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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. In late 1930, the company filed for bankruptcy and William
T. Piper purchased the assets of the company for $761. 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. 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. This aircraft
was the E-2 Cub. 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. 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, but its main contribution to the war
effort was in the fabrication of steel masts for mounting radar
antennas. 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. 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. The board of
directors replaced William Piper with William Shriver, a former
Chrysler executive. Under Shriver, the product line was expanded
with the introduction of the PA-14 Family Cruiser and PA-15 Vagabond.
Piper introduced the "Taxicub" light charter concept
at 1500 dealers and 52 distributors. 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. At the end of 1948, Piper bought the
Stinson Aircraft Company for $3 million and Shriver left the
company. 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. 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. 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. 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. |
