My Cubs History Comes Alive

[Big Ben]

I bought my Super Cub about a month ago from the original owner. He bought it in 1976 and kept it at his private strip near my home in rural CA. While flying with our company pilots, our retired chief pilot told me that he used to fly cubs from the factory to the west coast as a young pilot. He proceeded to tell me that he flew my cub from the factory to Modesto in 1976! He remembered it well due to it's N# and as he almost cracked it up in Nebraska.

I asked if I could get a copy of his log book showing the first flight to Ca. I will fly with him in the cub soon and get a photo for my cub history binder.

Being a long time local plane, it seems everyone has flown it or has a story about it. I feel like I am the last one to date the prom queen, but she is mine now!

Thought this was interesting.

Ben

 

[Darrel Starr]

Please add to the story as more people tell their tales. Oh the stories these machines could tell.

 

[DesperadoPilot]

I have the complete log books of my Cub all the way back to when it rolled off the line at Lock Haven in 1946. Original signatures were written in it with one of those old fountain pens that had a little lever on the side that squeezed a bulb inside the barrel to draw the ink up into the pen. I am sure that several of the old timer A&E's who signed off the Annuals and other maintenance are no longer alive, as it is obvious some of them were already pretty old based on the shaky handwriting. There are a lot of attachments to the logbooks that show various scenarios that the airplane was involved in over the years, to include lawsuits, repossessions, and run-in's with the law, etc. My logbooks include nine 3-ring notebooks full of documents in addition to the original engine and airframe logbooks that came with it from the factory. Included are a box full of black and white photographs of the airplane during various stages of maintenance, recovering, and rebuilding over the last 65 years. Best part is that the airplane was very well maintained and is still in excellent condition. The airplane also has the original Edo 1400 floats that came with it in 1946, and the float data tags have consecutive serial numbers, dated in 1946 also. In 1954, the airplane went back to Lock Haven and was remanufactured into a PA-18 and had a Lycoming 0-235 C1 installed in it, along with PA-18 wings, tail, windshield, 13 gallon wing tanks, panel, landing gear, etc. But it is still registered as a J-3 Cub because the Engineers at the Piper factory never bothered to increase the maximum certificated gross weight to 1500 pounds when they did the remanufacture. Probably the only J-3 Cub in existance that was converted into a PA-18 at the Piper factory that qualifies as Light Sport. It started out as a J-3, was converted into a PA-18 in 1954, and is still considered as a J-3, even though everything on it is PA-18. Even the fuselage was modified into a PA-18 fuselage at the factory, but still has the original J-3 data tag on it from 1946. A lot of history on this airplane. If only this airplane could talk.

 

[Torch]

I have the logs all the way back on my 1956 Super Cub. It was purchased by Dorothy Magoffin and Mr. Hutchinson flew it from the factory to Fairbanks, Alaska. Jess Bachner was one of the mechanics that worked for them and his signature appears quite often in the older paperwork. I am only the 5th owner of the plane. The Catholic Church in Alaska owned it for quite a while. Soon I think I will be the person that has owned it the longest. A few years ago I saw Dorothy's husband at the float pond in Fairbanks. I asked him if he recognized the plane. I explained to him that his wife was the first owner. He squinted at it and said, Well it used to be green.