The Piper family tree evolved in a very linear fashion with just one major branching-out taking place in 1948, when the PA-15 Vagabond came out. That fork in the road gave birth to two distinct families of Piper high-wing airplanes—the clan of the Long Wing and that of the Short Wing. Still, until the end of the Piper high-wing dynasty, none of them strayed far from the J-3 formula laid down by chief engineer, Walter Jamineau:

• Steel tube fuselage

• Bungee-sprung “V” gear

• Fragile aluminum ribs made of riveted-together “T”-shaped sections

• Trim via a screw-jack that moves the forward edge of the stabilizer up and down

• Steel, sealed struts

J-3 Cub
Although other engines were offered in the J-3, the 65-hp Continental A-65 became the engine of choice and made the J-3 a huge improvement over earlier Cub variants. On 65 hp, the airplane flies well, but the 85-hp conversions make a real airplane out of it. With a touchdown speed a little over 30 mph, the airplane is the standard for simplicity, both in flying and maintenance. One maintenance item worth noting, however, is the original expander tube brakes that can cost a fortune to overhaul. Also, most postwar Cubs have aluminum wing spars, not wood, and that’s worth paying a premium.

With a 75-mph cruising speed, the Cub isn’t going to take you very far very quickly, but you’ll enjoy every second of it. The front seat is a little cramped and blind, while the back seat is more or less comfortable with great side visibility. The airplane is made for sunset cruising with the side door open.

The Cub is one of the most expensive two-place classics you can buy, which is a function of its popularity. It’s hard to believe it takes $20K to get into the game and even harder to believe we’re seeing restored specimens fetching in excess of $40K. Since the airplane will fit into the new Sport Pilot category, the prices will just keep going up.

J-4 Cub Coupe
The J-4 is a side-by-side Cub. Period. Everything else is the same. The engine was cowled in an effort for more speed, but they didn’t get it. It’s still an 80 mph airplane, but, like the Cub, it’s only burning a little over four gallons an hour.

Although the Coupe appears the same as its peer group—the Luscombe, Aeronca Chief and Taylorcraft—there’s one major difference (besides being slower): The visibility is much better. The wing is mounted just a little higher and it really improves the way the cockpit feels.

J-4 Cub Coupes have never been as popular as the J-3, and assuming both airplanes are of the same quality, the J-4 will usually be priced a solid 20% lower than a Cub.

J-5 Cruisers
The J-5 Cruiser clan can be a little confusing because Piper used the same airframe and gave it two designations—J-5A, B, and C, and then PA-12 Super Cruiser. In any case, the airplane is sometimes referred to as a “Fat Cub” because of the way the fuselage swells out as it passes the pilot to accommodate the supposedly two-people-wide back seat. It was Piper’s attempt to build a three-passenger airplane and it came close, as long as the back passengers have slim behinds and like each other a lot.

The J-5 moves the pilot to the front seat and jacks him or her up a little, so one can almost see over the nose on the ground. Also, because the fuselage widens out, the shoulder/fanny room for the pilot is almost excessive—quite a shift from the tight-as-Spandex Cub. This is a real Big Guy airplane that changed quite a bit as it matured.

• J-5A — 75-hp Continental, open cowled engine with the landing-gear bungees hanging out in the wind. Wings and tail are pure Cub. Flies two people fine, but three on 75 hp is stretching it.

• J-5B — Same as above, but with 75-hp Lycoming, which isn’t exactly a powerhouse.

• J-5C — A 1942 redesign of the airplane resulted in dramatic performance increases as the result of drag clean-ups, including moving the landing-gear bungees inside the fuselage and putting a full cowl on the much more powerful, 100-hp O-235 Lycoming (basically the same as in a C-152). The cruising speed was increased to a solid 95 to 100 mph and the ability to carry three people became a reality. Only about 35 J-5Cs were built before the war changed priorities, but the Navy bought about 100 J-5Cs converted to ambulance duty under the military designation of HE-1.

J-5s have lagged far behind the Cub in price (hasn’t everything?), but they’re quickly closing the gap because so many have been re-engined with bigger engines (150 hp being the most common) and outfitted for bush duty. When a larger engine is coupled with the Cruiser’s wide fuselage, you have a perfect platform for utilitarian flying.

PA-11
For some reason, the PA-11 never had a cute name of its own, possibly because it’s nothing more than a J-3 with either a 65-hp or 90-hp Continental enclosed in a nicely streamlined cowl. The PA-11 is considered by many to be the ultimate pure Cub because with the big engine, it has terrific performance and cruises 90 to 95 mph, which is lightning-quick compared to a J-3. They’re commanding Cub-prices-plus and they’re worth it.

PA-12 Super Cruiser
The Super Cruiser is a postwar refinement of the J-5C. Structurally, the major change was replacing the low carbon steel tubing in the fuselage with chrome-moly, but the marketing department got into the act and gave the airplane a greatly redesigned cockpit and instrument panel. All sorts of minor refinements made it more finished-looking, plus they moved the front seat back a few inches, which made the front pit positively roomy.

Here, too, big engine conversions can drive the prices up to $35K-$40K, but figure on the mid-$20Ks for a good airplane.

