How to buy, fly and maintain your Piper J-3 Cub

My name is Matt and I am here to make a video and talk to you about caring for, purchasing, feeding and

maintain

ing a classic 1946 Piper J3. I have had this airplane for about two years and this will be my experience. Your experience may vary and there are certainly different ways to participate in a plane like this. I'm just going to go over how it worked for me and some things to watch out for when buying and flying an airplane like this. Now they made Piper Cubs from about 1938 to about 1947. They built about 20,000 of them, there are a lot of them still flying, so

your

first question will be: what should I look for when I buy a Piper J3?

There are many of these aircraft on the market. there and the price can vary greatly depending on what you get now. I looked on Trader Plane and a few other places before coming here and I saw a lot of puppies from about twenty three twenty four thousand dollars up to about fifty five or sixty thousand dollars that's in the US there are some for sale in Europe and stuff which are more expensive now what's the difference between a 24,000 plane and a 55,000 plane well there's a couple of things about how it's equipped, what kind of shape it's in and how recently it's been restored and I'll get a bigger cut of the cost and the restoration process in just one minute.

Now, when I bought my glass two years ago, I paid twenty-six thousand dollars for it. I was flying on annual leave. Everything was legally established. well for it to be a plane that you could get on and go fly, mechanically it didn't have any significant problems either, however it is a very old restoration, it was recovered around the mid 1960's, so the first thing we're going to do is What affects the value of

your

aircraft is how recently it was restored. Mine was restored in the 60's. The other thing that will affect you is how your plane is equipped.

My plane has a 65 horsepower continental engine. 65 horsepower is probably how most of these airplanes were initially built, they did build some of them with less horsepower and many of them have been upgraded to 75, 85 or 100 horsepower, which makes it a real performer and of course adds to the cost now that my plane is also very basic and does not have an electrical system, this is how it was built and this is how I plan to keep it, however some people will add alternators, generators, batteries, voltage regulators so I can add a radio or a transponder or something to the plane personally, I think. that ruins the classic character of the plane, but depending on where you fly that might be something important to you, however it will increase the cost and it will also increase the weight, another common improvement you will see, there are a few things. that is commonly done on many of these airplanes, making them a little more expensive compared to one that doesn't have them.

The first thing is the brakes. Now my plane has the original Cub Expander brakes, they are called pressing the brake pedal. Pushes against a diaphragm, a small balloon-like mechanism expands inside the wheel hub and that causes the wheel to slow down. They are not good brakes. Many cubs have been upgraded with Grove style or other manufacturer disc brakes similar to yours. I see on a Cessna 172 or a more modern Piper Cherokee or something, those brakes are a little more expensive, they add weight, they're very good at stopping, so good at stopping that it becomes much easier to engage the brakes and turn the airplane over. on his nose now my mechanic who does my job on my airplane and also taught me how to fly tailwheel airplanes and also restores airplanes begged me to never put disc brakes on this airplane, he says if you have to use the brakes on this plane and you need brakes like that then you are not paying attention and if you are flying over grass you are probably right, however if you are flying over pavement you use the brakes a little more often, however the newer style brakes grip very well. that if you have a passenger in the front seat, something happens and you panic, you combine the brakes that grip so well you could turn the plane upside down, so I left mine with the expander brakes partly because of the cost and partly because you just don't want to risk sliding on your nose, you pay attention and you really shouldn't have to worry about hitting the brakes that hard, these brakes hold well enough that when you make a magnetic move, they go up when You hold the brakes and increase the rpm to check.

The magneto system before releasing the brakes is good enough to keep the plane still when you advance the throttle, so the expander brakes have worked for me. Another common change is what they call sealed struts. There is a strut that attaches to the wing and fuselage. the original struts were hollow, water would get inside, pool on the bottom, rust, cause problems, so there was an advertising airworthiness directive, it's like a recall for airplanes, except they are mandatory, the advertisement required what are called sealed struts, these struts are welded closed so water can't get in, most pups I've seen already have sealed struts.

