Historic Aircraft at Merrill Field

                                                    Click on a Graphic   Photos by Alex Edwards

J-3 Piper Cub

   The J-3 Cub was manufactured by the Piper Aircraft Corporation from 1938 to 1947 with a total of 14,125 Cubs built.

    The J-3's history began in the late 1920s.  The very small Aircraft Company owned by Gilbert Taylor and Gordon Taylor.  The Taylor brother's Aircraft company was trying to market and sell a two-seat monoplane called the Chummy designed by the once barnstormers.  The new aircraft called the chummy killed Gordon Taylor during a test flight.  Gilbert Taylor moved to Bradford, Pennsylvania because of his predictions of a rise in the market for light aircraft.  The community leaders in Bradford were anxious and wanted new industry in the city.  The Commerce board in Bradford saw potential and provided $50,000 for the development of the Taylor Aircraft Company.  The Taylor Aircraft Company built five new Chummies before the start of the depression stopped all production.  

    William T. Piper was a stockholder in the Taylor Aircraft Company.  The wealthy oilman showed interests in aviation and thought the Chummy too expensive and inefficient he offered to fund the development of an aircraft half as expensive Chummy's $3,985 and twice as efficient.  The resulting aircraft was the E-2and was completed in 1930.  it was powered by a two-cylinder Brown Bach 20-horse power engine.  The engine nicknamed the "tiger kitten" did not provide enough thrust to get the E-2 more than 15 feet off of the ground.

    While having no suitable engine the Taylor Aircraft Company was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1931.  William T. Piper bought the company and hired Gilbert Taylor as the chief engineer.  The Continental Motors Corporation with a 37-horse power engine.  The E-2 was on the market.  That year 22 E-2s were purchased and by 1935 sales were booming. 

   The following year it was redesigned and renamed the J-2.  Taylor left the Company in 1936 to form the Taylor Aviation Company in Alliance, Ohio.

   The Bradford plant burned down later that year and piper moved nearly 200 employees to an abandoned silk factory located in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania.  Resuming as the Piper Aircraft Corporation it produced 687 new aircraft by years end.

   Piper introduced the new and improved J-3 Cub in 1938which was powered by a 40-horse power Continental, Lycoming, or Franklin Engine.  It sold for $1300.  The engines later advanced to 50-horse power, to 60-horse power, then finally by 1940 it reached 65-horse power.

   Sales of the J-3 were spurred by the development of the Civilian Pilot Training Program.  3,016 cubs were built in 1940.  During wartime a new cub emerged from the factory every twenty minutes.  The J-3 Cub was flown during war as laison, observation, and ambulance planes.  They were also known as L-4s, O-59s, NE-1, and was nick named the "grass hopper".

   Production ended in 1947 with a total of 14,125 J-3 Cubs Built.  The J-3 was alter improved and named the Super Cub.