Piper Cub Fly In
During the long winter of 2004/5 someone suggested that there are still a lot of Piper Cubs in the area and we should try to
get some of them together for a Piper Cub Fly-in. It seemed like a pretty good idea and a decent way to spend some time
during the long dark winter so we started by compiling a list from the Transport Canada website. We were surprised to find
a total of 56 Piper J3 and PA11s registered to owners between Kenora, Ont. and southeastern Saskatchewan. We wrote to every
registered owner suggesting a Piper Cub Fly-in during the 2005 flying season. There was a lot of interest and a number of
offers to host the first one. Some were tempting because of their ability to accommodate Cubs on wheels or floats. After
considerable discussion we decided to host the first Fly-in at Lyncrest because of its central location and the fact that
we had plenty of room, a "starter set" of Cubs, and access to all the necessary facilities to respond to an uncertain number
of participants. We settled on Sunday, July 10 with a rain date of July 17.
Well, July 10 dawned overcast and gray with a forecast of some nasty stuff in the afternoon, including winds gusting to
45 kts with heavy thunderstorms and hail. We did not expect to hold a fly-in when we headed out to the airport in the
morning but we thought that some Cub lovers might show up by car so we decided to make ready for a BBQ just in case. The
weather started to improve through the early morning and at about 9:30 we received call from two inbound Pipers, a beautiful
1940 J3, CF-GET, owned by Henry Friesen from Steinbach North and a rare 1941 J4E, CF-CIE owned by Kevin Smerechynski, from
Oakbank. We were later joined by Don Ens in his J3, CF-MVF. These were added to the Lyncrest based J3s, CF-MVL, CF-XVW,
and C-GEGE and we even had Cam Jay's pretty blue Aeronca Champ on the line.
So, MUCH to our surprise we actually had a Fly-in on July 10. Thanks to all who came out, especially to the folks who
braved the forecast to fly to Lyncrest. As it turned out, the weather stayed much better than forecast so it ended up as a
pretty good time for our first effort. It sounds like there's a lot of interest in doing it again, so we should try again
for 2006.
If you have any comments or suggestions for future Piper Cub activities please contact Jack Neima at jneima@shaw.ca.