Yeahhh …. and they were really good guys, on top of it all.
Reminded of Jimmy Buffett’s song ‘A Pirate Looks At 40’.
Yep, a definite pity we can’t have yesterday’s prices with today’s money. That, and all the warbirds being sold off after WWII or just a fewe decades ago when they had some surplused F-86 Sabres on the market for a song.
A time machine to go back and pick some up cheap would be just the thing.
Took my first flying lesson in a cub as a teenager.
Well, I’m only 60 and we’ll remember Cubs for around $3K around ’78-’79 and by ’85 the complaint of “if you find a Cub for under $10K bring a truck!
Want to really weep? The P-38 at my neighborhood airport was bought by an Ensign for $1200.00 from the War Assets Commission in ’46. (Less than the Cub in the advert.) And it was low time.
(The owner was not original purchaser.)
After the war, my dad took lessons in a Taylorcraft (basically a cub by another name). Didn’t finish and get his license. Seems he met this young lady and she put her foot down and said he’d either give up flying or give up her. He made the right decision and he and mom were married until she passed away more than fifty years later.
even at the current value adjusted for inflation of about $8400, I’d still take one…
Natzsofast.
Sorry, but the current value, adjusted for inflation, would be $76,000. Not $8400. Don’t know where you got the lower number, but I can guess.
Comparing dollars from just after the removal of the gold standard to absolutely unbacked fiatbux is a sucker bet.
$1500 in 1938 was 43.04 oz. of gold on the London market.
It’s going for $1771.84/oz in 2020 (it’s more now).
So that 1938 $1500 is >$76K today.
Also, the median annual income in 1939 was $956. So the Cub was going for about a year and a half’s salary.
The median US salary in 2021 is now $51,428.
A year and a half of that is $77,142.
Right around the actual inflated value of that 1938 Cub.
QED
If you can find a new Cub for $76-77K, or less, buy it.
The ones on trade-a-plane, with TT of 1-3K hrs on them, are going for about half the new cost.
‘taint that hard to get one now at all, if’n you really want one.
Now Old NFO’s got me doing some napkin math on financing a hole in the sky.
My first ever flight was in a J-3 Cub at age 5. 22 years later soloed in a Cub follow on, a roaring 108 HP Colt.
My childhood neighbor had a Cub he bought as the original owner, he flew it until age kept him from flying. I still remember him taking my on my first flight as a child.
That’s like buying a jeep in a box, or surplus tanks (after WWI, several logging companies bought Renault F-17s and used them as logging skidders.)
Got the opportunity to try to buy into lots of things that were cool as can be, like into several tanks, or some artillery pieces, always when cash was low or non-existent, and usually too late (one Stuart was lowballed by the local Nat Guard unit and used for target practice. Dammit!)
Then there’s all the war surplus guns that were cheap when I didn’t have cash. Now that I have cash??? Kicking myself, kicking myself hard.
All- Yep, we’re old…LOL I didn’t solo in a Cub, but did get to fly one a couple of times. And yes, I’d gladly pay that for a new one today… 🙂
Wait, crop dusting? Really?
The nostalgia is bitersweet. Look what they stole from us..
I never flew, or even had a ride in, a Cub. Saw plenty, and always admired them, but never went up in one.
Robert- Yes, the did!
Heath- Good point.
drjim- Kinda like a Model T. Noisy, slow, and drafty…LOL
A highschool classmate bought a P-51 Mustang with his father, around graduation, back in 1970. They paid $10k for it. I never saw it or got any further info on it, so no idea of condition. A suburb of Philly. The school parking lot had lots of money in rolling metal on display.
Yeahhh …. and they were really good guys, on top of it all.
Reminded of Jimmy Buffett’s song ‘A Pirate Looks At 40’.
Yep, a definite pity we can’t have yesterday’s prices with today’s money. That, and all the warbirds being sold off after WWII or just a fewe decades ago when they had some surplused F-86 Sabres on the market for a song.
A time machine to go back and pick some up cheap would be just the thing.
Took my first flying lesson in a cub as a teenager.
Well, I’m only 60 and we’ll remember Cubs for around $3K around ’78-’79 and by ’85 the complaint of “if you find a Cub for under $10K bring a truck!
Want to really weep? The P-38 at my neighborhood airport was bought by an Ensign for $1200.00 from the War Assets Commission in ’46. (Less than the Cub in the advert.) And it was low time.
(The owner was not original purchaser.)
After the war, my dad took lessons in a Taylorcraft (basically a cub by another name). Didn’t finish and get his license. Seems he met this young lady and she put her foot down and said he’d either give up flying or give up her. He made the right decision and he and mom were married until she passed away more than fifty years later.
even at the current value adjusted for inflation of about $8400, I’d still take one…
Natzsofast.
Sorry, but the current value, adjusted for inflation, would be $76,000. Not $8400. Don’t know where you got the lower number, but I can guess.
Comparing dollars from just after the removal of the gold standard to absolutely unbacked fiatbux is a sucker bet.
$1500 in 1938 was 43.04 oz. of gold on the London market.
It’s going for $1771.84/oz in 2020 (it’s more now).
So that 1938 $1500 is >$76K today.
Also, the median annual income in 1939 was $956. So the Cub was going for about a year and a half’s salary.
The median US salary in 2021 is now $51,428.
A year and a half of that is $77,142.
Right around the actual inflated value of that 1938 Cub.
QED
If you can find a new Cub for $76-77K, or less, buy it.
The ones on trade-a-plane, with TT of 1-3K hrs on them, are going for about half the new cost.
‘taint that hard to get one now at all, if’n you really want one.
Now Old NFO’s got me doing some napkin math on financing a hole in the sky.
My first ever flight was in a J-3 Cub at age 5. 22 years later soloed in a Cub follow on, a roaring 108 HP Colt.
“The Cub is a very safe aircraft. It can just barely kill ya.”
I think this says $4,000 in kit form:
https://www.wagaero.com/wag-aero-kit-airplanes/sport-trainer.html
My childhood neighbor had a Cub he bought as the original owner, he flew it until age kept him from flying. I still remember him taking my on my first flight as a child.
That’s like buying a jeep in a box, or surplus tanks (after WWI, several logging companies bought Renault F-17s and used them as logging skidders.)
Got the opportunity to try to buy into lots of things that were cool as can be, like into several tanks, or some artillery pieces, always when cash was low or non-existent, and usually too late (one Stuart was lowballed by the local Nat Guard unit and used for target practice. Dammit!)
Then there’s all the war surplus guns that were cheap when I didn’t have cash. Now that I have cash??? Kicking myself, kicking myself hard.
All- Yep, we’re old…LOL I didn’t solo in a Cub, but did get to fly one a couple of times. And yes, I’d gladly pay that for a new one today… 🙂
Wait, crop dusting? Really?
The nostalgia is bitersweet. Look what they stole from us..
I never flew, or even had a ride in, a Cub. Saw plenty, and always admired them, but never went up in one.
Robert- Yes, the did!
Heath- Good point.
drjim- Kinda like a Model T. Noisy, slow, and drafty…LOL
A highschool classmate bought a P-51 Mustang with his father, around graduation, back in 1970. They paid $10k for it. I never saw it or got any further info on it, so no idea of condition. A suburb of Philly. The school parking lot had lots of money in rolling metal on display.