It's a very old ad so most of the planes you're looking at should already have sealed struts, but that's something you want to check because you wouldn't want to get a good deal on your plane to fly home and the first thing your mechanic is that you have to replace both struts, so you also need to pay a little attention to the mine spar of your plane. It's 1946, as you can see up there, if I didn't have the cover, you could see mine has metal stringers, lots of puppies, especially the pre-war ones, the ones built during and in the early parts of the Second World War.

World War, they were built without wars. The bad thing with wood is sparks, many airplanes fly over wooden beams, I think it was wooden beams that took Charles Lindbergh to Paris, however, wood has particular things that you should be aware of, they can be rot, they can get wet, they can dry out, white things can. This can cause problems with wood sparking, so if you're looking at a pup and you want to know if he has wood or steel and you want to make sure you check the stringers and make sure they're in good condition, it's not impossible.

To change them, some people change the spars when they refurbish them, but it involves taking both wings apart and rebuilding them, so it's not something you want to do in the blink of an eye, as I mentioned and as I mentioned before my plane did it. I don't have an electrical system, most puppies, you see, are not going to have electrical systems. I have a portable radio that I carry outside the plane and put on the plane when I want to fly. What some people do is they mount a small battery inside the plane, they will connect a radio to that battery and then plug it into a cord into a wall outlet when they park the plane.

That works well too. You could probably have a slightly better radio. however, that adds weight to the plane. Now the gross weight of this airplane is 120 pounds, which means that it is illegal to take off and fly in it if it weighs more than 120 pounds, so one of the first things to consider when we are looking at an airplane is what is its empty weight empty weight is how much the plane weighs when it's standing here with no one in it with no gas now you have a 12 gallon tank right here 12 gallons times six and a half pounds per gallon 78 pounds, you have about five or six pounds of oil in the engine, so 78 and six you're at about 84 85 pounds before you start loading people into the plane. 1220 minus gas minus oil minus empty weight leaves you with the amount of people and luggage you can put on the plane.

This plane weighs 683 pounds, which is very light for a

piper

mug. Many pups I was looking at when I was looking to buy one weighed between 750 and 850 pounds, well you can do the math 850 plus 78 plus six back from 1220, you might have a plane that only has about 325 pounds of payload now, yeah You are the average 1946 man this airplane was built for and you weigh 140 pounds, not a problem if you are an average sized person from 2021 doesn't want to buy a single seat airplane, so I paid close attention to the weight. This was one of the lightest puppies I found and that was one of the things that got me interested in this particular airplane. unlike one that weighs more people can also add things like wheel pants which are these little covers that go around the wheels, they look great, they add a couple miles per hour to your cruising speed but they add weight, oh, you find your plane, you find it. that has updated spars and updated struts and is the weight you want, you need to have a mechanic look at it before you buy it, preferably not the mechanic that the person selling the airplane sends you to, you don't know your ratio now one of the other things that i will mention about the history of an airplane when i started buying a

piper

cup my father learned to fly in 1939 in a 40 horsepower piper cup with skis in missouri i have a photo of It looked cold because it was winter.

I had several Piper pups during the 40's. I thought it would be cool to have an airplane that my father had owned. I still have his log books, so I looked up the final number, the registration number, and looked it up. In fact, I discovered that two of the Piper Cubs I used to have are still on the registry actively flying. One of them was in South Carolina. I called that gentleman. I said, "Hey, if you ever want to sell the plane, he basically refused and said he was going to." being buried on that plane is fair enough, the other plane by coincidence was just an hour north of me in Ocala.

I spoke with that gentleman, a very kind man. He also said he wasn't really interested in selling, but when I was talking to him, I made the comment I really wanted to have an airplane that my father had improved now every airplane has a data plate the data plate is some kind of identification number that the FAA gives to the airplane when it is built, everything else on the airplane can be changed, but the data plate tends to stay with the airplane, so I told this gentleman that I would really like to have an airplane that had my father, he pauses and says, son, the only thing on this plane that your father had is the data plate, which means he's basically gone.

