Piper J-3

J-3 Cub
Piper J-3 Cub
Role	Trainer
Manufacturer	Piper Aircraft
Designer	C. G. Taylor Walter Jamouneau
First flight	1938
Produced	1938–1947
Number built	19,888 (US built) 150 (Canadian-built) 253 TG-8 gliders
Unit cost	$995-$2,461 when new
Variants	PA-11 Cub Special PA-15 Vagabond PA-16 Clipper PA-18 Super Cub

The Piper J-3 Cub is an American light aircraft that was built between 1937 and 1947 by Piper Aircraft. The aircraft has a simple, lightweight design which gives it good low speed handling properties and short field performance. The Cub is one of the best known light aircraft of all time. The Cub's simplicity, affordability and popularity — as well as its large production numbers, with nearly 20,000 built in the United States — invokes comparisons to the Ford Model T automobile.

The Cub was originally intended as a trainer, and saw great popularity in this role and as a general aviation aircraft. Due to its performance, it was well suited a variety of military uses such as reconnaissance, liaison and ground control, and was produced in large numbers during the Second World War as the L-4 Grasshopper. Large numbers of Cubs are still flying today. Notably Cubs are highly prized as bush aircraft.

The Cub is a high-wing strut-braced monoplane with a large area rectangular wing. It is powered by an air-cooled piston engine driving a fixed pitch propeller. Its fuselage is a welded steel frame covered in fabric, seating two people in tandem.

The aircraft's standard chrome yellow paint has come to be known as "Cub Yellow" or "Lock Haven Yellow".

The Taylor E-2 Cub first appeared in 1930, built by Taylor Aircraft in Bradford, Pennsylvania. Sponsored by William T. Piper, a Bradford industrialist and investor, the affordable E-2 was meant to encourage greater interest in aviation. Later in 1930, the company went bankrupt, with Piper buying the assets but keeping founder C. Gilbert Taylor on as president. In 1936, an earlier Cub was altered by employee Walter Jamouneau to become the J-2 while Taylor was on sick leave. (The coincidence led some to believe that the "J" stood for Jamouneau, while aviation historian Peter Bowers concluded that the letter simply followed the E, F, G, and H models, with the I omitted because it could be mistaken for the numeral one.). When he saw the redesign, Taylor was so incensed that he fired Jamouneau. Piper, however, had encouraged Jamouneau's changes, and hired him back. Piper then bought Taylor's share in the company, paying him US$250 per month for three years.