October 2007 Feature Story:
There’s Nothing Like a J3

Story by Jack Payne

If you like to fly — fly a Cub! There’s nothing better or more relaxing than a few hours of flying around at 1,000 feet in a good old J3. To all of you hot pilots this may sound like some 40-hour pilot’s way of bragging, or maybe some guy who just never got a ride in a Bonanza, Cessna or Commander — some guy who’s flown in a J3 only and thinks he’s a real pilot. I’ll take a J3 for pleasure flying over any of these electronic sardine cans any day. Don’t misunderstand me — they are probably good airplanes if you need to go somewhere and have the money to fly them. But for fun, I’ll take the Cub.

Way back in 1937 (at the age of 14 or 15) when I was learning to fly in a Kinner Fairchild biplane (ed. note: probably a KR-21), some guy landed in a little yellow Cub. We didn’t know exactly what it was then but soon found out it was a J2 Piper Cub. I think it had 40 horsepower in a neat, little four-cylinder opposed engine. All us hot pilots sort of looked down our noses at this little airplane sitting there by the big Fairchild and the OX-engined Travel Air. And that engine — well, there was nothing to it! I didn’t think it would pull it, let alone fly it.

But it did — and only a few months later I was flying one.
It sure was slow, and you couldn’t do a darn thing with it except loops, spins, lazy eights, chandelles, split-Ss, and if you were really careful, you could do a barrel roll. No snaps or slow rolls. No negative stress could safely be put on those wings. So I went back to a real airplane — the Kinner Fairchild. Now here was a hot pilot’s airplane! Of course, I always wore a parachute in the Fairchild because it was old, and people weren’t as careful with repairs and inspections then as they are now. There were a lot of flying wires and struts and fittings that could fail on that biplane.

Much to my horror, they did fail one day. I was going downhill a bit too fast after a choppy maneuver of some kind. When I pulled up the top wing tore away and disappeared behind me! It was time to find out if my parachute really worked. The parachute had not been adjusted to fit me. When the parachute opened those big straps that were hanging around my knees come up into my crotch and the chest buckle hit me in the mouth. It’s something that you don’t forget!

I was a bit timid about flying again. I began to think, Maybe these airplanes aren’t safe after all. At any rate, I was convinced by someone that I should go up again so I wouldn’t lose my nerve. I soon was in a J3 taxiing out to take-off. Everybody knows enough to turn on the gas before taking off. Everybody that is except me. I was still scared from my last flight and wasn’t thinking too clearly as I shoved the throttle to its stop and went bouncing across the turf. The Cub came off the ground and started to climb out over the edge of the field when the engine died. I almost died right along with it!

I couldn’t have been more than 75 feet above the ground. In any other airplane a straight-ahead crash landing would have been a certainty. To my utter amazement, when I popped the stick to get the Cub’s nose down to maintain flying speed, that was exactly what we were doing — flying! I had time to pick a spot, turn and slip a little to land and stop with no sweat or damage. My first lesson in why a J3 is fun to fly had just been completed.

Over the next few years I got a commercial ticket and began flying for a charter service. We had a Stinson SR-7A and a Waco “C” cabin plane. I was a big wheel! Other guys flying around in their Cubs were just playing at flying. I’d roll by them on the ramp and gun the big radial engine to make sure they knew there was a real airplane around. I’d take my time checking mags and prop, making the whole procedure look as complicated as possible, then turn and take off in a swirl of dust. I really showed them! But you know, I don’t think they ever even noticed.

It was just a short time later that I fell in love. I decided to take her for an airplane ride. I asked my boss if I could borrow the Stinson for an hour or so to take my girl for a ride. “Sure,” he says, “You put the gas in it and have fun!” I thought for a minute. I fly the Stinson quite a bit. I know how much gas that big radial burns each hour. Heck, I could rent the Cub for two hours for what the Stinson would burn in just one hour. So rent the J3 I did. Lesson 2 was learned about the J3’s advantages.

World War Two came along and I enlisted so I could be a fighter pilot. After all, I’d flown just about everything, from a Heath Parasol to a Spartan Executive. The Air Force had a different view though and I landed in the Army Air Forces cadet training program. Soon I’d get in a real airplane, then the Air Force would know that I was a pilot and not just another cadet. After much marching and fooling around, I went to a College Training Detachment and got my first taste of military flying… ten hours in a J3!

One cold spring Saturday, I was out at the same airport where we were getting our ten hours dual, trying to rent something besides a J3. I talked a local guy into renting me his “Culver” for five dollars per hour. A buddy of mine and I got in the Culver and away we went. We really had a ball for an hour or so until we came back to the airport to land. I tried to crank the gear down, but they wouldn’t move! I tried to get them unstuck with a few quick pullouts for added “Gs” while at the same time putting some pressure on the crank, but that didn’t work either.

My belly landing was pretty good, considering. I cut the engine and stopped the prop horizontally, and I really didn’t do much damage to the airplane. It seems that I had taxied through some mud — some nice, juicy mud — which froze the gear fast, in the up position, at high altitude. From then on, I rented a J3 on my time off.

Soon I was training in P-40s down in Corsicana, Texas. I was really flying an airplane! For some reason it was getting to be work. Sure, I could scream through the sky, zoom to any altitude. I could roll all I wanted to. I could do darn near any maneuver you could think of — buzz close to the deck at close to 400 MPH (out of a dive), and zoom and roll to seven or eight thousand feet. But I couldn’t relax and enjoy it. There was plenty to do in that cockpit. That big inline engine had lots of torque; any change in airspeed required a trim change. Stand the P-40 up on a wingtip, suck back on the stick and you went into a high speed stall which flipped you over but quick. Again, on weekends, I’d be at the local airport flying a J3, and really having a good time seeing the countryside — which I couldn’t see from a P-40 nearly as well.