I go on to say that he bought it sight unseen and when they delivered the plane to him, it basically had to be completely gutted and rebuilt and there were so many new parts that he had to put on the plane that the only part of the plane that was left was the Lockhaven factory, which was the same now as when it was owned by my father, it was the data plate and you always run the risk of buying an old plane, but as long as you have a data plate you can build a new plane, all you need is money right now.

I didn't do that when I bought this, I actually called this plane, I was in upstate New York, I'm in central Florida, it was mid-October and I was in a hurry to get the plane out of New York before winter, so which I actually called and spoke to the mechanic who had recently worked on the plane, who obviously knew the owner I was purchasing it from. I had the idea that he wasn't too attached to the owner and that he was going to be honest with me. About the condition of the plane, the first thing Matt said, it's not a show plane and he was right, so I just went back on his word and looked at the log books and took the plane down here, so I took a bit of a chance. .

It worked very well, the plane was exactly as the owner described it to me and there were no bad situations hidden inside the plane once I got it, so it worked, however, you have to be careful with that, preferably look for a mechanic of your own choice and someone who is familiar with airplanes that are made of tubes and fabric like this is that you don't want to hire a guy who only works with Cessna 172 to look at your piper cut, so find a mechanic who will check the airplane mechanically , will check the condition of the fabric and I will talk more about the fabric and restoration in a minute.

You will also review the documentation on the plane. Every pilot learned from him when he obtained his license. The acronym arrow a-r-o-w used to be a-r-r-o-w, but they removed the radio license requirement, so now it's just a-r-o-w. These are the four things you must have on the plane to be able to fly legally. A means certificate of airworthiness. the airplane must have a current certificate of airworthiness r its registration the airplane must be properly registered with the FAA to fly or its operational limitations you may have an owner's manual for the airplane that will have this information or you may have a small card like mine, which you have operational limitations and you also have to have a current weight and balance card, the weight and balance is what this airplane weighs, where is the center of gravity of this airplane and particular things about the weight of the airplane if you don't don't have those Four things your plane is not legal to fly, so you need to make sure your plane is properly equipped.

You don't want the ferry pilot you hire, whoFly across the country, bring your plane. there and calls you and tells you that there is no airworthiness certificate on this plane on one of the puppy websites on the Internet. There's a thread right now about a ferry pilot who flew to the west coast to bring a plane back for a new owner. there is no weight and balance on the plane now you are trying to go around the airport and find people to get scales to weigh the plane on the computer, weight and balance to put a card there to make it legal to fly it back so you want to make sure In order for the documentation to be accurate so that your plane can return to you, you will notice that my plane has a wooden propeller.

Some of them have metal propellers. Metal propellers tend to go up a little better. You get more power. You tend to want a propeller. metal better you sail a little faster I like the look of the wooden propeller I like the cheaper cost of the wooden propeller Other advantages of the wooden propeller is that if you hit it, you are less likely to damage the engine because the propeller will break and all you have to do is replace the new propeller; However, some of the common upgrades on airplanes, especially ones with higher horsepower will be metal propellers, but I like the look of wood.

Additionally, part of what your mechanic should check the log books is to get an idea of ​​the airplane's history when viewing airplane advertisements. Look, it will say complete records, which means you have the records of the plane since it was first built or you will have records from some year. My records are actually from about 1954. Previous records are unknown, so there is no way to really know what this airplane went through before, but you want your mechanic to check the records, look for listings like struts being replaced or the other announcements that there have been on inspections and things you also want to get an idea of ​​what the airplane has been through for over 75 years.

Has it ever been used as a fumigator? Was it ever used to tow banners? Have you ever been in a field somewhere where you were given instruction? So you had lone pilots bouncing off trees and hangars and hills and everything else that could crash into the plane, you want to have an idea of ​​what your plane has been through, you can fix anything with time and money, usually both, but You want to make an informed decision about what the plane has been through now. mine had all that paperwork the only concern I had and I really didn't because I didn't know it at the time but I think my ferry pilot had never been in a piper j3 before because the owner sent me a video of the phone fairy pilot's cell phone leaving upstate Noodle, New York, despite that takeoff, the plane arrived here.

