"Piper Cub Tales" by Frank B. Baker is a firsthand account of flying low and slow, across much of America's most magnificent countryside in a 1946 Piper J-3 Cub. In the fall of 1969, with the ink on the Author's Private Pilot's Certificate hardly dry, he and his brother embarked on a cross-country trip from Madison, Wisconsin to Denver Colorado in his newly restored Cub. This flight, captured in this book, introduces you to the vagaries of the weather and the difficulty of navigating at low level using only a map, a compass, and airspeed. It also reveals the capabilities of this lightweight, low powered airplane. Even though the Cub's 12-gallon fuel tank restricts its range to around 100 miles per flight leg you will see how long distance flights are accomplished. As you follow the Cub's progress across the countryside, it will become apparent that staying on course depends upon recognizing: contours of the land, creeks, radio towers, roads, and railroad tracks. This is classical "seat of the pants " flying. The many facets of this flight provides you with the basic framework underlying the many cross-country flights flown over the past nearly four decades that are presented in this aviation book.
In this book, you can fly cross-country with Frank and the Cub. With Madison as the starting point, the flight paths of these trips have taken the Cub across the Appalachian and Great Smokey Mountains of the east. Over the prairies of South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Colorado where the Cub seems to flow in unison with the undulating landscape. He and his daughter flew the Cub over the seemingly endless deserts of Arizona and then east across the Rocky Mountains at Denver. He and his pal, the late Bernie Neuman flew the Cub to Seattle, Washington going over four mountain passes and on the return trip went through the Columbia Gorge at low altitude. On these flights many adventures (some routine, some harrowing) were had, these include: flying in atrocious weather, landing in farmer's fields, fighting high winds, and coping with density altitude in 100 degree temperatures. None the less the Cub came through all of these with ease.
Flying a Piper Cub cross-country the way the author, and many others like him do, represents a type of flying that is slowly disappearing from the aviation scene. Through this book, you, the reader, will be able to sense the uniqueness of flying cross-country in a Piper Cub and feel that you were a participant in the adventures.
This 8 1⁄2 x 10 1⁄2 inch book has 180 pages, contains 11 maps of flight paths, 20 color photographs taken along the routes, and 2 pilot logbook facsimiles.
The author grew up during the "Golden Age of Aviation" and WWII and always has been participant in things aeronautical. He is a well-known designer of radio control model airplanes. He has published numerous magazine construction articles for such models, specializing in multi-engine WWII bombers.
During the Korean War, he was a navigator in B-26's flying day and night weather reconnaissance as well as night photo missions out of K-14 air base near Seoul, Korea.
In 1969 he restored a badly damaged Piper Cub to like new condition. He received his Private Pilot Certificate in the same year. Since then he has accumulated over 3,000 hours of flying time in this Cub. Much of this time has been acquired on long cross-country flights to distant parts of the United States. Some routes, such as to Denver and Lock Haven, PA, have been flown many times. He also has considerable experience in mountain flying.
He is a long time member of EAA, the Cub Club, and of the Midwest Antique Airplane Club.
The coincidence that I read Frank's book while planning a long cross-country flight still amazes me. Just reading his book has so much better prepared me for the trip with real life experiences. I also learned of the Cub's capabilities.
Bern, Vintageflying.com
It is fantastic, really, Frank put a whole new face on "low and slow". I am almost ready to trade in the Skyhawk for a J-3.
Gary, Cessna 172 Pilot
The writing made me feel as if I was with the author in the Cub. On an airline flight to Seattle, I looked down at Rollins Pass on the Continental Divide near Denver and thought "never in a Cub".
Ed, Airline Pilot
When Frank talks about flying low, believe it. I have flown with him.
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