Richard Wight Burt, Centerville, Utah: an interview by Becky B. Lloyd, November 19, 2005: Saving the Legacy tape no. 750

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RICHARD WIGHT BURT OVEMB R 19,200 BEC: The following spring. So at the time you graduated they were drafting a lot f people. RIC: Oh, yes, but I had learned to fly. It was kind of a strange thing. They had organized before the war, or just after the war, the Civil Air Patrol. Of course, it's still active. They had the Civil Air Patrol Cadets who were just high school kids, primarily. But there were very few airplanes around. They had one airplane in Brigham City Airport, which was in a small hanger. They just used the salt flats out there north and west of the town of Brigham City (for a runway). The mortician there had this J3 Cub. [Editor's note: In 1938 Piper introduced the J-3 Cub. It was a single-engine, high-wing monoplane. Powered by 40-hp Continental, Lycoming or Franklin engines, the J-3 sold for $1,300, an enormous sum in 1938. Just as Henry Ford's Model T's were all black, so Piper's Cubs were all bright yellow with black trim.] It was just a little yellow two-seater with forty horsepower and no brakes (laughs). I used to ride out and look through the window at that thing, "I sure wish I could fly that thing." Harold B. Felt was the mortician and he and my folks were friends. They knew each other quite well. He decided that he wasn't using it that much. It was just kind of a thing to do in those days. It was a one-upsmanship thing, I imagine, that he had the only plane in Brigham City. But I guess he got tired of it and decided that he was going to sell it but he decided that he wanted to sell it like, to a club, so more people could use it. So they called it Wings of Box Elder Flying Club and he was going to sell twelve shares. I just beat my folks to death. I wanted to be in that club so bad. They finally let me. I couldn't believe it. BEC: Really? Do you remember what it cost to join that club? 8