Good thing that now, once you have your plane here, you will register it properly, you will have to do occasional maintenance. The first maintenance that comes to mind is the annual inspection. Each aircraft must be inspected once a year by a licensed mechanic who approves it for a flight within the next year. My first annual inspection was fifteen hundred dollars, which if you wanted a twin-engine Seminole. You would kill for fifteen hundred dollars a year. I was very happy that this was the first time this mechanic had seen my plane. The kawaii mechanic wears a very large Piper J3 type of cup.

He is very familiar with the puppies. He checked it. the spinner to the rear wheel and you don't even know what he's going to find, he didn't really find anything, some minor things, we had to replace the headliner, we had to fix one of the wing arches that was on the plane. and then the normal inspection, so the first one was fifteen hundred dollars. I just got this plane back last month for my second annual inspection this year and it was only eight hundred dollars. We didn't find anything additional that was wrong with the plane so it was just the basic inspection and some preventative maintenance change the oil clean the oil filter lubricate the bearings and a few other things like that so your annual can be anything from less than that If you know someone who is a mechanic and will do it for cheaper, you can also do what is called owner-assisted annual reporting, which is where you do a lot of the maintenance as an unlicensed mechanic and then a mechanic approves it, which which may save you some money or you may have an annual report where your staff where your mechanic looks at it and says this fabric is out of shape, you need to restore the airplane, that may cost a little more money, but so far that has been for me the only other maintenance I've done between the annuals I had an airspeed indicator that was malfunctioning uh there's another mechanic that I knew that's familiar with puppies and he was actually able to drive here to my field because my mechanic that does my annuals I have to fly the plane about an hour away, but I had a mechanic come here and we checked the whistle system and found a blockage and finally determined that the blockage was probably something inside the airspeed indicator, so I had about a hundred dollars in my mechanic time and diagnosed the problem.

I took the meter out and sent it to a place called Keystone Instruments which is in Pennsylvania next to the original factory. They rebuilt the Cub instrument. They sent it back to me for 270 and it was back in the air, so that's the only other maintenance I have. I have had other oil changes besides the regular ones. You change the oil every 25 hours. I can do it myself. I'll probably do a video, maybe next month, changing the oil when necessary. This plane does not have an oil filter. Some people add oil filter kits to the plane so it has a filter, mine doesn't have a filter it has a screen that is supposed to take things out of the oil there is a way to take the screen out and you submerge it in gas to clean it you put it back in there every two oil changes, so other than oil changes on the airspeed indicators, the only thing I've had in about 30 hours of flying a year is the annual inspections you want to insure your airplane now, airplane insurance It's not really.

I really like car insurance, it's more like boat insurance, the most significant difference is that you agree on the value of the plane when you buy the policy, so you will buy insurance and tell them what the agreed value of your plane is. in case something happens. If my agreed value on mine is about thirty thousand dollars, if you have a plane more expensive than the agreed value by fifty thousand, it can be more expensive, you can also go without the agreed value and if you screw it up, you fix it yourself , so there is a variable. there my insurance my first year was about one thousand one hundred dollars my second year was about one thousand three hundred dollars I'm waiting to see what it will be this year I don't know, I haven't found out yet, so that market is always fluctuating up and down down, so we'll see where it is, but it works out to me about a hundred dollars a month.

Now some people can travel without insurance, depending on where you keep your plane you may not have to have insurance. I have insurance. So if I take a taxi to a taxi light, there is someone who pays the airport for the taxi light that I broke. So I think you want to have insurance. Some people, as they get older, wake up in their late 70s. Most of the insurance companies are eliminating pilots over that age and they are simply left without insurance, so that is up to you and it is a variable expense depending on how old you are, how much flight time you have, how much flight time you have. have on an airplane with tailwheels. important things that will affect the cost of buying an airplane or the most expensive and expensive things you will ever do to your airplane is to restore it, the airplane is made of fabric, originally it was made with cotton fabric and they put various chemicals in it, it It shrank, became too tight, and they painted it.

