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Willliam Thomas Piper

"In my aircraft-building baby days, 35 or so years ago, private plane makers didn't have too much status. No one paid us any mind."

Bill Piper — Spanish-American War vet, oil prospector, and Harvard track team star, "That's Harvard, 1903"—is kindly considered the Henry Ford of American aviation. The famed Piper Cub, however, really began as someone else's kitten.

In 1929, C. Gilbert Taylor moved to Bradford, Pennsylvania, from Rochester, New York, to begin production of a two-passenger, 100 horsepower airplane, known as the Chummy. Bill Piper, a leading Bradford citizen, was chosen to represent investor's interests in the new enterprise. The first Chummy was barely airborne when the Depression catapulted sales to zero. Piper, playing a long hunch and Harvard luck, continued to invest his own money in aviation. The first Cub was flown September 12, 1930. Its name was conceived from its engine, known as the Brownbach Tiger Kitten. 

In the spring of 1936, Piper bought out all Taylor interests, and by the end of 1937, Cub production was a glittering 687. Harvard luck was doing something right, and publicity helped.

On September 2, 1938, Merrill Phoenix and Howard Allen began a flight at Syracuse, N.Y., in a Cub, staying aloft 106 hours. With this breaking of the world's light plane endurance record, sales also climbed. During World War II, over 75 percent of all U.S. pilots began training in a Cub.

[[image - small drawing of a propeller]]

William Thomas Piper: born Knapps Creek, N.Y., January 8, 1881.

[[image No. 112 - black & white photograph of early Piper Cub]]

[[caption]]One of the earlier Piper Cubs, seen on a Pennsylvania apron, ca. 1932. Note height.[[/caption]]

[[image No. 113 - black & white photograph of Bill Piper in 1898]]

[[caption]]Spanish-American War trooper Bill Piper, doing his GI laundry, 1898 (113). On Jan. 8, 1961, Piper on his 80th birthday, with Arthur Godfrey, and aviator Max Conrad, on occasion of Godfrey's presentation of Piper Aztec to a medical clinic in Kenya.[[/caption]]

[[image No. 114 - black & white photograph of Bill Piper with Arthur Godrey and Max Conrad]]

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