One of the best uses of aviation is the supply and support of camps and settlements where traditional “over-road” travel isn’t possible due to distance, terrain, or weather conditions.  The hard conditions faced in flying such missions leads to a breed of pilots who are as battle hardened and devoted to their flying skill as any combat pilot.  These “bush pilots” dedicate their lives to flying in and around the hardest territory in the world, and this particular pilot dedicated his skin to one of the tools of his trade, the Piper PA-18 Super Cub.

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The Piper Super Cub is one of the most popular light bush planes still being used.  Derived from the Piper J-3 Cub, the Super Cub was just basically a higher-powered version of the timeless Cub design. Because of it’s light weight and simple construction, combined with a fairly powerful 150hp Lycoming O-320 engine, the Super Cub has a respectable carrying capacity while still having an extremely short takeoff distance.  Equipped with the balloon-like tundra tires as seen in this tattoo, the Super Cub can just about land anywhere with about 200 feet of flat land… this means river sandbars, tops of mesas, and rocky tundra plains. 

Around 9000 PA-18 Super Cubs were produced from 1949-1983 and a modern production run from 1988-1994 by Piper Aircraft. Though Piper no longer produces the Super Cub, similar aircraft with the same principles are being produced by CubCrafters Inc. and Aviat Aircraft (Husky) today as new aircraft.

This black and gray tattoo was created by artist Sean Fairbanks of Bozeman’s Tattoo Alley in Bozeman, MT.  The tattoo was created from several photos of the clients own aircraft.

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I completely realize that we have featured this fantastic black and gray back tattoo honoring famous aviatrix Amelia Earhart before, but in honor of the opening weekend of the movie Amelia by Mira Nair and featuring Hilary Swank, we decided to bring it back!  It was an early post of ours and perhaps not everyone has had the chance to see this fantastic tattoo.

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While Amelia Earhart was certainly one of the most famous female aviators due to her celebrity and of course her mysterious disappearance, there are a great many more women who have bravely taken to the skies despite the considerable challenges they faced.  Some of the notable aviatrixes on our list include:

- Harriet Quimby – First Licensed American Female Pilot
- Bessie Coleman – First African-American licensed pilot (male or female)
- Beryl Markham – First woman to fly Atlantic Ocean East to West
- Jackie Cochran – Record breaking female air race pilot & entrepreneur.
- Pancho Barnes – First female movie and stunt pilot in film
- Amy Johnson – First woman to fly solo from England to Australia
- Anne Morrow Lindbergh - 1st woman to fly great circle route, NYC to China
- Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) – First US military female pilots
- Valentina Tereshkova – First woman in space, USSR Cosmonaut
- Sally Ride – First US woman astronaut

Their own accomplishments should never be overlooked – and their pioneering spirit paved the way for many more since.  Our editor even has a portrait tattoo of Jackie Cochran as part of his Bendix Trophy piece in honor of her win in 1937.

This fantastic tattoo of Amelia Earhart and her Lockheed 10A Electra featured here today was created by artist Collin Delgado of Baraka Naga Art Company in Seattle, WA. The tattoo took ten hours over three sessions to complete.

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It’s the end of the summer and for many pilots in the Midwest and Northeast, it’s also nearing the end of lazy-day summer fun flying as winter approaches.  In tribute to fair weather flying fun, we present this tattoo of the classic Piper J-3 Cub… the timeless traditional taildragger.

The Piper J-3 Cub, produced by Piper Aircraft of Lock Haven, PA, was built from 1938 to 1947.  Over 19,073 aircraft were built during that time and the simple little two-seat taildragger, powered by an equally simple Continental 65 hp engine, was popular for flight training.  In fact, during WWII, the Piper Cub was heavily used by the Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP) which provided training that screened pilot candidates who then entered the air services of the time in the either the Army or Navy. The military also used the Cub as a liaison aircraft as the L-4.

After the war, the popular Cub was an inexpensive and simple airplane to keep the growing General Aviation community in the skies.  The basic design was translated into several other Piper postwar products, namely the PA-11 Cub Special (90 hp), PA-18 Super Cub (150 hp) and those aircraft kept the basic design of the Cub for many more years. 

Though the Cub and it’s derivatives are no longer produced by Piper, the J-3 design is produced in modern form by two companies… Cub Crafters in Washington and American Legend Aircraft in Texas.

This tattoo was sent to us by one of our readers who has a 1946 J-3 Cub as part of his family.  The tattoo features their Cub as the centerpiece with the names of their children, Piper and Ryan, accenting it.  Both kids were named after the classic aircraft companies Piper Aircraft and Ryan Aeronautical… a family certainly in love with aviation!

The artist of this colorful Cub tattoo is Jason Eggert who tattoos at Island Tattoo in Salco, NC.

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To feed the growing baby boom that followed World War II, farmers used new advances in pesticides and fertilizers to decrease crop failure from insects and increase yields.  Along with new chemicals, a more effective and efficient delivery method was needed, thus the birth of the aerial application industry, or better known as “crop dusting”.  In honor of that unique niche of the industry, we present this tattoo featuring the Ayres S2R-T Thrush agricultural sprayer.

