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Wow! What an impressive little plane. I had no idea they could take off and land like that.



Doesn't take a lot of wind to make a really short field takeoff or landing when your stall speed is 35 MPH.
A friend of mine was taking flying lessons at a school started by 5 WWII instructors. It was run military style, 5 instructors, 5 Piper J3's and 5 students all doing about the same thing at about the same time. It was extra windy on the day they were supposed to go on their first solo cross country trip and they were debating whether it was too windy while they waited for the 5th student to arrive. Then they realized he was there and had taken off to practice some turns. They saw him hanging there at the end of the runway with the wind some 10 KT above his stall speed, so they ran over, grabbed the wing struts and literally pulled the J3 down out of the air.

Let's hope there's intelligent life somewhere in space 'cause it's buggar all down here. -- Monte Python