The 75th anniversary of the Piper Cub was celebrated during AirVenture 2012. The vintage parking area looked like a field of buttercups for all the little yellow airplanes parked in the grass. But what was a J-3 Cub doing parked on the showcase pad in the Warbird area?
“That J-3 is an honest-to-goodness Warbird,” grinned Mike Porter from East Liverpool, Ohio.
“They look like a field of buttercups,” is how one visitor to AirVenture 2012 described the sea of J-3 Cubs parked in the vintage area of Oshkosh.
This year is the 75th anniversary of the popular Piper airplane and as part of the celebration Cubs arrived in droves at the big show, one after another like a disciplined line of butterflies. One of those belongs to Frank Swinehart, from Lock Haven, Pa., the very home of Piper Aircraft back in the day.
With apologies to both playwright Neil Simon and Brighton Beach, it was a sentimental journey Nov. 10 to Vero Beach, Florida, for Piper’s Factory Fly-In, the final event of the Cub’s 75th Anniversary year.
As a student pilot flying a Piper J-3 Cub, on any beautiful Sunday afternoon it was not unusual to be 8th to 10th on downwind at Zahn’s Airport at Amityville on New York’s Long Island.
The year was 1954. Finally, I was able to take flying lessons, having been transferred from my position on a newspaper in San Francisco to New York City, working for publications owned by the Hearst Corporation.
This was at the height of the general aviation flying boom following World War II. [Read more…]
Piper Aircraft will wrap up a year of celebrations for the Cub’s 75th anniversary at a fly-in at the factory in Vero Beach, Florida, the weekend of Nov. 9-11. The weekend will feature a welcome reception, vendor exhibits, an aircraft static display, facility tours, a History of Piper Aircraft presentation, and a pancake breakfast. For more information: Fly-In@piper.com or 772-299-2141.
VERO BEACH, FLA. — Piper Aircraft and the Piper Cub’s year-long 75th anniversary celebration will culminate with a customer fly-in Nov. 9-11. The invitation-only weekend features a welcome reception, vendor exhibits, aircraft static display, customer awards, facility tours, a history lesson from Piper’s official historian, a Piper meet-up and send-off pancake breakfast.
There was a particularly compelling event at AirVenture this year. One I wish I had been there to see. Sadly, I was unable to attend. But that puts me in the same boat with many thousands of aviation enthusiasts. I was interested, but from afar. I was motivated, but constrained by circumstance. In short, I was somewhere else and I missed it.
The event I allude to is the Cubs 2 Oshkosh mass fly-in. [Read more…]
Piper Aircraft is kicking off a year-long celebration of its 75th anniversary this week at Sun ’n Fun.
From EAA Chapter 282 in Clearwater, Florida, comes the heartwarming story of Walter Crosby, who realized the dream of seeing his restored 1946 Piper Cub fly for the first time in more than 50 years. Thanks to the love and dedication of his fellow chapter members, Walt got to see his cherished airplane become airborne — just days before losing his courageous battle with cancer. Read the whole story here … and have some Kleenex handy!
Hundreds of Piper Cubs are expected to turn the flightline at EAA AirVenture 2012 into a “field of yellow” as a part of the week-long celebration of the iconic aircraft’s 75th anniversary. The 60th annual airshow is scheduled for July 23-29 at Wittman Regional Airport (OSH) in Oshkosh.