Recently, one of our fellow denizens here was fortuntate enough to be able to treat himself to a shiny new bright yellow Legend Cub. The Legend Cub, a somewhat modernized clone of the original Piper Cub from the 1930s, is pretty much the opposite of the things that attract me to aviation. Its made of welded metal tubing with fabric stretched across it to provide the surface of the wings and body. It doesn’t cruise much faster than the 70s (MPH, not knots), and its usually flow fairly close to the ground. Where other planes might be for going places, the Cub is more about enjoying the ride.

My wife and I were taking a walk last week and, as my neighbor taxied by in the cub, I stuck out my thumb. He pulled over, shut down, and I ran to the plane and jumped in. My very first cub ride – out over the coastline, low enough to enjoy the scenery and slow enough that I had time to do so. And with someone else driving that’s exactly what I did. Admittedly a Cub with state of the art avionics is kind of an anachronism, but what the heck! He let me get a little bit of stick time, and then we headed back for a few more landings, on the grass of course.

My wife was pretty pissed when I got back, but it was worth it.