How Bill Piper and His Piper Cub Taught America How to Fly
By Alan Smith
We all know that a number of men played a significant role in the development of the private aircraft. We know about Clyde Cessna, Walter Beech, Don Luscombe and others, but only one really made a personal plane affordable to the masses. That was William T/ Piper of Bradford, Pennsylvania where he worked in his father’s oil business. He was well into middle age before he found himself moving into the airplane business and did not learn to fly until he was 60 years old.
Early in the century, shortly after the Wright Brothers had proved the powered airplane possible at Kitty Hawk North Carolina on December 17, 1903, Piper had been in the military, had been involved in the Spanish American War, and had earned a Harvard degree in mechanical engineering. He set out to get into the industrial construction business, but soon lost interest in that and returned to Bradford with his family to join his father in the oil business.
At the same time, C. Gilbert Taylor and his brother Gordon were looking for a plant location where they could build small aircraft. Gilbert Taylor had designed and built a small side-by-side two-seater he named the “Chummy.” The oil business around Bradford was slowing down and the city government wanted to attract new industry. They offered to help Taylor raise the needed capital for his factory and put out a $50,000 stock offering in 1928. Piper was interested enough to put in $400 for a few shares. Many other investors were Bradford businessmen. They were aware that Piper was also a sensible local businessman, and they insisted that he be on the Taylor Brothers board of directors. Piper agreed and went on to become the company’s financial officer.
Taylor wanted to build the Chummy and price it at $4,000. Piper immediately objected, wanting the company to build something much less expensive and easier to fly. He and Taylor argued vehemently over this idea, but Piper the secretary-treasurer, would not budge. Grumbling, Taylor set about producing a new, lighter and cheaper design. It was named the E-2 and was finally ready for test flight in mid September 1930. Sadly, too small an engine, a 20 hp Brownbach, powered it. The airplane could barely get off the ground before running out of runway and did not want to get climb out of ground effect. The engine was called the Tiger Kitten and the company’s accountant suggested the new airplane be called the “Cub.” The name stuck and, over the years, came to become a synonym for all small light aircraft.
Unfortunately, the new little company ran head on onto the deepening economic depression of the 1930s and was forced to file bankruptcy at the end of 1930. No one showed up at the auction and Bill Piper bought all the assets of Taylor Aircraft for $761. Piper became chief financial officer and Taylor stayed on as half owner and president of the reorganized firm. Equipped with a 37 hp Continental engine, the new E-2 was a better performer. Taylor and Piper sold 22 of the Cubs in 1931 priced at $1325.
In 1932, a 19-year-old named Walter Jamouneau turned up for a job, saying that he had graduated from Rutgers University with a degree in aeronautical engineering. Piper was still short of cash and unable to make the boy an offer but Walter, saying that he came from a wealthy family, offered to come to work for no pay just to have something to do. At the time that price was right for Piper.
Jamouneau started with modifications to Taylor’s E-2, softening its lines and reducing its empty weight. Taylor glared at the changes, and when the modifications were complete fired Jamouneau on the spot. Piper canceled out that move and told the young man to stay. Even though Piper had learned that Rutgers did not even have an aeronautical engineering program, he liked Jamouneau’s work and renamed the airplane the Taylor J-2. The infuriated Taylor left the company in a storm to start building his own Taylorcraft airplanes in Ohio, and Piper’s name appeared on the J-2 cub. It was offered for sale in 1936 at a price of $1300.
The 37 hp Continental engine had a few quirks of its own. Reportedly, it blew gaskets with clocklike regularity. The high torque imposed by the constant RPM of flight use warped the crankshaft occasionally. Continental understood the problem and came up with a stronger forty hp version of the engine.
