Cub Stories
[ Back ]
Revised November 2015
Story 1
There was one door, on the right hand side. The bottom half
folded all the way down, while the Plexiglas upper portion would be held by a fixture on the bottom of the
wing. Both doors are open in this photo. On a warm summer day, we always flew with both doors
open. A friend from work wanted a ride, but was too tall to sit in the front seat. I'd never
flown from the front, but did this day. On landing, with both doors open, the ground effect caused the
bottom door to 'float', almost closing. It scared the heck out of him.
Story 2
The tail wheel was connected to the rudder using a long spring on
either side. This was to minimize forces on the cables and rudder
peddles on rough grass fields. While taxing out solo to take off one
afternoon, one of the springs broke, causing the plane to veer to the
right. There was no way to steer left with the wheel hard over. I
called the tower to explain that I'd lost a spring, but being alone,
could not get out to remove the other spring. "Do you want o declare an
emergency?" "Can we send someone to help?" I requested permission to
"fly" the tail and make my way back to the ramp. "We've never seen that
done before, but would like to."
Story 3
I was departing on runway 6, solo, on a beautiful summer day. Just
after leaving the ground (about 100' from powering up), the tower
called asking if I could make a left turn ASAP. "Sure" (I'm about 300'
off the deck doing 60mph and made the turn). I was to clear the active
runway to make way for an incoming private jet. The tower called back
the the jet, "Clear to land, runway 6, winds are 030 at 5 knots. Beware
of the wake turbulence from the departing J3".
Boring!!!!!