Engine run up in the Piper Cub yesterday morning before takeoff. Nearly 20,000 of the original J-3 Cubs were built between 1937 and 1947. It has been called the Model T Ford of general aviation as it was designed to be a reliable, docile flying aircraft with low cost of ownership to bring aviation to the masses. Modernized variants of the iconic Cub were built after the war and are still being built today as they highly sought after by bush pilots. The instrument panel is spartan but functional. What looks like an antenna head of the windshield is actually the fuel indicator. The fuel tank is behind the engine firewall and ahead of the cockpit and as you burn fuel, that metal rod drops down. With no artificial horizon on the instrument panel, I found that in level flight, the horizon just touches the lower flange of the fuel indicator. Taxiing a taildragger is a lot of work! Aircraft with nosewheels are easy by comparison, my prior flight experience was in Cessna 152s and Cessna 172s where taxiing them on ground was like driving a car. Since the tailwheel means you sit on the ground nose up, you can't see ahead of you, so you either stick your head out the side window while on the ground or make slow undulating S-turns to see ahead of you (warbird pilots will do this). My instructor had me flying off a grass strip. No concrete or asphalt runways here! This is flying like it used to be done, taildraggers off grass fields. On Cessnas, I hardly had to work the rudder pedals on take off unless there was a crosswind. On the Cub, your feet are doing a lot of "dancing" until you get airborne. But once trimmed up and stabilized in level flight at altitude, the view is wonderful (we cruised around 1000-2500 feet altitude) and the aircraft is very stable and flies itself hands off. #avgeek #aviation #aircraft #planeporn #LakeviewAirport #30F #LakeDallas #airport #planespotting #instaplane #igTexas #DFWavgeek #instagramaviation #Avgeekery #AvGeek_SchoolofKnowledge #AvgeekSchoolofKnowledge #Piper #J3 #PiperCub #Cub #splendid_transport #instaaviation #aviationlovers #aviationphotography #flight (at Lakeview Airport)
