Taylorcraft Aviation
| Taylorcraft Aviation
|
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|---|---|
 |
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| legal form | Corporation |
| founding | 1935 |
| Seat | Brownsville, United States |
| Branch | Aircraft construction |
| Website | www.taylorcraft.com |
Taylorcraft Aviation is an American aircraft manufacturer based in Brownsville , Texas. The company produces two-seat single-engine high -wing aircraft based on a design from 1935. The developer Clarence Gilbert Taylor is now considered the father of private aviation in the USA.
history
The company's origins go back to the Taylor Brothers Aircraft Corporation , which was founded in Rochester (New York) in 1926 by C. Gilbert Taylor and his brother Gordon. The appropriate sales slogan used a play on words with the English term tailor-made (meaning in German something like: " Made to measure") and read: Buy your airplane Taylor made . The first aircraft on the market for $ 4,000 was a two-seat high-wing aircraft called the Arrowing A-2 Chummy in 1928 , but only about six are sold because of the high price of $ 4,000 and the looming economic crisis could.
After the death of Gordon Taylor, Gilbert moved the company to Bradford (Pennsylvania) in 1928 , where William Thomas Piper, who had made his fortune in the oil business, and another partner each invested $ 400 in the company. After the failed attempt with the Chummy, the company finally built a new, initially unnamed prototype of a light aircraft with two seats in tandem. The drive consisted of a 20 hp two-cylinder Brownbach Kitten engine. This did not prove itself, but gave the suggestion for the naming as Cub (The meaning of kitten is in German "small kitten", while Cub stands for a "clumsy animal boy"). After upgrading to a 37-horsepower Continental A-40 engine, the Taylor E-2 Cub's performance turned out to be satisfactory, but even with a retail price of $ 1,295, the company's bankruptcy could not be prevented.
In 1931, Piper bought the company's estate for $ 761, with Gilbert Taylor remaining as President and Chief Engineer at the new Taylor Aircraft Company . In the following four years, the business result remained rather meager due to the sale of the E-2 Cub and its variants F-2, G-2, H-2. This only changed in 1935 with the constructive improvements of the Cub carried out by the young engineer Walter Jamouneau at Piper's behest . This happened during a lengthy absence from Taylor due to illness. According to rather dubious reports, Taylor dismissed the three-man development department when he returned and saw the greatly improved J-2 . The very angry Piper is said to have given him an ultimatum in the form: buy me out, or let me buy you out ( buy me up, or I'll buy you up). Taylor eventually sold his stake in the company, left the Taylor Aircraft Company on a three-year severance pay (and started a new venture in Butler, Pennsylvania ).
Within three months, Taylor designed and built a new aircraft with a handful of employees, which he explicitly did not describe as a second-generation Cub , but was to significantly surpass it. At the end of 1936 he received a provisional type certificate for the Taylorcraft and looked for an investor and a location that he found in Alliance, Ohio , where a factory building was made available to him rent-free. William C. Young became partner and vice president of Taylor Young Airplane Corporation . The Piper Cub sold much better after its revision and became a classic among private aircraft.
During the Second World War , there was a great need for light training, liaison and observation aircraft. The Taylorcraft DCO-65 was used as the L-2 by the US Army . After the war, the demand fell sharply. Few aircraft were built in the 1950s.
In 1965 Charlie and Dorothy Feris bought the now insignificant manufacturer and resumed production in 1970. After the death of her husband in 1973, Dorothy Feris continued to run the company alone until 1985.
New owners moved production to Lock Haven , Pennsylvania, but had to stop production in 1992 due to economic problems. The current owner, Harry Ingram, relocated the plant to La Grange , Texas in 2003 . The company is now based in Brownsville, Texas.
The Taylor Craft Airplanes (England) Limited acquired 1,938 license rights to the Taylor Craft drafts to produce these aircraft for the English market. The company, renamed Auster Aircraft after the war , later developed its own aircraft based on the American model.
Planes
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Taylor Chummy
- A-2, B-2, C-2
- Taylor D (unrealized project of a glider)
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Taylor E-2 Cub
- F-2, G-2, H-2
- Taylor J-2 Cub (later Piper J-3 Cub)
- Taylor-Young Model A.
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Taylorcraft Model B
- BC, BL, BF, BC-12, BL-12, BF-12
- Model C, not used due to risk of confusion with Plus C
from Taylorcraft Airplanes (England) Limited - Taylorcraft Model D.
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Taylorcraft F.
- F-19, F-21A Sportsman, F-21B, F-22
Web links
literature
- Mike Jerram: For business and pleasure - Part one . In: Airplane Monthly April 1987, pp. 188-191
- Mike Jerram: For business and pleasure - Part two . In: Airplane Monthly May 1987, pp. 274-277
- Mike Jerram: For business and pleasure - Part three . In: Airplane Monthly June 1987, pp. 328-330