TOM'S PIPER CUB

N41058 Tom's 1941 Piper Cub J4E

After years of flying modern aircraft, Tom bought N41058 in 1994. The plane was completely restored in 1986. It has an 85 h.p. Continental engine. It is fabric covered. Everything is original: no electrical system. It must be hand propped. Communications are done through a hand-held portable radio.

Though early records are missing, of the 1,000 or so J4's built, most were commandeered into military service during WWII. Thereafter, the plane became a club plane in Albuquerque, New Mexico and an individual's plane in Texas and then Kentucky, where it joined up with its current engine, which had come from a plane in Wild Rose, Wisconsin, very near to Tom's family's summer home. From there it went to Baraboo, Wisconsin, where it got rebuilt in 1986 at Reedsburg, Wisconsin. In 1994, the FBO at Waukesha County Airport-Crites Field bought the plane for resale. Then Tom bought it. The plane, also called a "Cub Coupe", is unique from the notorious J-3 Cub, in that it has side-by-side seating and its engine is entirely enclosed within the engine cowling.

Now Tom enjoys getting off work and flying for fun. The most fun Tom has is when he and his wife, Patty, host a combined Fly-In and Craft Fair called a Gathering on the Lane at their own Bark River Airport.

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