Narrative:

I was flying a J-3 cub with 85-hp engine to a private airport (grass strip). The airplane has no electrical system but I had a hand held GPS (garmin 396) and portable icom communications radio. At an enroute stop I refueled and took on a passenger; a student pilot and physically large man who fit comfortably in the rear seat of the 2-seat tandem airplane. I am small and flew from the front seat. We landed again for fuel. The headwind was significant and our ground speed about 50-55 KTS. The airplane holds 12 gallons of fuel and consumes about 6 per hour. The farm strip was 15 miles from this second fuel stop. It was getting late -- close to sunset -- so we fueled again rapidly and took off. Again I was in front. We ran through light rain and fog was forming in the valleys. The GPS battery was dead as was icom communications radio battery. My passenger knew the area and directed me to the strip. Two trucks (vans) had parked alongside the 2400 ft runway; which has a significant uphill grade. I made one low pass and came around to land. I touched down close to the approach end three point - full stall landing - keeping the lights of the first truck off to my left. But I cannot see over the instrument panel in that attitude and had no peripheral reference to keep it going straight. I felt a 'bump' and realized we had struck something (the second truck) with the left wing tip. By that time we had slowed nearly to a stop and I had added power to taxi uphill to the hangar. I damaged the outer 1/3 of the left wing (fabric and ribs) and damaged the roof of the truck. Poor judgment -- should have ended the flight at the last stop instead of attempting a difficult (in good conditions) landing from the front seat on an uphill grass runway at dusk. Damage was not structural so it was an incident that occurred in taxi phase after flight.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Pilot of J-3 Cub reports striking a vehicle parked along side a grass strip after landing at dusk from the front seat.

Narrative: I was flying a J-3 Cub with 85-hp engine to a private airport (grass strip). The airplane has no electrical system but I had a hand held GPS (Garmin 396) and portable ICOM communications radio. At an enroute stop I refueled and took on a passenger; a student pilot and physically large man who fit comfortably in the rear seat of the 2-seat tandem airplane. I am small and flew from the front seat. We landed again for fuel. The headwind was significant and our ground speed about 50-55 KTS. The airplane holds 12 gallons of fuel and consumes about 6 per hour. The farm strip was 15 miles from this second fuel stop. It was getting late -- close to sunset -- so we fueled again rapidly and took off. Again I was in front. We ran through light rain and fog was forming in the valleys. The GPS battery was dead as was ICOM communications radio battery. My passenger knew the area and directed me to the strip. Two trucks (vans) had parked alongside the 2400 FT runway; which has a significant uphill grade. I made one low pass and came around to land. I touched down close to the approach end three point - full stall landing - keeping the lights of the first truck off to my left. But I cannot see over the instrument panel in that attitude and had no peripheral reference to keep it going straight. I felt a 'bump' and realized we had struck something (the second truck) with the left wing tip. By that time we had slowed nearly to a stop and I had added power to taxi uphill to the hangar. I damaged the outer 1/3 of the left wing (fabric and ribs) and damaged the roof of the truck. Poor judgment -- should have ended the flight at the last stop instead of attempting a difficult (in good conditions) landing from the front seat on an uphill grass runway at dusk. Damage was not structural so it was an incident that occurred in taxi phase after flight.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.