Piper Aircraft Logo is a photograph by John Straton which was uploaded on September 25th, 2014.
Piper Aircraft Logo
The company was originally founded as the Taylor Brothers Aircraft Manufacturing Company in September 1927 by Clarence Gilbert Taylor and Gordon A.... more
by John Straton
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Piper Aircraft Logo
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John Straton
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The company was originally founded as the Taylor Brothers Aircraft Manufacturing Company in September 1927 by Clarence Gilbert Taylor and Gordon A. Taylor in Rochester, New York. The company was renamed Taylor Brothers Aircraft Corporation in April 1928, shortly before Gordon Taylor died in an aircraft accident on April 24, 1928. The company was enticed to move to Bradford, Pennsylvania, with the promise of larger facility and investment capital from local businessmen, including an initial investment of $400 from local oil industry engineer William T. Piper. The move was completed in September 1929.[3]
1930s
In late 1930, the company filed for bankruptcy and William T. Piper purchased the assets of the company for $761.[3] Reorganized as the Taylor Aircraft Company, Piper effectively took control of the firm when he assumed the position of corporate secretary-treasurer, although he retained C. G. Taylor in the role of president.[3] Piper, often called the "Henry Ford of Aviation", firmly believed a simple-to-operate, low-cost, private airplane would flourish, even in the darkest depths of the Great Depression.[4] This aircraft was the E-2 Cub.[4]
In December 1935, after a series of clashes, William Piper bought out C. G. Taylor, who left the company and went on to form the Taylorcraft Aircraft Company. On March 16, 1937 a fire destroyed the Bradford factory and the company relocated to an abandoned silk mill in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. In 1937, it was renamed Piper Aircraft Corporation.[5]
1940s
Piper continued operations in Lock Haven throughout World War II, building military versions of its J-3 Cub as the L-4 Grasshopper. A total of 5,941 powered aircraft were built by the company for the US armed forces during the war, as well as training gliders, and aircraft components for other manufacturers,[6] but its main contribution to the war effort was in the fabrication of steel masts for mounting radar antennas.[7] In 1946, the company opened a new factory in Ponca City, Oklahoma and transferred production of the Cub from Lock Haven. That year, Piper led the American industry in light aircraft production. Almost 7,800 of the 35,000 civil aircraft built in the United States that year were Pipers, but a strike led to a shortage of steel tubing, interrupting production, and 1,900 workers had to be suspended as a result.[8][9]
The following year, the postwar general aviation boom ended. Piper's output reached 3,500 aircraft, less than half its 1946 total, and the company suffered an operating loss of more than $560,000.[8][10] The board of directors replaced William Piper with William Shriver, a former Chrysler executive.[10] Under Shriver, the product line was expanded with the introduction of the PA-14 Family Cruiser and PA-15 Vagabond.[10] Piper introduced the "Taxicub" light charter concept at 1500 dealers and 52 distributors.[11] In 1948, with two thirds of its workforce laid off, Piper only lost $75,000, but it found itself no longer the leader in a shrinking market, falling behind Cessna, which itself only delivered 1,600 aircraft; the Ponca City factory was closed.[8][10] At the end of 1948, Piper bought the Stinson Aircraft Company for $3 million and Shriver left the company.[12]
1950s
The outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 helped to stimulate production at Piper, which again won large orders for military versions of the Cub.[12] William Piper regained control of the company the same year, and the decision was made to develop a twin-engine aircraft. The company initially investigated producing the Baumann Brigadier, but later decided to develop a Stinson design, which became the PA-23 Apache.[12] In its business planning following the war, it became clear the Lock Haven facility would not support larger manufacturing efforts, and in 1955, it acquired rights to property at the Vero Beach Municipal Airport.[citation needed] Vero Beach was initially used as a center for design work under Fred Weick, with the first aircraft developed there being Piper's first agricultural aircraft, the PA-25 Pawnee, announced in 1958 and entering production the following year at Lock Haven.[13]
1960s
