Alberta Outdoorsmen Forum - Finally Finished My Piper Cub!

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Finally Finished My Piper Cub!

For over 40 years, my 82 year old Father In Law has been building model planes. The unusual thing is, he’s not a flyer. He just simply enjoyed the building process…but NOT the finishing. Generally, he would get to that point and find an excuse to begin another project.

He has been in poor health for a while now. However, being the stubborn Brit he is, I’ve told him on his death bed (more than once! Ha) it’ll take a damn exorcism for us to be rid of him. He agrees!

He and my MIL finally made the move this spring to a senior’s friendly condo from a house. Major downsizing.

His fleet of aircraft were to be divided amongst the family. Unfortunately, as families can sometimes be, they had no interest them. So I ended up with everything.

The buggers do take up a lot of space though, and I’ve been finding creative ways to store/finish/pay tribute to these planes.:)

This Piper Cub he started nearly 30 years ago. It’s by far all of our favourites. I have around 100 hours into the finishing process (many, many more on his end). While fully equipped to be a flyer, I am not, nor intend to be. Today, my daughter and I took advantage of the beautiful weather and took the old girl out for her final photo shoot prior to being retired as a proper display piece. Needless to say, finding the perfect settings to send this old girl off required a bit of effort!

The tail numbers represent his initials and date of birth.

The funniest part is that the wind in the initial pictures proved a huge challenge. They in fact grabbed her at one point and lifted her about two feet off of the snow before the Shrub made a diving save. Final (and only) flight! LOL!!! Hope you enjoy the pics.

Tree

That’s a pretty cool plane. :)

Beautiful plane and story, well done.

Sent from my SM-G960W using Tapatalk

That’s a beauty. Well done and very cool pictures

BW

Wow ... that's a beauty ... enjoy flying it.

That is amazing! Nice plane and scenery. Good story to go with it. Thanks for brightening my day after a long work week.

Great pics. Amazing how your shrubs have grown since you joined.

Very nice. Wonderful work

Nice plane tree. Holy smokes its big too.

The real Mac Coy. Amazing that they could put floats on that tiny plane.

https://i.imgur.com/6SL0Ca8.jpg

Grizz

Very Nice, I had a bush pilot friend that restored and flew a 1950's Piper Cub,
He had a saying
"Yellow is Beautiful""

Excellent thread. Great job guys.

Beauty pics of a very nice plane.

I'm sorry I'm broke or I'd make ya an offer.
But from what you said in your post, its probably Priceless.;)
(And I wouldn't blame you for thinking that!) :)

Very nice job!!
I'm fairly certain that's the PA-18 super cub, a favorite of the old bush pilots.
If you check, I think that the wingspan on that model is 7 feet 2 inches.

how cool is this...now im no plane lover by any means, but I think this one just changed my mind...Thanks for sharing your story and pics...very cool!
Zip:)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gerry (Post 3858754)

Very nice job!!

I'm fairly certain that's the PA-18 super cub, a favorite of the old bush pilots.

If you check, I think that the wingspan on that model is 7 feet 2 inches.

Wingspan is 8’ 10” and it goes 5’ 6” nose to tail. Weighs about 15 lbs. she’s a big girl!

Tree

I was up at Jan Lake one year and this fella and his wife had a beauty like yours.
They put it in one of the 16 foot Lunds that you could rent there, took it out to the middle of the Bay Area and launched it, fly around, do some passes then land it, retrieve it into the boat then back to the dock, plane looked like it took up 2/3rds of the boat, very impressive.

Looked like the real thing flying and on the water taxiing.

Outstanding !! :sHa_shakeshout:

Quote:

Originally Posted by TreeGuy (Post 3858765)

Wingspan is 8’ 10” and it goes 5’ 6” nose to tail. Weighs about 15 lbs. she’s a big girl!

Tree

How do you haul that ? That is a big girl, must be quite high as well.

Grizz

I'm not really familiar with these, so excuse my ignorance, but its designed to be an RC model, but you left the hardware out, and are going to hang it from a wall/ceiling as a display piece? If that's correct, that must be a decent sized engine.

Mr. Tree .... pls post a pic of your bird doing a fly-by past the Tree House.

How about a pic with your pet squirrel at the controls, that would be cool.

Very unique, like a lot!

D.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grizzly Adams (Post 3859007)

How do you haul that ? That is a big girl, must be quite high as well.

Grizz

Hey Grizz. It's pretty easy actually. She's only about 24" tall and the wing pops off in seconds. I strapped down the body in the truck and wrapped the wing at both ends and strapped also. Helps that it doesn't weigh anything.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trochu (Post 3859016)

Pretty new to this myself to be honest. It will be hung in the house as a display piece as I have no intention (at this point) of flying it. It is however fully functional in terms of the 'guts'. I have a gas engine in it that doesn't work. I'm uncertain of displacement, etc, but it's not big at all. Smaller than a softball. It's there primarily because it's the easiest way to mount the propeller. Haha. There are five planes here that are all mostly ready to fly. If someone really knew what they were doing, it wouldn't take much to get in the air.

Three are actually outfitted with electric motors. It's a cool hobby but demands a lot of time, patience and money. I have not as of yet found a way to convince those qualities to work together for me at the same time! :sHa_sarcasticlol:

Tree

Everybody needs a hobby! Nicely done Tree!

Great job, Tree! Thanks for posting.