My attempt at a spot landing during the 2005 West Coast Cub Fly-In
You want to talk about flying? I mean, real flying? The kind that brings little kids (of all ages) to the airport fence? Then what you seek, my friend, is something like this 1943 clipped-wing J-3 Cub.
Sunrise has something like 30 aircraft on the line, ranging from 200+ knot turbo Cirrus SR22 to an Extra 300 to plane-jane Skyhawks. And I fly them all. But for my money, there’s nothing better than cruising down the Orange County coastline at sunset in that little J-3 at 45 mph, sipping fuel at maybe 3 or 4 gallons an hour.
You’re 500′ above the water, door and window wide open, just breathing in the fresh ocean air and watching the sun work its way ever lower on the horizon. I love that time of day, with shadows creeping across the rolling hills of Laguna Beach and city lights from the beachfront homes and restaurants lighting up one by one.
I recently had a chance to take Kristi for an early evening flight in this simple, yet classic aircraft. For the price, nothing else comes close. The wet rate is only $89/hr. And with those clipped wings, the aircraft is far more maneuverable and sporty than traditional Cubs.
On occasion I’ll even take it up solo and just bomb around the pattern for half an hour — it’s that much fun! The engine puts out 100 hp, so it climbs out quite nicely when only one person is aboard.
Anyway, here are some photos from our flight. Enjoy!
I think this photo was designed to make her brother (who is also a pilot) jealous.
The famous Cub logo has been seen at airports around the world since the 1930’s and it’s still going strong today!
You can tell this is BEFORE the flight because our hair isn’t all over the place. We were in a bit of a hurry because I wanted to get in the air before the sun got too low on the horizon
No scratched up windows to get in the way of viewing the sunset’s amazing colors.
That’s me in the back seat, bundled up against the wind.
She found out that it wasn’t as hard as it looked to fly an airplane. Landing, on the other hand…
500′ above the water. That’s about as high above the surface as a J-3 typically gets.
We’re passing Laguna Beach, and you can see Dana Point off in the distance.
Where the fancy people live.
Many of the expensive homes can’t be seen unless you’re on the other side of the gate… or in an airplane!
The rooftop bar called “K’ya” can be seen here atop this hotel. We’d recently eaten there, so it was fun to see the place from another perspective.
Laguna’s famous “Main Beach”.
The sun’s going down, and we have no lighting on this bird — time to head home!
Enroute to John Wayne Airport, we passed by our alma mater, Concordia University. Of course, to those of us in my class, it’ll always be “CCI”.
Kristi took this photo by leaning out the door just as I was touching down on runway 19L at John Wayne Airport
