> > My lessons were usually in a Piper J3 Cub
>
> One of these, built in 1935, is actually owned by my flight school since 1947. Is a beautiful bright-yellow plane, equipped with a 65hp engine.

>
> Unlike the Cessna 172s, the engine is hand-started (i.e. the pilot turns on the magnetos, engages the primer and a mechanic spins the propeller by hand until the engine starts).

It has a VHF radio, the mandatory transponder and a battery that, every night, is recharged because the engine is not powerful enough to install a generator...
>
> It's fun to fly over a highway at 70Mph and see that your plane is slower than the road traffic...
>
> > Taking off and flying around was easy for me, but I never got the hang of landing.
>
> Well, I don't think that three hours logged are enought to learn how to land a tailwheel! Tailwheels are the trickiest things to land... I needed 10hrs logged to learn to land properly a Cessna 172 (as my instructor says, it's a plane that almost lands by itself).
>
> A.

I keep trying to remember, but it seems like the ones built in the late 40's were about 70 hp, but I watched a car pass my shadow on a two-lane road. I probably had a headwind.

The '46 models still had to be hand propped. It worked very well. They didn't have a radio it those days. No radio, no starter, no generator, and no battery probably shortened the take-off roll.

My son-in-law flies a 757 for a living, and he hasn't flown a light plane in years. I think he is missing something great.
Howard