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’s jeans. A Rawlings baseball improved by the scuffs and scars and patina of use. For generations of pilots, the object of our nostalgic affection is the Piper Cub. Introduced 75 years ago, the J-3 established the idea of a simple, inexpensive and easy-to-fly trainer. In the 1940s and 1950s, more pilots learned to fly in J-3 Cubs than any other model. Even if you’ve never sat behind the controls of one, you understand the importance of the J-3 to general aviation history. If you have flown a Cub, well, you don’t need to be told it’s one of the best-flying light airplanes ever made.
I started out learning to fly in a 1946 J-3 when I was 15. That was in the late 1980s at a grass strip close to my home in northern New Jersey. I can remember some days soloing in the Cub it would be just me and another pilot in a Stearman and still another in an old T-6, the three of us circling 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 wind moved the corn and making certain to get the stick all the way back at the last instant in the flare. When you did it just right in the Cub, the effect was magical. And when you got it slightly wrong, the J-3 wouldn’t let you off the hook without a lesson that could stay with you for a long time. Maybe forever.