PA-14 Family Cruiser
The first serial-production, four-place Piper, the Family Cruiser, took the J-5 concept of widening a single seat to a 1 3⁄4-seat and applied it to both the front and rear, making room for two skinny people to fit up front and in back. The airplane is pure Cub in everything it does, but has 115 horses to play with. Few of the airplanes were built and they’re dearly loved by those who own them. Again, you see a lot of them all bushed-out with big engines, flaps added, fat tires, etc. None of them are cheap, since they start at $20K-$25K.

PA-15, PA-17 Vagabond
In 1947, it was Panic City in every airframe manufacturing plant, and the order came from Piper management to build the cheapest two-place, general-use airplane possible, using nothing but materials already on hand and as little of that as possible. For that reason, everything about the PA-15 Vagabond was made smaller and simpler. Piper even went so far as to use military surplus mag switches. The wings were minimized, as was the fuselage, which gave birth to the short-wing Piper.

The name “Vagabond” applies to two different Piper designations: the PA-15 and PA-17. The airplanes are nearly identical and almost naive in their low-tech approach to flight, but are great fliers. The differences between the two include the addition of a right-side control stick in the -17 and the replacement of the -15’s ultra-simple, rigid landing gear with a more conventional bungee system. Originally equipped with the 65-hp Continental, many are seen with 75-hp or 85-hp engines, which greatly improve the climb performance.

PA-16 Clipper
Where the Vagabond started the short-wing ball rolling, it’s the Clipper, produced only in 1949, that set the shape of things to come. A true four-place airplane with a right side door for the front and a left side door for the back, the little bugger moved right along on 115 hp. It still had sticks, rather than control yokes, and got most of its performance out of its light weight. These are great buys because all but the super-restored birds sell for $16K-$22K and a few even drop below $15K.

PA-18 Super Cub
If there’s an airplane as legendary as the J-3, it’s the Super Cub. This is the very definition of utility and also the last of the long-wing Pipers. In its earliest configurations, it had 90 hp and no flaps, and the only thing that separated it from the J-3 and PA-11 before was that the wing-attach structure was moved from over the pilot’s head to the outside of the fuselage, giving more head room.
The 125-hp and 135-hp Super Cubs are well-respected airplanes and hover in the $35K-$45K range, while the most common 150-hp version with big flaps can cost anything from $45K-$150K, with several custom-built examples hitting $250K!

The airplanes hold their value so well because they do their job so well. At a 105-mph cruise, they’re leisurely cross-country machines, but are the airplanes of choice for utility pilots.

PA-20 Pacer
This is the Clipper gone one better. The engine became a 125- or 135-hp O-290 Lycoming and the sticks were heaved in favor of a pair of control yokes. The airplane grew flaps and Piper layered on some cosmetic cockpit treatments that gave it a more finished look.
With its short fuselage and higher-than-a-Cub touchdown speeds, the airplane rapidly gained a reputation of being a little quick on the runway, but these days, that doesn’t seem to be a problem—each year, dozens of Tri-Pacers get a “nosewheelectomy” to make them into Pacers because of their sporty appearance and handling.

The Pacer never got the 150-/160-hp Lycoming of the Tri-Pacer, so it’s a little underpowered when loaded to gross, but that’s as much a function of the environment as the airplane: Short wings don’t like high-density altitudes.

PA-22 Tri-Pacer
The Tri-Pacer is a solid, easy-to-fly airplane that, in the 150- to 160-hp versions, is actually a pretty good four-place airplane, although the back seat is a little small and dark. Its reputation is one of being fast on final, but that’s not true. Yes, it’s much faster than a Cessna, but no different than a Cherokee. Also, it will work out of a shorter field than many would believe.

It’s a solid 125- to 130-mph cruiser with the bigger engines and, if the air is even remotely smooth, you can put your hands in your lap and watch the countryside go by. All sorts of Tri-Pacers can be bought in the $18K-$25K range and none of them will disappoint, as long as a thorough pre-buy inspection is done.

PA-22-108 Colt
The Colt has to be one of the least-known contemporary airplanes ever built. Essentially a stripped-down, two-place Tri-Pacer, it’s the Vagabond of the 1960s. In fact, it flies a lot like a Vagabond and is just as much fun. You see them all the time in the $12K-$14K range; it has to be an exceptional Colt for the price to be more than $18K. Being a fabric airplane—and one that isn’t too popular, at that—you can expect the lower-range airplanes to be pretty doggy.

The Colt’s 108-hp, O-235 engine is a solid motor that, with minimal care, will run to TBO, so you can buy a Colt with a mid-time engine, fly it for a bunch of years and sell it for what you paid for it after flying its wings off.

Do A Careful Inspection
All high-wing Pipers have steel-tube airframes that are 40 to 60 years old and this is something to consider when buying one. If they were well taken care of, age is of no consequence, but the rag-and-tube Pipers all sat around as derelicts at some time in their lives. During that period of time, moisture was continually trying to convert them to ferrous oxide. When doing the pre-buy inspection, hire an expert in the type to do the work.

The usual places for rust are at the rear of the fuselage in the taildraggers and inside the door frames and in the strut carry-through in the belly of nosedraggers. Also, these kinds of airplanes have lived in the land of the field mouse for decades and nesting mice can cause more damage than flying can.

So, when you decide you can’t live without a high-wing Piper, try to find the best one available or, at the very least, do your best to determine the true condition of an airframe before buying it. There’s no substitute for paranoia when buying any airplane, but on high-wing Pipers, it will really pay off.