Then there was P-39 transition and gunnery, and finally P-47 transition school and gunnery. I became a sub-depot test pilot. I was flying them all now, even a few twins and multi jobs — P-38s, P-40s, P-39s, P-47s, Douglas Dauntlesses, B-25s, A-20s, UC-78s (Cessna Bobcat) — they could all be found in my log book. Even a few C-47s, C-46s and B-17s were in the book. But in between these high horsepower entries of you can find “Piper J3, 65HP, Local, Pleasure.”

Eventually, I went to the Pacific, into combat with the 318th Fighter Group.
I had all the good, reliable fighters — P-47Ds, P-40Fs, P-38Js and P-51Ds. Yes, we had them all, but they were beat — and so were all of us pilots. And not a J3 around! Not until I got to ie Shima (Okinawa) did I spot a J3. The army called it an L-4, but it was a J3 to me. It took some doing, but I got to fly the mail in that L-4 when I wasn’t on a combat flight or on alert.

I felt good every time I took off in the Cub. It was light and responsive. There was nothing to do but hold the controls and enjoy the fresh air at 1,000 feet. What a wonderful difference there was between the L-4 and my P-47N. Every takeoff with the “Jug” was a hairy panic. My time in the air was fully occupied with adjustments to the engine controls, radio and gas tanks. We were usually up around 20,000 to 25,000 feet on oxygen, so the oxygen system required my continuous attention (not to mention watching for bogies). Most of the pilots in my squadron thought I was some kind of nut to risk my neck in that L-4. To them it just wasn’t safe!

The L-4 and I had our day, however. One of the big wheels from the group was coming home from a mission when he got jumped by a bunch of enemy fighters and got clobbered. He managed to crash-land his P-47N on a small atoll about 65 miles from Ie Shima. He got a radio message off so we all knew where he was. So did the Japs. The Air Force, Navy and Air-Sea Rescue were all unable to get to him and pick him up before the enemy would get to him. All the PBYs were too far away; neither the Navy nor Air-Sea Rescue had any ships in the area; and the Air Force had nothing that could land on that little strip of coral sand. All the Colonel could do was wait and hope that the few fighters that were circling around him could stay long enough to keep the enemy at bay until the Navy could get a rescue ship to him.

I took off in the L-4 and pointed the nose out over the China Sea in the general direction of the colonel. About 45 minutes later I saw the atoll in front of me. The fighters had gone and a Jap ship was putting a small boat in the water to go get the colonel. I looked the atoll over quickly and decided to put the L-4 down on the only piece of level beach I could see — the same one on which the colonel crashed his P-47. There wasn’t much room or much time, but the L-4 didn’t need much of either. I dumped it down on the rough beach and the colonel came running over and got in. I turned around and taxied as far back as possible, spun around, and amid small arms fire from the approaching boat, pushed the throttle full forward; we needed all sixty-five roaring horsepower. We bounced along at an agonizingly slow pace, but there was a good wind coming off the sea, and with just inches to spare, the L-4 was off and flying.

The larger enemy ship out there started pumping some big stuff our way but they were leading us far too much. I ducked around the atoll at about ten feet altitude and picked up a course that would take us home. Now and then a shell would send up a spray of water that would rock the L-4 and soak the engine, but it kept going, and so did we. We landed on Ie Shima about 50 minutes later, not on the runway but on a short taxi strip right by the revetment in which the L-4 was kept.

Everybody on that island was waiting for the L-4 to land. They looked at it and touched it almost with reverence, as though all of a sudden it had become something special, a thing apart from all the other airplanes on the island. The L-4 was always clean after that, and the crew chief walked around with his head held high. Some major decided to fly the daily mail with the L-4 after that, it was clearly too valuable to trust to a fighter jockey.

After the war was over, I was a test pilot for a while, flying jet fighters as well as flying for an air freight line. I would rent a 120 or Stinson 165 for pleasure flying. But the thrill wasn’t there — the utter relaxation I used to feel just loafing around the sky with the side windows open; the sense of security of a simple engine and controls; the easy response of the really light airplane, and sense of security of knowing that no matter what happens - short of pulling a wing off — you can most likely get it on the ground and walk away from it.

I flew for an aerial photography company until January 1963. The company specialized in low altitude portraits of swimming pools, homes, farms and commercial properties. We tried many different airplanes, but bought a 1940 60-horsepower J3. We flew that airplane for four years, every day the weather was right for pictures, carrying a max load always. The old Franklin 60 never let us down, nor did the J3 ever fail to climb out of a tight place in which I had to put it for a picture.

I’ve still got the Cub. In the years that I flew it we went under our share of wires and between our share of trees, but it was a 100MPH wind storm that finally got the J3. It’s really mangled, but being repaired as I can afford it.

It will fly again, with me at the controls. Big wheels in their hot tin can airplanes will look at it and maybe feel sorry for me. But it’s them that I’ll be feeling sorry for. They’re up there stuck on the airways at eight or nine thousand feet, flying their to-and-from needle from one VOR to another, worrying about that darn autopilot and a spot that some guy got on the upholstery. Or maybe that prop isn’t working just right today, the RPMs seem to be varying a bit. Maybe it’s the gyros — they seem to be drifting.

I don’t need a VOR to go anywhere, or gyros, or any of that stuff. If the weather is bad, I stay on the ground. Dead-reckoning will get me anywhere I want to go. I’ll fly my Cub and enjoy every minute of it.