Flying with Piper Cubs

[Vlad]

Some day I will own a Cub. On big Tundra tires. I fly an RV model now which can do pretty much everything a Piper Cub does. I thought so until after I went to a Cubs gathering up north in Maine.

A VAFer (SkyGoddess here) also has a Cub and every year they have a party on a private field in the woods of Maine by a river. He knew I am not indifferent to the little yellow bird and invited me to join the fun. Airport where they all congregate is Zinck 90ME. What's easy for a Cub should be easy for RV I thought.

Early Sat morning fueled up I instructed my RV to fly Piper Cub's style all day.





Normally all my trips up North lay through NYC. My imagination on routes was exhausted and went up. Up more and more till there was no VFR airspace left.





Settled peacefully on top of everything and were cruising in Piper Cub style.






Hardly burning any fuel.







There was nothing to do no buttons to push no efises to troubleshoot. Waive to occasional airliner.






All familiar terrain in good old USA. Here is Alton Bay seaplane base. I will come here in February when it freezes.






In 2 hours arrived over Rumford, ME. Do you see the field? From 17,500'?






You don't? How about now? 10K.






Still nothing? 5,000?







Then were merry-go-arounds. Again and again. At least 4 times. Runway 1500', hidden in the woods along the river and I've arrived when sun was already way up. All those rotors along the mountains and over the river were awake.

Yes, RV can land where Cubs go. But can she taxi? It was pouring last night.

[Vlad]

Keep moving puppy don't stop. More power!





That's definitely not Salmon or Peaslees this is some serious grass. Crowd cheering.





Ufff. Parked. It's not easy to be Piper Cub.





I got the guardians. Stay away bears.





I am safe here.











SkyGoddess Prince. Thanks for bringing me here John. Next time I tug Turbo...





Sea Cub owned the river all to himself.






Panel almost like on my RV.








Airfield and plane views.






There was about a dozen Cubs with more to arrive.

[GLPalinkas]

Vlad, it doesn't get any better than that. I loved doing the grass strip thing in my T-craft and that's why I built a -6 taildragger. John looks like, well, John. Having a good time. Did you run into a guy named Jim Crane there. Flies out of Venice also. Tundra tires and all. A friend said he went to a cub Fly-in in Maine recently.

[Jaypratt]

Looks ike fun. Was John Mead there?

[humptybump]

I just took a trip down memory lane (aka my log books) and found about 50 hours in Cubs (actually J-3 and an L-4) out of 7B3. What fun !

Vlad - I hope you traded some stick time

[celstar]

I just purchased a 1946 all original 1100TT Cub. I love the thing as much as the RV-3B almost! It is a great option to have the Cub and the RV-3B in the hanger.

[mike newall]

Cub.......... Ha

The only suitable foil to an RV is a Champ

[Vlad]

Gary, Jay I am not too good with last names. There was a Jim and there was at least one more John.


These Cub drivers are fast on ADM. Within 20 minutes the decision was made where to fly and what to do.





Everybody fired up and started to taxi.





This guys fly like helicopters they don't need ground effect.











I was the last one in line. I had plenty of minutes and taxied very cautiously. I should have stopped short of the beginning of the runway there was a deep rut running very close to "the threshold". I walked the field before and saw it. Decided to jump over. Bump, shook the nose and kept moving, have to check that nose fairing after landing.


Gaggle of Piper Cubs divided into sub-gaggles. First I flew with the seacub. A notch of flaps and RV seats nice and quiet at 65 knots.






Then I located another sub gaggle going at least 3 knots faster and joined them from the rear. They talked air-to-air - Where is that RV guy? What he is going to do?-






Then I repositioned to another sub-gaggle. These were the fastest almost 73 kts. They were looking for some potato fields.






Cool guys. Interesting chat air-to-air. Almost like RV drivers. Landed at Twitchell airport for fuel. Airport manager was very happy to see so many airplanes. Now we look like an airport he said.








I inspected my nosewheel fairing. Hmmm yeah. It's good I have a nosewheel. The tailwheel could have been completely ripped off in that rut. Looks provocative but it's not. One main fairing lost a bottom screw but they were intact.






If you can't duck (tape) it ..............

Cub drives have plenty of duct tape and advice. Good to go. Now I am official citizen of West Virginia.

[Vlad]

Fired up and go again. How many pilots can hand prop these day?












Their destination was Wiscasset and I had one more event to visit. I stayed by the wing of a Cub whose driver learned to fly in his father Pietenpol. I met that Pietenpol a year ago.





I stayed by his wing for 10 minutes and peeled off. Bye Sawyer see you next year!







Next destination was an hour away. Crow Island, Massachusetts. A CIA fly in.

[Vlad]

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