Most airplanes you'll find now have been reclaimed during their useful life into one of the newer synthetic types. of Sikanite coatings is a popular polyester fiber management system, there are several out there because there are still many airplanes built now that can be built with fabric, so the fabric market is very current now that their fabric may eventually reach a point where it has to be recovered each night which is my thing they say it's for life you put it on you never have to replace it well actually it's not for life however if you store your plane in a hangar, which I do to keep it out of the sun and you keep it dry, you can get your fat back for a long time if you have to change the fabric and restore the plane, they will remove all the fabric and fix whatever they find on the bottom. steel fuselage or wings and then they're going to recover the fabric and then you're going to paint it again, you're probably looking at the end result starting at around 25 to 30 thousand dollars to do it now, let's say you buy an airplane for twenty-five thousand dollars and then you spend twenty-five thousand dollars to restore and get it back.

Do you have a fifty thousand dollar plane? Well, you probably do, but let's say you overpaid, you paid forty-five thousand dollars for your plane and then you spend thirty. thousand dollars to get it back. Do you have a seventy-five thousand dollar plane? maybe not, maybe you still only have a fifty thousand dollar plane, so you have to be careful with the state of your fabric or at least be conscious of taking care of it and Knowing that that is the great extent that there could be one day, it is about of the cloth. There is also a risk that when you restore the plane, you will remove all the fabric and may find things wrong with the underlying fuselage.

The fuselage plane is done. steel corrodes, you can fix it, but depending on how much corrosion there is and how bad it is to fix, it can be expensive to have someone fix the corrosion on the steel part of your plane, so you have a lot of unknown expenses with the engine? Do you want to improve the engine? Do you want to put a bigger engine? Is it necessary to overhaul the engine? there are a lot of conditions there. a new engine for this would probably cost you 25,000 per overhaul just to replace a few parts can start at a couple thousand dollars anywhere in between depending on your mechanic and how you get into the engine and what you want to do with it, that's a very large variable cost but when you look at these airplanes you will see all like I mentioned above you will see airplanes that look like this and you will see airplanes that look like this you can buy or restore yours anywhere between those two another part of the restoration process is painting it, as you can see by looking.

On my plane, this color is commonly known as Lockhaven Yellow because they were built in a factory in Block Cave in Pennsylvania. You'll notice that my plane and in some of the other videos, my plane has a couple different shades of Lockhaven yellow. This paint was put on when it was restored in the mid 60's. Some of this paint was put on more recently when various repairs were made to the plane. You can strip and repaint an airplane without getting it back. I have been told by several mechanics that I can do that, it is legal and approved under FAA regulations.

I have also been told by several of them who say that mechanics do not paint it because the process of removing this paint will likely cause damage to the fabric, so their four thousand dollar paint job now turned into a thirty dollar recovery job. thousand dollars, so as much as I would love mine to be a cleaner, brighter shade of yellow, it's just not in the cards right now. You will notice that my plane has a wooden strut, some of them have metal struts. metal propellers tend to lift a little better you get more power you tend to want a metal propeller better you sail a little faster I like the look of the wooden propeller I like the cheaper cost of the wooden propeller the other advantages of The wooden propeller is if you hit it, you are less likely to damage the motor because the propeller will break and all you have to do is replace the new propeller;

However, some of the common upgrades on airplanes, especially those with higher power, are It's going to be a metal fitting, but I like the look of wood. Ok, pieces. Can you still find parts for a 75 year old airplane? Well, you can. Piper no longer supports them with parts, but there are two companies, most notably Wag Arrow and Univision, but there are two. Two companies that still support these airplanes with parts Univare and Wag Arrow are the best known and will have the most commonly needed parts you can buy. These are FAA approved parts that you can use to repair or rebuild your airplane if you break something. now you are only supposed to use this is a certified airplane, so you are only supposed to use certified FAA approved parts in your airplane.

