In July of 2012, hundreds of pilots flew their airplanes into Harford Airport to participate in the events and celebrate the Piper Cub 75th Anniversary. Some hoped they would be one of the first 75 J3’s to join the mass fly in of J3 Piper Cubs to Oshkosh for the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA). And some just wanted to watch.
J3 Piper Cubs are single engine airplanes that were all made between 1937 and 1947 by Piper Aircraft. They were used as flight training planes, and soon became one of the most popular lightweight planes.
Hartford Airport had around 300 airplanes and around 200 J3’s over the weekend. The event was to celebrate the J3 Piper Cubs 75 anniversary. The employees that put the event together were Steve Krog, Dana Osmanski, Kristen Overstreet, Gabe Langley, along with several volunteers.
Overstreet and Osmanski were in charge of signing up pilots, registering their planes, and making flyers to send to all the people in the Cub Club to raise awareness.
Krog’s role in the event was to write several articles for the newsletters that get sent out to everyone In the Cub Club, letting them know about Cubs2Osh. He also went around Hartford, WI, and spread news about the event.
On the official Cubs2Osh EAA chapter website, Rick Rademacher, a cub pilot said, “I sometimes wish that I had flown a Cub during the Cub heydays in the forties and fifties. Well, the 75th Anniversary of the J-3 Piper Cub for me and many others was as good as it gets. The good old days were this year at Sentimental Journey, Hartford, and Oshkosh. If you missed this year’s flying events, you did miss something spectacular.”
On Sunday morning, starting at 5, was breakfast for all the pilots and voulenteers. Then at 6am, the first Cub took off with the direction of Krog. A flock of Cub yellow J3 Cubs took formation and made an arrival at Oshkosh 2012.
Millions of airplane-loving people stood at the flight line of the runway to watch the arrival of these spectacular planes.
I felt like I worked for a famous person for that whole week because Krog (my boss) had huge posters of himself hanging everywhere on the grounds of EAA because hes the face of The Piper Cub Club and the flight school Cub Air Flight.
I was his driver for the whole week and we constantly got stopped by people wanting to get a picture with Krog.