Champ was my fave aircraft to just toodle around in, burning VFR holes in the sky. It was my father in laws plane and he insisted in always being in the front seat. I’m 6’4” 235 so the balance was a little back, but no issues. He had the plane set up for photography from the FRONT seat, and my ‘job’ was to maintain steady sorta standard turns so he could take pics, mostly for aerial timber survey work.
We rarely busted 1500’ AGL. Why waste the fuel (and the time) getting higher? ;-)
Great fair weather aircraft.
Didn’t have a starter. Had to manually spin the prop- old school.
I can remember many a time when the cars on the road below us were making better speed than we were.
There were a few Champs and Tri Pacers at SunNFun, along with 5 or 6 J-3’s. It sure brought back memories!
I’ll always be a tail dragger fan, something primal about them. Guess that’s why I always loved the DC-3/C47’s.