In 1960, the line of Piper aircraft consisted of an agricultural- and two-passenger variants of the Super Cub; the Caribbean, Colt and Tri-Pacer; two versions of the PA-24 Comanche; the Pawnee; and the Apache and its new larger derivative the Aztec.[14] The following year, the PA-28 Cherokee was the first type to enter production at the new Vero Beach factory.[15][16] The Cherokee replaced the Tri-Pacer and Colt, which ended their production runs in 1961 and 1964 respectively.[15] By the later part of the decade, Vero Beach was building 7,000 Cherokees per year.[17]
In September 1964, Piper flew the prototype of its new PA-31 Navajo cabin-class twin for the first time, after two-and-a-half years of development.[18][19]
In 1969, The Piper family agreed to sell Piper Aircraft to Bangor Punta Corporation, which started an eight-year court battle with the losing bidder, Chris-Craft Industries, culminating in a Supreme Court decision in 1977.[20]
1970s
Piper discussed a merger with Swearingen but the deal was not completed.[21] The Lock Haven facility was nearly destroyed in 1972 when torrential rains from Hurricane Agnes caused the Susquehanna River to flood in June. The manufacturing plant was flooded to a depth of 16 feet (4.9 m), effectively destroying about 100 aircraft and causing an estimated $23 million in damage.[22][23] Much of the tooling necessary for production of several designs, including the Aztec, Navajo, and Comanche, was also destroyed,[citation needed] and the Piper PA-31T Cheyenne program received a setback when the prototype was damaged just after the Federal Aviation Administration awarded it Type Certification.[24] Initial deliveries of the new PA-31-350 Chieftain were also delayed by several months.[25] After the flood, Piper gave 32 written-off PA-28s, PA-31s and PA-23 Aztecs to NASA, which used them for crash tests at the Langley Research Center, using a rig originally built to simulate spacecraft landings on the moon for the Apollo program.[26]
As a result of the flood, the company decided to end production of the Piper PA-24 Comanche[27] Piper opened a manufacturing division in Lakeland, Florida, in 1972 and through the 1970s, the Piper PA-31 Navajo, Chieftain, and Cheyenne III were manufactured at the more than 710,000-square-foot (66,000 m2) facility on the Lakeland municipal airport.[28]
1980s and 1990s
Piper opened its T1000 Airline Division at the Lakeland, Florida, location in May 1981, with 20 people. Employment at both of Piper's Lakeland divisions peaked at 2,200 later that year. The Piper PA-42 Cheyenne IV and the Piper T-1020/Piper T-1040 aircraft were manufactured in Lakeland during that time. Piper also maintained a fully staffed research and development center in Lakeland, including the "X" shop, which developed the Piper PA-48 Enforcer. The Airline Division provided aircraft for commuter airlines in the United States including Air New Orleans, Desert Sun in Long Beach, Shasta Air and Sun West Airlines, as well as internationally for Vickers for corporate transport use in the United Kingdom, Cameroon's Avia Services and to Piper's distributor in Colombia, Aero Leaver.[28] In 1984, Piper changed hands when parent company Bangor Punta was acquired by Lear Siegler.[29] Lear Siegler, in turn, was acquired by Forstmann Little in 1986.[30] Forstmann Little then sold Piper to M. Stuart Millar in 1987.[31]
Manufacture of light aircraft was impacted in the mid-1980s when increasing product liability insurance premiums made operation financially difficult for Piper Aircraft and other American manufacturers of light aircraft. In a bid to improve sales, Piper cut prices for its aircraft and the company became unprofitable. In 1991 the Lakeland, Florida factory was sold and closed and by July that year the workforce had shrunk to just 45; with only $1,000 in available cash remaining, Piper filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after a proposed takeover by competing French manufacturer Socata failed over the issue of product liability.[32][33] Production of the flagship Cheyenne 400 ended in February 1993 with only 43 being built since its inception a decade earlier.[34] In 1995, the company emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy and was renamed The New Piper Aircraft. As part of the end of bankruptcy protection, the company was sold to Newco Pac Inc., itself owned by Piper's creditors (including major creditor, aircraft engine manufacturer Teledyne Continental Motors) and a Philadelphia-based investment firm.[32][35]
2000s
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September 25th, 2014
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