 HISTORY
OF THE PIPER CUB
First built in 1938, the Piper J-3 earned its fame as a trainer. So
successful was it that the name "Cub" soon came to be a generic term
for all light airplanes, and Piper Aircraft became the best known general
aviation manufacturer.
The story of the J-3 began in the late
192Os with C. Gilbert and Gordon Taylor, partners in the very small Taylor
Brothers Aircraft Company of Rochester, New York. Onetime barnstormers, the
brothers had designed and were attempting to market a two-seat monoplane called
the Chummy, when Gordon Taylor was killed in a crash.
Gilbert Taylor, who believed there would
be a growing market for light planes, moved in 1929 to Bradford, Pennsylvania,
where community leaders were anxious to promote new local industries. The
Bradford Board of Commerce provided $5O,OOO to capitalize the new Taylor
company, which built five Chummys before the Great Depression put a halt to
construction.
One of the stockholders was an oilman
named William T. Piper. Being interested in aviation and believing that the
Chummy was too expensive and inefficient, Piper offered to sponsor the
development of a small plane to sell for half the Chummy's $3,985. The resulting
aircraft designated the E-2, was completed in late 193O and fitted with a
two-cylinder Brownbach "Tiger Kitten" engine.
Testing had revealed the Tiger Kitten,
which was rated at 2O hp, had too little power for the E-2. At full throttle,
the small plane was able only to indulge in "grass cutting," rising a
few feet into the air before settling back to earth. The Tiger Kitten engine had
suggested the name Cub for the airplane, however, denoting the E-2 as the
earliest true ancestor of the J-3.
With no suitable power plant, the Taylor
company was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1931. Piper bought up the assets
keeping C. G. Taylor on as chief engineer. Later that year, Continental Motors
Corporation came out with the 37-hp A-4O and the Taylor E-2 Cub was placed on
the market. Twenty-two were sold that year, with sales growing tenfold by 1935.
The following year, the plane was
completely redesigned. Redesignated the Taylor J-2, it featured a greatly
improved Continental engine. Also in 1936, C. G. Taylor left to establish the
Taylorcraft Aviation Company in Alliance, Ohio.
When the plant at Bradford burned down in
1937, Piper moved his manufacturing equipment and more than two hundred
employees to an abandoned silk mill in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. The company
resumed production under the name Piper Aircraft Corporation and completed 687
aircraft before the end of the year.
ln 1938 Piper introduced the improved J-3
Cub. Powered by 40-hp Continental, Lycoming or Franklin engines, the J-3 sold
for $1,3OO. Engine horsepower was soon raised to fifty and reached sixty-five by
194O. Piper also standardized a color scheme; just as Henry Fords Model T's were
all black so William Piper's Cubs were all bright yellow with black trim.
Immediately before the entry of the United
States into World War II. Sales of the Cub were spurred by the organization of
the Civilian Pilot Training (CPT) Program. ln 194O, 3,016 Cubs were built and at
the wartime peak a new J-3 emerged from the factory every twenty minutes.
Seventy-five percent of all pilots in the CPT Program were trained on Cubs, many
going on to more advanced training in the military.
Cubs were also flown during the war as
observation, liaison, and ambulance planes. Known variously as the L-4, O-59 and
NE-1, these planes rendered valuable service and were nicknamed
"Grasshoppers."
By 1947, when production ended, 14,125
Piper Cubs had been built. The J-3 is now finding an ever-increasing popularity
among antique airplane buffs, and brand new Cubs are being constructed by
homebuilders. Both an excellent trainer and a delightful sport plane, which
lends itself to lazy summer afternoons, the Cub might best be summed up by the
words "simple," "economical." and above all "fun to
fly."
Today it would probably come close to
being classified as the original ultralight.
The important thing about the J-3 piper cub is that it teaches you to really
"fly" the plane.
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