Summer Issue the PIPER
Vol 63, No. 3 Official SILVER WINGS FRATERNITY Newsletter Summer Issue 2020 Copyright © 2020 Silver Wings Fraternity Aviation Scholarship Foundation, Inc. All Rights Reserved July-Sept 2020 Summer Issue Editor’s Column The MOST Influential Aircraft Will Jensen IN AVIATION HISTORY We lived through a lot this year. Coronavirus, quarantine, rioting in the streets including business de- THE PIPER CUB struction, inability, or unwillingness of many elected officials to do their elected jobs, not to mention cancel- lation of Sun & Fun and Oshkosh. The whole of Silver Wings Fraterni- ty has been canceled this year in- cluding our membership lunches, greeting old friends and new, even our Convention. Except, perhaps, for Slipstream. We looked back through history for some subjects to hold your interest, perhaps to even do some research or reading on your own. So, hail to the Piper Cub, the most significant aircraft in aviation history according, at least to Flying Magazine. A workhorse in training pilots—over 430,000 Pilots in WWII— for anti-submarine tracking, artillery spotting, tank busting, bazooka firing, even shooting down the last Germain aircraft on Photo by D. Miller the day the war ended. So, all you Bonanza, Cessna, Mooney, Likely there is no aircraft that’s been in or Yankee American pilots, just remember your first solo and your place in history. Likely in a J-3 Cub. continual flying for some 90 years. An aircraft in use by the military of 21 differ- Then, some of our hopefully not forgotten heroes like Eddie ent countries, in general aviation and for Rickenbacker adrift on a raft, or Clarence “Kelly” Johnson, the “Babe Ruth of aero engineering and Ben Rich, his successor commercial use for everything from towing who created “Stealth” and pushed up the ceiling of aerospace advertising banners to gliders.
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