My husband met and knew
personally Mr. William T. Piper, of Piper Aircraft Co., during
trips to the factory in Lock Haven, PA. In connection with Mr.
Piper, an incident comes to mind. Sometime in the early 1940's
an experiment was tried at the Raven Rock Airport in Portsmouth,
OH. Mr. Piper, accompanied by some others from Lock Haven, were
on hand to see a Piper Cub cut its motor and land by parachute.
All went according to plan, except a crosswind drifted the plane
into some trees on a hillside, where it dangled, parachute and
all, until the pilot was rescued. (I don't recall how the plane
got down.) It was quite exciting and colorful at the time, but
loses some of its luster in telling. This experiment was for
some practical purpose in connection with the war effort.
This event was recounted by
my late mother, Eugenia M. Kenyon, in a letter dated
February 9, 1962, addressed to Tom Hamer, Aviation Editor of
the Huntington, WV Herald Dispatch.
William T. Piper (1881-1970),
known as "the Henry Ford of aviation," was the founder, eponym
and president of Piper Aircraft Corporation from its inception
in 1929 until 1970. The company had its origin in the Taylor
Brothers Airplane Manufacturing Company, founded in 1927. In
1930, the company filed for bankruptcy and William T. Piper
purchased its assets for $761. Piper believed that a
simple-to-operate, low-cost private airplane would flourish,
even in the depths of the Depression. The Piper J-3 Cub,
adapted from the Taylor J-2 Cub, was introduced in 1937 and
proved Piper right: a total of 19,888 J-3 Cubs were built until
production ceased in 1947. Prices ranged from $995 to $2,461
when new.
Production of Piper aircraft continued through the Second World War: at one point, the factory was completing one J-3 Cub every 20 minutes. After the war ended, Piper manufactured private aircraft until 1969, when the Piper family sold the business. Today, Piper Aircraft, Inc. is privately held and constructs jet- and propeller-driven aircraft at its facility in Vero Beach, FL.
Production of Piper aircraft continued through the Second World War: at one point, the factory was completing one J-3 Cub every 20 minutes. After the war ended, Piper manufactured private aircraft until 1969, when the Piper family sold the business. Today, Piper Aircraft, Inc. is privately held and constructs jet- and propeller-driven aircraft at its facility in Vero Beach, FL.
Raven Rock Airport was located
in Portsmouth, Scioto County, OH. The airport was in a valley
along the Ohio river below a local landmark named Raven Rock, an
oddly-shaped rock outcropping on a cliff. According to the
Cincinnati Aviation Heritage Society, the airport was apparently
used as early as 1912 by airships flying cross-country. It was
officially dedicated around 1928 and remained in operation until
1957.
With respect to the experiment
witnessed and described by my mother, although this particular
attempt was unsuccessful, it was a precursor of a
parachute-based aircraft recovery system developed 40 years
later.
In 1980 Boris Popov, of St.
Paul, MN, invented a parachute system designed to slowly lower
an airplane to the ground relatively safely for the pilot and
passengers. The idea came to Popov after he sustained injuries
in a 400-foot fall in a partly-collapsed hang glider. Popov's
ballistic recovery system [BRS] could be used in the event of
loss of control, failure of the aircraft structure or other
in-flight emergencies.
In Popov's system, a solid-fuel
rocket is used to pull the parachute out of its housing and
deploy the canopy within a few seconds.
Popov founded his company, now
known as BRS Aerospace, in 1980, and marketed his first model in
1982. It was intended to be attached to ultra-light aircraft.
In 1983, a pilot in Colorado survived an accident in the first
reported use of the system.
In 1998, the company collaborated with Cirrus Design and
received certification to market a ballistic recovery system for
the Cessna 172. These systems are now authorized for use in
many light, sport aircraft. According to a counter on the its
website, as of September 30, 2011, a total of 266 lives had been
saved by the use of BRS products.