In 1937, a fire made worse by the dope soaked atmosphere wiped out the Bradford plant. Piper was unfazed by what appeared to be a disaster and went in search of a new location. In Lock Haven, PA, he arranged to lease an old silk factory that had more than enough space for building small aircraft. All the employees moved to Lock Haven with Piper, and the company was reorganized as the Piper Aircraft Corporation. Despite all the uproar of the fire and of moving, the company produced almost 700 airplanes by the end of 1937.
In 1938, the J-2 Cub became the J-3 with the new 40 hp engine. Engines were now available from Lycoming and Franklin as well as Continental. Over the next two years the J-3 moved to 65 hp and improved performance. Piper also decided on the Cub’s now familiar bright yellow with black trim color scheme. Others remembered Henry Ford’s decision to build only black model T’s and suggested that Bill Piper had become the Henry Ford of Aviation. Piper smiled and said he preferred that Ford be remembered as the Bill Piper of the automotive world.
Selling private airplanes during the depths of the great depression was a challenge. For that reason contrary to the thinking of other manufacturers, Piper insisted on building low cost, simple and, easy-to-fly airplanes. He even created a market by teaching any interested member of the public to fly for $1 per hour. That was the only cost; aircraft and instructor were included. Salesmen for Piper Aircraft received $15 per week salary and an expense allowance of $25 per week. The $1 per hour training program was very popular, and most of the employees at Piper Aircraft graduated from it. Piper felt that if they knew how to fly, they would build high quality airplanes. The people of Lock Haven got into it too and at one point, almost one percent of the city’s population had pilot’s licenses.
The easy to fly J-3 Cub went into widespread service around the country as a trainer. As the clouds of war began to spread over Europe in 1938, President Roosevelt became aware of the shortage of U.S. military pilots. He knew the German Lufwaffe already had 65,000 pilots; most had been trained in gliders to avoid the restrictions of the Versailles Treaty and more were training that way in Italy.
The Civilian Pilot Training Program was begun and the Piper Cub became CPTP initial training plane. While Lloyd Stearman’s biplane PT-17 was also used, about 75 percent of the over 435,000 pilots trained in the CPTP began flight training in the J-3 Cub. In 1940, over 3,000 Cubs were built at the now booming Lock Haven plant. When America entered the war in 1941, use of the Cub as a messenger or observation plane brought production at Lock Haven to the point where a J-3 was rolled out complete every 20 minutes.
Despite the fact that many top commanders like George Marshall, George Patton and others used the Cub as a sort of flying Jeep, the Washington military brass and some politicians did not pay much attention to what the Cub and other military light aircraft could accomplish. Military aircraft were, in their opinion, the sole business of the Army Air Force and those light aircraft delivered to infantry or armored divisions were ignored and referred to as “Puddle Jumpers”.
In the field, the J-3 was reassigned in 1942 as the L-4 and the Cub along with other two seaters supplied by Taylorcraft and Aeronca were given the nickname “Grasshopper.” It was used for transporting supplies for medical evacuation, and was occasionally even armed with a taped on bazooka to be fired at enemy tanks. All in all, over 6,000 L-4 Cubs were delivered to the U.S, Army during World War II. Once, the commander of an armored division used an L-4 cub and a bullhorn to straighten out an entangled traffic jam of tanks on a country road.
After the war, it became clear that the Piper Cub had become a true icon of the general aviation world. By 1947, since its introduction in 1938, over 19,000 J-3s had been sold and thousands are still in use today. A variation of the J-3 was introduced around 1948 with a fully cowled engine and could be flown solo from the front seat. Officially it was named the PA-11, but most were called J-4s. Then the Super Cub tagged the PA-18. It was powered by a 150 hp engine and could do 130 mph. It became a solid workhorse of an airplane.
Many more Piper aircraft have joined the general aviation world, all named after Native American tribes. We have seen the Comanche, the Aztec, the Navajo and so on. A Piper Super Cruiser was once flown around the world.
But it was the Piper Cub, the J-3 that brought the magic of flying to thousands of people. And to this day, the so-called man on the street will call any small light aircraft a Piper Cub.