After the WWII, many training aircraft like the PT-17 Stearman and the BT-13 Valiant were made available as war surplus and could be purchased for next-to-nothing by farmers.  Haphazard modifications to accommodate chemical tanks, hoppers, spray bars and aerodynamic changes to allow the plane to fly slower and more precisely were common using these re-purposed planes.  As the ag spray industry grew and the dangers of the low-altitude flight operations became apparent, companies began building aircraft exclusively designed for crop spraying.  Mainstream manufacturers joined in with their own aircraft: Piper Aircraft created the PA-25 Pawnee, Cessna designed the C-188 AgTruck, and Grumman joined in with the G-164 Ag Cat biplane.  All of these new aircraft featured high-lift wings, powerful engines for climb power, and heavily reinforced fuselages and a roll cage for the cockpit to protect the pilot in case of a low altitude crash.  The latter modification was important as crop dusting was one of the most dangerous flying jobs out there… power line and tree collisions were common.

Another aircraft emerged at the time from a designer by the name of Leland Snow.  His aircraft, the S-2 Thrush, was produced by his company, Snow Aeronautical, after its first flight in 1956.  In 1965 the company and aircraft was purchased by the Aero Commander division of Rockwell and it was produced as the Thrush Commander.  Then in 1977, Rockwell sold the brand along with the factory in Albany, GA to Ayres Corporation which had been retrofitting the original radial engine on Thrush Commanders with turboprop engines. They produced the aircraft as a turboprop until 2003 when the design was again sold to Thrush Aircraft, who currently produce the aircraft.

This colorful tattoo of the curious choice of an Ayres S2R-T Thrush as a subject with the inscription under it translated from Portuguese as “Trust in God” was created by artist Mauricio Huber of Dermografite located in the coastal city of Balneário Camboriú in Santa Catarina, Brazil.

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For many aviation enthusiasts, it’s one of the most iconic aircraft ever built.  With its short wings, tiny cockpit at the tail, and massive engine compartment, the Gee Bee Model R Super Sportster built by the Granville Brothers of Springfield, MA is, perhaps, the most famous air racer of all time.  Built in 1932, the Gee Bee Model R-1 and R-2 were the fastest aircraft of the time.

The R-1, piloted by Jimmy Doolittle, won the 1932 Thompson Trophy race - a 10 mile closed circuit race emphasizing low altitude, high speed flying - in Cleveland, OH with an average speed of 253 mph.  Doolittle also set the world landplane speed record of 296 mph in the Shell Speed Dash. 

Even with the success, the Gee Bee Model R’s had a reputation of being dangerous aircraft in the wrong hands.  During the 1933 Thompson Trophy race, pilot Russell Boardman perished when the R-1 crashed on takeoff in Indiana.  It was rebuilt with parts from the R-2 which previously crashed and flew again, only to crash again with pilot Roy Minor at the controls.  Minor was not seriously injured, and the aircraft was yet again rebuilt and sold to Cecil Allen. Allen, against the recommendation of the Granvilles, installed fuel tanks aft of the center of gravity and upon takeoff with full fuel, the aircraft crashed fatally for the last time and was not rebuilt.

This tattoo was submitted to us by a gentleman who has had a love for the R-1 and R-2 for many years.  In the 1990’s when a full-scale replica of the R-2 flew the airshow circuit piloted by builder Delmar Benjamin, our wearer helped support the crew at local shows.  He was even able to get a ride in the “belly of the beast” while the plane taxied on the ground as there wasn’t a second seat.  With such a history with the Gee Bee, it’s easy to see why he’d choose to have it added to his permanent art collection.

The tattoo was created by artist Ryan Groebler of Stay True Tattoo in Dublin, CA. 

Our editor here at TattoosInFlight.com has the R-1 as part of his air racing thigh tattoo… you can see that by clicking this link.

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Easily the world’s most recognizable airliner - the Boeing 747 turned 40 years old on February 9th.  On that day in 1969, test pilots Jack Waddell and Brien Wygle took the aircraft aloft from the new Boeing facility built specifically for the 747 at Paine Field in Everett, WA.

Being the aircraft that inspired the term “Jumbo Jet”, the 747 revolutionized high-volume passenger air travel and continues to be operated on long-haul routes worldwide by many airlines.  The latest commercially produced version, the 747-400, concluded production in 2009 and Boeing is currently re-evaluating the 747-8 program which would continue the line, but the current economy may stall or cancel the program.

One of the most famous 747’s, Air Force One - the aircraft of the president of the United States, made the news this past week as President Barack Obama took his first trip aboard the aircraft to an event in Williamsburg, VA.  There has been talk of a possible replacement of SAM 28000 and 29000 — the specially designed 747-200B aircraft, and some believed the Airbus A380 would be a possible option. EADS (manufacturer of the A380) has stated that it will not bid, which leaves only Boeing with the 747 as the option for a replacement ship.

Today’s tattoo features the Boeing 747 and ironically comes to us from an artist in Russia — home of the Antonov An-225 Mriya — an aircraft ranked with the 747 as one of the largest aircraft ever built.  Artist Andrey Smolentsev of Mir Tattoo in Moscow, Russia created the beautiful tribute piece to the jumbo jet for us to admire today.

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