The Cub that got away

Clarence Gilbert Taylor, a self-taught engineer from Rochester, New York, designed the original Taylor Cub in 1931 at Bradford, Pennsylvania. One of his investors was an oilman named William Piper, who bought out Taylor’s share; the company became Piper Aircraft and the Cub became Piper’s. Taylor vowed to build a better personal aeroplane and in 1935 formed the Taylor-Young Airplane Company, renamed Taylorcraft Aviation Corporation in 1939. In 1936 it moved to Alliance, Ohio, into a former biplane factory the town offered rent-free for six months.

Grasshoppers and Austers

The Taylorcraft was a simple high-wing, side-by-side two-seater, and the basic design has hardly changed since 1936. In the Second World War the US Army bought it as the L-2 Grasshopper, of which 1,984 were built, a name coined after a general watched one bounce in to land. Across the Atlantic the British subsidiary at Thurmaston, Leicestershire, developed it into the Auster, about 1,630 of which flew as air observation posts, directing artillery for British and Canadian gunners.

Fire, bankruptcy, revival

Peace was less kind. A fire at Alliance halted production in autumn 1946 and the company went bankrupt. Taylor bought the assets in 1949 and restarted at Conway, Pennsylvania, but built few aircraft. Later owners revived the F-19 Sportsman in 1971, moved to Lock Haven in 1985 and went bust again in 1986, and in 2008 the company was repossessed and its type certificates put up for sale.

Factories

• Alliance works · Alliance, Ohio — Former Hess-Argo factory; production halted by fire, 1946
• Thurmaston works · Thurmaston, Leicestershire, England — Taylorcraft Aeroplanes (England), builder of the Auster
• Lock Haven plant · Lock Haven, Pennsylvania — 1985–1986

People

• C. G. Taylor · founder and designer — Designed the original Taylor Cub in 1931
• General Innis P. Swift · US Army cavalry commander — Coined the name Grasshopper