Charlie with the Piper J-4 Cub Coupe he purchased when he owned his electronics business in Charleston, SC. This photo was taken in the early 1960's at Carolina Skyways Airport, just off the Folly Beach Road on James Island, SC. The aircraft has a little history of its own, built by Piper Aircraft in 1940, it was owned by the Civil Air Patrol and used for submarine patrol off the coast of Charleston during WWII. Powered by a Continental 65 horse power four cylinder engine which was completely cowled in, spinner, wheel pants and landing gear fairings, all of which greatly reduced drag, it was capable of an honest 70 MPH (60.9 knots), while a standard Piper J-3 Cub would cruise at 65 MPH (56.55 knots). It's slow rate of speed (it could be flown at 20 MPH by using just enough throttle to keep it "hanging on the prop"), high occupant visibility and excellent maneuverability made it perfect for sub patrol. While it was kept very hush-hush during WWII, German subs did patrol the U.S. coast line and had fired cannon shells inland. The differences between the J-3 and J-4 was that the J-4 had a cowled in engine, the J-3 cylinders were out in the open, a wider wing chord, hence a flatter and higher glide aspect ratio, sat two people side by side instead of fore and aft as in the J-3, and the J-4 had a 16 gallon auxiliary fuel tank and could stay airborne for over 5 hours. When Charlie owned his J-4, 80 octane aviation fuel was $0.42 a gallon, compared to $0.29 to $0.35 a gallon for automobile fuel at that time!
Charlie had just landed at Carolina Skyways after flying to Jacksonville, FL to compete in the 1962 Florida Model Aircraft Championships. A good friend of Charlie's who was learning to fly, and Charlie had let him get some time in his J-4, happened to be at the airport with his dad, who was a reporter for the Charleston Evening Post newspaper. Charlie's friend was going up for his solo check ride that day, so his dad went along with him to the airport. When Charlie landed and his friend walked over to the aircraft to say hello and tell Charlie that he had passed his check ride, his father snapped this photo of Charlie with the two first place trophies he had won, one for stunt (precision aerobatics) and the other for semi-scale stunt, which could only be flown if your model resembled a real prototype aircraft. Charlie had designed and built the highly acrobatic semi-scale stunt model of a Curtis P40E Warhawk. Charlie says it was the best flying model he'd ever built, and he had designed and built two other semi-scale stunt models and sold the designs and construction plans to American Modeler magazine. Charlie won over 40 trophies with his P40E and did place in the top ten at the Willow Grove Naval Air Station, PA National Model Airplane Championships in 1963. If you look at the left wing panel of Charlie's P40E, you can see the reflection of the cockpit on the wing. Appearance points were also awarded, in addition to the points for skill and precision in executing the 10 maneuvers required to complete the full stunt pattern and gain an additional 25 points for pattern completion. These were contests sanctioned by the AMA (Academy of Model Aeronautics) and flown in accordance with AMA rules. Just to the left of Charlie's right shoulder you can see a round bracket mounted on the aircraft belly between the landing gear struts. This was the mount for a wind driven generator used to charge the automotive battery carried in the baggage compartment area of the aircraft to supply power for the transmitter and receiver that was used by the CAP when the plane was used for sub patrol. The generator was gone when Charlie purchased the aircraft, but the mount was still on the aircraft and the automotive choke cable that was used to engage the small wooden prop with the generator was still mounted on the instrument panel.
The J-4 in the hanger Charlie rented at Carolina Skyways airport to keep his aircraft out of the weather. There is a very interesting story about how these photos came to be uploaded to the website. A few months ago, a man in Charleston, SC visited our web site and purchased a SmartCarry® for his handgun. A few days later, Charlie received an e-mail from him and he said that many years ago he had flown to Myrtle Beach, SC with a pilot in the pilot's aircraft, and the pilot's name was Charlie Parrott and he resembled the photos of the man on SmartCarry®'s website. He asked Charlie if he knew anything about it. Charlie replied by describing his J-4 and the color scheme (chocolate brown and off-white) and Steve D. verified that he was the man Charlie had invited to fly to Myrtle Beach that Sunday. Charlie had gone to a friend's apartment who was taking flying lessons at the time, and he wasn't there, but his room mate was, so Charlie suggested since they had nothing better to do, why not fly to Myrtle Beach and watch the ladies that would surely be on the beach. Steve (the room mate) agreed that sounded like a fine thing to do, so they flew to Myrtle Beach, landed at the short grass strip (that was the only airfield at Myrtle Beach at the time) and walked the couple of miles to the beach. After spending several hours observing the young ladies at Myrtle Beach, they flew back to Charleston. Charlie had forgotten all about that Sunday flight, so many years ago, until Steve mentioned it in his e-mail. As a result, Steve D. and Charlie have been e-mailing each other on a regular basis. They knew so many of the same people, went to the same places and shared a lot of common interests. It certainly is a small world! When their conversation turned to the J-4, Charlie mentioned that he had a few photos of it framed and Steve indicated he would really like a copy of them, so Charlie took them out of the frame and had them scanned in as jpg files and has e-mailed them to Steve. With the photos now available as jpg graphics, Charlie thought it would be neat to upload them to the website and share them with everyone. During their conversation, they were talking about "buzzing" the ladies at the beaches (who always seemed to enjoy the attention) and Steve mentioned how great the times were when they grew up. He remarked that if someone did that now, they would probably be shot down.
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