Air Show - Part 1

As all of you know by now, this is not my usual type of photography as I do not have a suitable lens for it (nor the experience) but when the opportunity presents itself, I like to add something different to my blog. Through this series, I am hoping I have captured enough of the movement of these wonderful planes to give you an idea of the stunning aerobatics displayed.

Over the weekend I attended a airshow and one of the highlights was this Piper Cub landing on a small 2 ton truck.

Schroll these pictures down fast and you can catch the movement of the palane as it lands and takes off again.

On its first pass it was too high and both carried on to the end of the runway.

 Some of these pictures are a little skew as I had to lean over a fence in order to see past the people next to me who were doing the same thing. :)

 At first I thought that the one wheel was going to be off the side of the vehicle but it was a perfect landing.

 A victory wave for a stunt well done.

 Going to the end of the field again, I was surprised at how quickly the Cub took off again.

Piper Cub


The Piper J-3 Cub is a small, simple, light aircraft that was built between 1937 and 1947 by Piper Aircraft. With tandem (fore and aft) seating, it was intended for flight training but became one of the most popular and best-known light aircraft of all time. The Cub's simplicity, affordability and popularity invokes comparisons to the Ford Model T automobile.

The aircraft's standard chrome yellow paint has come to be known as “Cub Yellow” or "Lock Haven Yellow"

An icon of the era, and of American general aviation in general, the J-3 Cub has long been loved by pilots and non-pilots alike, with thousands still in use today. Piper sold 19,073 J-3s between 1938 and 1947, the majority of them L-4s and other military variants. Postwar, thousands of Grasshoppers were civilian-registered under the designation J-3. Hundreds of Cubs were assembled from parts in Canada (by Cub Aircraft as the Cub Prospector), Denmark and Argentina, and by a licensee in Oklahoma.

In the late 1940s, the J-3 was replaced by the Piper PA-11 Cub Special (1,500 produced), the first Piper Cub version to have a fully-enclosed cowling for its powerplant, and then the Piper PA-18 Super Cub, which Piper produced until 1981 when it sold the rights to WTA Inc. In all, Piper produced 2,650 Super Cubs. The Super Cub had a 150 hp (110 kW) engine which increased its top speed to 130 mph (210 km/h); its range was 460 miles (740 km).

A curiosity of the J-3 is that when it is flown solo, the lone pilot normally occupies the rear seat for proper balance, to balance the fuel tank located at the firewall. Starting with the PA-11, and some L-4s, fuel was carried in wing tanks, allowing the pilot to fly solo from the front seat.