cub'southward tailwheel configuration and steeply pointed nose, which blocks out the view ahead.

As well the magazine switch, the Cub has a stick and throttle for each pilot, rudder pedals, heel brakes, carb heat knob, fuel shutoff and trim. In the console, the only instruments are a wet compass, airspeed indicator, altimeter, rpm, and oil temperature and pressure gauges. The fuel guess is a metal wire connected to a cork float (or, more probable these days, a constructed float) that protrudes from the top of the cowl. In a Cub, y'all really don't need anything else — and much of the time, even this thin array of instrumentation is overkill.

Flying the Cub
By the time we reached the divergence end of the runway, I was used to the Cub'south rudder pedals, which crave a adept corporeality of travel at slow speed and a lighter touch on takeoff. Subsequently the run-up, our first trip down the rails was a fast taxi to give my feet a run a risk to come live. Damian handled the throttle as I focused on keeping usa pointed straight down the runway.

Afterward I'd passed this test, we taxied back for a proper takeoff. This fourth dimension, I was in command. Lined upward on the turf runway, I smoothly applied power, keeping us pointed straight with the rudder and waiting for the tail to come upwards. When information technology did, I knew the Cub was ready to fly. Easing back on the stick, we lifted off the basis and departed at the Cub's tried-and-true 55-mile-per-hour best climb airspeed. Every bit we gained altitude, a panoply of green hills, black lakes and winding rivers appeared before united states. The cool rush of air hit me total in the face up through the Cub'southward open up window and door, and for a moment I could almost believe I was 15 years old once again.

Even with the extra horsepower, this Cub wasn't much of a performer. I estimated the climb rate at about 500 anxiety per minute. Once out of the pattern, I performed some steep turns and climbs and descents to get a feel for the controls, which were as nicely balanced as I remembered.

Flying the J-iii requires you to lead your turns with the rudder only a fleck. There are airplanes of its vintage with more agin yaw to overcome, and the Cub turns beautifully. Damian's advice is to imagine that the rudder is mechanically linked to the stick in such a style that stepping on it will pull the stick in that direction. In other words, step on the rudder first to get the nose moving and then move the stick in the management of the turn.

Next I slowed u.s. to 40 miles per hour, where control authorization is however solidly felt, and cut some lazy turns followed by power-on and -off stalls. It reminded me of what a docile creature the Cub is. Even if a pilot unintentionally spins a Cub, all he ordinarily has to exercise to recover is pull back the throttle and take his hands and feet off the controls — assuming he'south high enough when it happens, the Cub will right itself given the risk to do so.

Before my get-go landing effort, Damian reminded me nearly shifting my attention from the forward view to the edges of the runway, roughly at 3 o'clock and nine o'clock out the side windows. His tip for judging the acme of the round-out was to imagine a man continuing in the middle of the runway, with the idea being you want to try to knock his hat off with the Cub's spinner. Not only was information technology skillful advice, but it was devilishly fun too.

My first landing was OK only I over-controlled in the flare. That's when Damian suggested nosotros try a little game. On the side by side try, I would exist immune to motility the stick backward or end information technology from going rearward, simply I could never permit information technology to move forward. If I felt us sinking in the flare, I could pull back, but if we ballooned I was not allowed to relax the pressure, only to stop the stick correct where it was. Of course, I understood what he was getting at. The second landing was a adept one, and my control movements were more than fluid and placidity — the Zen of landing a Cub.

We did several more landings at Trinca, each of them feeling amend than the last. Then we headed back to Aeroflex for the last one of the day. I was eager to go far the best of the bunch and finish on a good note. Turning last, I allowed myself to go slightly high on the approach and Damian suggested I put in a "baby slip" to lose the extra altitude. The advice was spot on. I rounded out nicely over the approach end of the turf runway, correct where I wanted to be. The imagined farmer's lid popped off his head and was flung wildly into the air.

"Hold it off," Damian said as nosotros floated in ground result, the stick in my hand edging closer and closer to my belly, the speed decaying until touchdown — delightfully dull and smooth as love. "Yes!" Damian said. "Not bad job."

Right there, that's what I recollect best most the Cub. Information technology can be a challenging airplane to land well, but when you do it merely correct, few things in aviation are more satisfying.

Later on the flight, Damian put it this fashion: "Actually, the J-iii has no redeeming qualities," he said. "Information technology rides similar an ox cart. It doesn't hide a pilot'due south mistakes. It takes finesse to land well. It's miserable in the cold weather. You have to paw-prop information technology. You lot can't encounter out of it while landing." And however, "whether past design or luck, somehow it all comes together. It has first-class harmonization in flying. It flies wonderfully. If yous do something wrong and it flies ugly, it'southward your mistake and y'all'll know about it immediately. That'south what makes the Cub such a cracking trainer — and a great airplane."

I couldn't concord more than with that assessment. Happy birthday, old friend. Hither's to many, many more.

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