There is an urban legend that says the gas cap is exactly the same as there is a John Deere tractor part number. because of course it would be illegal to put that on your plane. What I would do if I wanted to replace the gas cap is move the arrow or one of those and buy the gas cap, but let me explain the problem with that. the gas cap on your piper j3 is a cork, it is a steel gas cap and it is a steel rod, put it onin the gas tank while the fuel floats up and down, move the dipstick up and down, you can see where the tip of this dipstick is on the plane, that's how you can tell how much gas is in it, cap of cork steel rod, Univara wants 168 dollars for this piece, so although they have all the pieces, some of them can be very expensive, now another expense that you will have to have is parking. your plane somewhere I'm here in central Florida and as you can see I'm at an airport so I rent a hangar here this hangar here costs a little over 200 a month where I am I'm on the east side of Tampa I live in clear water close to the coast about an hour away if I moved there is an airport five minutes from my house a hangar would probably cost almost 500 a month depending on where you want to store your plane what part of the country you live in .

That can be a huge variable cost, but you'll probably spend between 100 and 300. That's probably average for most places in the country to find a hangar. In some places that are very busy, you may have to wait a couple of years. ready to get a hanger now this is something you want to be careful with because as i mentioned with the fabric you really don't want to store this plane outside it's not good for the fabric and you wouldn't buy a 75 year old classic car and park it in the street. You shouldn't park this outside either, so there you have to buy your plane, have a mechanic check your plane, move it to the place where you are putting gas in it, put oil in it,

maintain

it, get your annual inspection, fly it and enjoy it.

The only other thing I'll mention here, as I mentioned above, since the gross weight of this airplane is only 120 pounds, it actually fits into the FAA light sport category, meaning you can fly it with a sport license. light instead of a private pilot's license, so if you're just starting out and you say, I want to get a license and buy a Piper Cub. You can get a light sport license for much less than you can get a private pilot's license and you can fly for less money. There are some easier options as well. medical requirements to deal with light sport as opposed to private pilot, so if you are a private pilot you can obviously fly a light sport as well.

Light sports are determined by weight, you can't fly more than 120 knots or so, which is not a problem. I can't fly with instruments, you only have two seats and a few other requirements, but if all you want to do is get a Piper Cub then you might consider getting a light sport license. Well, that's the basic summary of my airplane experience with this one for two. Years before I had this plane, I had a Cessna 172. The first year it was almost six thousand dollars. I consumed more gasoline. It had four seats. I think 99 percent of the time I was flying I was alone, so why am I paying for four seats?

At some point in all the years of renting Cessna 172s and Piper Cherokees and Warriors and things, I realized I wanted to take a ride in one of these, so I found a guy here, just south of Tampa, who had a pup and also a champion iranca which is a similar type of airplane would give you your tailwheel rating and teach you how to fly a tailwheel and like if you rented them alone there are very few places in the country where you can Rent a Piper Cub alone, so if you want. To fly one of these consistently, the only way to do it is to buy one because they're hard to rent, so I went down and got my tailwheel rating and figured out that flying with the door open at 500 feet and 70 knots.

It was the kind of flying I wanted to do, so I got rid of the Cessna and bought this now. It's not for everyone. When I was coming back from my mechanic about two weeks ago back here to my airport, I had a headwind, my GPS said. I was doing 49 knots on the ground but you should enjoy being in the air so going slower you fly longer you build more hours you can look at it that way uh if you're out there renting a piper at 180 an hour or something There's certainly something to consider that You're not going to put your partner on this and fly to that city 500 miles away for a weekend, it's not really practical, but if you just want to fly and fly the way flying started and the way you really enjoy to fly instead of necessarily getting somewhere, there's no better way than to own a plane like this, drive to the airport, have your plane push it, turn the propeller and go fly, so if you have any questions, do it. them in the comments uh thanks for watching and keep flying abroad