J-3 CUB
'The Airplane' To More Than An Entire Generation
by Dave Wilkerson
Yellow birds against tropical blue skies have enchanted dreamers and travelers for decades. Beyond these wonderful complementary colors, the mere thought of leisurely curving, zooming and diving at speeds too lazy to disturb the ‘whoosh’ of an afternoon breeze intoxicates the spirit. Another yellow against northern hemisphere blue has likewise captured the hearts of at least two generations, because it also waltzes unhurried the heavenly vault. First built in the mid-1930s, Piper’s J-3 ‘Cub’ came into being in a time of money-drinking radial engined airplanes like the Howard ‘DGA,’ the Stinson ‘Reliant,’ the Spartan ‘Executive’ and many, many more. Unlike most of these depression-era airplanes that cost more money to operate than most Americans could ever dream of earning, the Cub left C.G. Taylor’s drawing boards as an absolutely basic airframe and wings screwed to the smallest airplane engine the Taylor Airplane Company could find. Small meant cheap. Like other contemporary designs, the Cub came into being to meet the aspirations of the masses of pilot-wannabes and dreamers who crowded depression-era newsstands for anything related to flying – anything that turned their attention to something hopeful and delivered them from their crushing hopelessness.
Flight had captured America’s attention, and the Cub soon captured their pocketbooks. Decades of people have since admired the Cub’s simplicity, its ‘just right’ look, and the fact that it was everywhere. Unlike powerful military airplanes of that day (or this), all people could relate to this little airplane that Bill Piper, having purchased Taylor’s share of the company, the refined as the ‘J-3 Cub.’ It looked friendly. Non-aviators could easily picture themselves flying one. Cubs became articles of faith for many who would never have learned to fly had they been forced to learn in something more complex and intimidating. Yes . . . it was friendly. Then soon, it became popular. From the 1940s to the 1970s, average citizens seeing any single engine airplane automatically assumed that they were seeing a Piper ‘Cub’ (or as many vocalized it, “Pahperkub” squishing it to nearly one syllable with the same un-knowing ease with which they reduced every airplane design to Piper’s classic).
By the 1960s, a time when civilian aviation organizations built strong trust and influence within the general population, the ‘Cub’ had been a common sight for nearly a quarter of a century. They were everywhere. They were ‘the norm.’ Very much like Christianity in the West. Familiar. Comfortable. Docile. If a pilot wanted excitement, the J-3 was not likely to be the airplane of choice. Similarly, as the 1960s progressed, when people wanted excitement they had to search outside the bounds of traditional Protestant or Catholic Christianity. The hankering for excitement, for something new, drives humanity hard, whether the perceived need is for a new toy or a new ideology. As new airplane designs rolled from factories across the land, the J-3 soldiered on. Revered. Coveted. Like sincere Christians within a community that could see the good their beliefs had wrought, the Cub’s simplicity and reliability remained the standard by which other airplanes were measured. Similarly Christian principles remained the standard by which society judged normal behavior from deviant: and judged individual believers.
Everybody, flier and non-pilot alike, ‘knew’ what an airplane should be: what they looked like, and how they flew. In the same fashion, everybody ‘knew’ what a Christian was, what they looked like, and how they acted. Both such depths of ‘knowledge’ were mere perception, and tide pool shallow. They were right in that the Gospel message was Cub-simple, but wrong in assuming that professing believers were as well. Born-again, evangelical Christians, like airplanes, grow in their developing abilities, their range, and their performance. Renewed on the Piper Airplane Company’s drawing boards, J-3s became PA-12s, then PA-18s. When the original maker, Piper, fell silent to bankruptcy, the Cub lived on as kits for homebuilders through the Wag-Aero company. In the same way, Christianity went through periods of near silence, tumbling from the production lines of the Catholic Church, or through the Calvinist iterations of the Church, or through Luther’s followers. Russian Orthodox and Greek Orthodox believers sojourned history like radioless Cubs, devoid of communication with other believers through cloud-obscured skies.
Though the ‘nameplate’ differed in small ways, the core beliefs and truths remained steadfast in an easily distracted universe. Just as believers were first called Christians under the original apostles, Cubs were originally Taylor Cubs. Then Piper Cubs. Then Wag Aero Cubs. Then the New Piper’s Super Cubs. They were always easily recognized for what they were. Cubs. A design called the Bearhawk ‘Patrol’ echoes the Cub’s simplicity, the Super Cub’s performance and looks, and the hearts of those who have flown it. As the 21st century ages, the Cub lives in the production lines of Aviat’s ‘Husky’ bushplanes. And they live as resurrected entities from the backs of hangars, from barns and boneyards across the land. Collectors value them for their nostalgia, but also for their utility to serve with simplicity, and thus at low cost and high reliability. In short, the Cub’s reason for being remains unchanged today from what it was in aviation’s distant early time. Exactly as the role of individual Christians remained unchanged in a lightspeed fast, complex and ungrounded modern society. As believers, our duty to a lost world is to hold forth the ‘Cub-simple’ truth, devoid of confusing extras, presenting to the unsaved the cornerstone of salvation and life. We are to do this exactly as the Cub offers aviators a wing, an empennage, an engine and enough control to fly. The rest is up to the sky.
Copyright © 2004-2006 Dove Aviation Ministry, Brentwood, CA
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