I found the essay below in the “nice things” folder on my computer and decided that this is not a good place for this gem to live – from hence forward it shall live on this blog.
But before I introduce you to Budd’s essay, first my own little remark that it’s not only CUBs that have this effect. My Warrior and I had a similar relationship developed, and we certainly had some good adventures together. One memorable outing was an event that got logged in my logbook simply as “PAM to Catalina for lunch” on May 26, 1993, but what actually happened was asking permission to date this girl – and I guess I got it.
Without further ado, here is …
CUB THERAPY By Budd Davisson
Does it bother you when an airplane turns around, takes one look at you, and starts smirking? Or, as is often the case with J-3 Cubs, it breaks into an out-and-out laugh? Cubs laugh a lot, especially when they feel they are being herded around by a pilot who needs to lighten up on life a bit.
Cubs, the right ones anyway, have a way of ignoring B.S. They don’t believe in pretense. Or hours flown. Or stature in life, checkbooks, or corporate standing. They cut right through to the essence of flight, the same way they cut right through to the essence of the person. They seem to know that, once they are in the air, what seemed important on the ground really doesn’t mean anything.
It has always mystified me how, or why, Cubs have this whimsical way of gently poking an overly serious pilot right between the eyes and making him wake up to what’s really important in life, They are rag-and-tube psychiatrists with a sense of humor.
Part of the Cub’s ability to be a three-dimensional shrink may be that they look past the pilot to the person. They ignore the mechanical and go for the emotional and are most likely to do their best to cheer up a down-in-the-mouth pilot if he is one of their kind of people, a grass-roots type who fits the Cub and the Cub’s way of thinking. On the other hand, Cubs can, if in the right mood and they sense the pilot is a rag-leg, Spamcan driver who thinks flying a Cub is slumming, do their best to make a fool out of him.
Cubs, like a sensitive lover, know by touch when the match between aviator and flying machine is right. They know when the pilot is truly in his element because they sense when the act of flight is a form of making love.
On this flight, however, this particular Cub wasn’t up to practicing either philosophy or psychiatry. In fact, as soon as the little Continental started clattering, the airplane turned around, took one good look at me, and said to itself, “Is this guy for real?” I thought I was, but the Cub knew better and was practically going into hysterics.
For reasons known only to the two of us, when I walked out on the ramp that day, I bypassed my beloved Pitts Special and climbed on board this little clipped-wing clown. The Pitts and I have a torrid love affair dating back two decades. But my mood was not into torrid. Actually, I was in a weird mood: seriously introspective with a touch of Groucho. But the Cub wasn’t going to let me get away with anything serious. It was going to do its best to rehabilitate me.
The Cub started working its magic almost as soon as the throttle hit the stop and the slipstream through the open door began messing with my hair. Yeah, I know this sounds corny, but I actually felt something inside of me begin letting go. It was as if something had been squeezing increasingly harder for a long time, and I didn’t even know it was there until it was gone. As soon as those 800x4s left the ground, whatever it was that wasn’t supposed to be there suddenly turned me loose, and part of me absolutely lit up and wanted to yell out the open door, “All right, all right – all right!” I felt good and was loving it!
With 90 horses in the nose, the little clipped Cub pointed its nose up and kept going, lifting my spirits with every foot it put between me and the Earth. It knew where to go to set me free. Cubs always seem to know.
Answers come to different people in different places, but they almost always come to me somewhere in the first 50 feet of certain flights. The flight in the clipped Cub was one of those. I had been sitting on an emotional fence, so grave and profound I had begun to think my problems were real. I was so, so serious.
Then along came the Cub.
Obviously, Cubs don’t take life seriously. In fact, they don’t take anything seriously, with one big exception: They are very serious about a pilot’s willingness and ability to understand what the airplane is telling him, and they expect the pilot to make decisions and define the path, rather than blithely riding from crisis to crisis. A Cub isn’t going to be a crutch for a weak pilot any more than life is going to offer the weak individual a ready fix or a quick way out.
The Cub, just like much of life, isn’t going to wait around. It responds to a firm but gentle hand, and the finesse it shows in flight is a direct reflection of the finesse and control shown by the pilot. If the pilot knows exactly where he wants to go and clearly understands the role his hands and feet play in these decisions, then the Cub will respond and become his partner, not his crutch. Otherwise, it will meander around, slipping and sliding and generally performing a poor imitation of flight. Life reacts to a weak hand the same way. But I had forgotten that. It was a momentary brain glitch, but one the Cub clearly saw, so it forcibly whacked me up alongside the head until I remembered how life actually worked.
Don’t you hate it when the machine you are operating is smarter than you are?
As it happens, the front seat was occupied by one of my closest friends. Barbara with the ready laugh and understanding soul, and she happened to turn around and saw this goofy grin on my face. She took one look, shook her head, and silently mouthed something about “I never will understand boys.”
That’s okay, we don’t understand us either. But Cubs do. And, at that particular moment, that’s all that mattered.
