INTRODUCTION: READ THIS BEFORE YOU GROUND LOOP YOUR SOUL

Flying a Super Cub is a bit like dating a chainsaw. It looks sexy in pictures, sounds incredible when it roars to life, and will absolutely maul you if you touch it wrong.

When I started flying taildraggers, I assumed—like every other overconfident idiot with a headset and a YouTube account—that I’d be a bush pilot in no time. Maybe fly to Alaska. Land on a sandbar. Save an orphaned moose. Or better yet—this was my actual plan, which caused visible eye-rolling from my instructor—head to Africa. Land in the savannah, right on top of grazing zebras and angry buffalos.

What actually happened?
(Apart from Africa, which—yes—did happen.)
I bent things.
Many things.
Aircraft parts. Relationships. Occasionally, reality itself.

I also became a devout Christian along the way, because after the fifth time I flew into weather that looked like the Book of Revelation illustrated by NASA, I had to accept that divine intervention was the only remaining explanation. No atheist survives that many weather-related decisions made with a smile and a faulty forecast.

The Lord must’ve repeatedly extended a sheltering hand—possibly while muttering “this idiot again”—to shield me from my most catastrophic ideas, usually hatched five minutes before departure and justified with phrases like “just a little build-up,” while flying directly toward cumulonimbus clouds shaped like middle fingers from Satan Himself.

But that’s another story. And frankly, a miracle. Also a strong argument for prayer. Every page here is a blood offering to the gods of torque, trim, and tailwheel-induced trauma.

It is not a textbook.
It is not FAA-approved.
Not even the KCAA would touch this thing.
It has never been reviewed by a flight instructor without triggering a nervous tic and a phone call to their insurance broker.
But it is the book I wish I had when I first tried to taxi a Cub and accidentally invented a new type of S-turn only visible from space.

You’ll laugh.
You’ll scream.
You’ll learn things despite yourself.

Because buried between the goat references, sarcastic one-liners, and graphic accounts of aviation-based public humiliation are actual flying lessons.
Real ones.
The kind you only absorb after the manual has been flung across the hangar and you’re standing on the wing, sweating bacon grease, wondering if that puddle under your aircraft is fuel, oil, or regret.

This book will teach you:

• Why taildraggers hate you personally
• Why crosswinds are Mother Nature’s passive-aggressive breakup message
• How to interpret your Cub’s emotional state via fresh oil leaks
• Why Kalli, my mechanic, kept a fire extinguisher next to the coffee pot
• And how flying well means failing better—just with style

So if you’re a new Cub pilot, a recovering trike flyer, or just a masochist with aviation envy and a death wish—
welcome.
You’re among friends.
Broken, bitter friends with tinnitus and questionable judgment.
But friends nonetheless.

Final warning:

This will be funny.
Dangerously funny.
You may laugh so hard you forget to flare on final.
You may develop abdominal cramps, spiritual confusion, or a sudden urge to buy a tailwheel endorsement from a man named Rick, who flies barefoot and doesn’t believe in radios.

I’m not responsible for any of it.

But if, by the end, you walk away saying:

“Wow… this guy’s a complete idiot. But I actually learned something…”

Then mission accomplished.

Now buckle in.
Check your ego.
Trim for absurdity.

And for God’s sake—don’t forget to fly the damn plane.

—Marcel Romdane
Your Chaos Instructor