WILLIAM THOMAS PIPER

Aviation's Most Durable Cub

TO aviators the world over, private aviation's most durable and legendary plane is the Piper Cub. The most durable Piper of all is William Thomas Piper, president and board chairman of Piper Aircraft Corp.. the Cub's maker. At 80, grey-thatched, stocky (5 ft. 9 in., 200 Ibs.) Bill Piper is the grand old man of private flying--yet he became a cub pilot only at 50 after making a career as a successful oilman. By pioneering in the small, cheap and easy-to-handle plane, he helped put flying within the reach of thousands who had never before had the money--or skills--to fly, and gave the businessman a new tool to increase his speed and mobility. This week Piper dedicated a new plant at its manufacturing complex at Vero Beach, Fla., where it will make a new $10,000 four-seat Piper Cherokee.

The U.S. fleet of private aircraft is already 35 times larger than the commercial airline fleet, and 30,000 small planes are used by business alone. In its 32 years. Piper has produced nearly 54,000 civilian planes, more than any other company. It now accounts for one-third of all private aircraft produced, although its chief competitors, Cessna and Beech, are ahead in dollar volume. Last year Piper sold $40 million worth of planes, ranging from its two-seat, single-engined Super Cub ($7,880) to its de luxe, twin-engined Aztec ($55,000). Though sales are holding up, Bill Piper expects profits to be down somewhat this year because of spending on research and new models.

BILL PIPER has turned over most of the company's day-to-day operations to his three sons--William Jr., Howard and Thomas--but he still keeps a firm hand on the stick. Up before 7 every day, he walks the mile from his small home to the company's offices in Lock Haven. Pa., hatless and overcoatless in all weather. Though he no longer singlehanded lifts Cubs off the ground, a feat he once liked to perform to amaze onlookers, he often pauses at the production line to lend a hand in hoisting a wing into position. He is dead set against liquor, tobacco, tea and coffee.

No swivel-chair man, Piper travels some 75,000 miles a year to extol his planes' virtues, sometimes gets so wound up that he forgets to stop. "A speech is like an airplane engine," he says. "It may sound like hell, but you've got to go on." He admits he is a poor pilot, points to this as proof that anyone can fly a Piper. He flew his own plane until four years ago. when, says Piper, "My son finally said to me, 'Dad, wouldn't it make a hell of an advertisement for Piper Aircraft if you cracked up?' So I decided to quit."

HE started out on a circuitous route to aviation after graduating from high school in Bradford, Pa. in 1898. After a short hitch in the Spanish-American War, he went to Harvard instead of Yale because his teetotaling father believed that there were fewer saloons in Harvard Square than in New Haven. Piper was a star hammer thrower, graduated cum laude in 1903. He spent the next eleven years as a construction engineer, went back to Bradford in 1914 and became a successful oil-well operator. When the Taylor Brothers Aircraft Corp. moved to Bradford, Piper became a director, though he had little interest in aviation.

Piper soon got interested. After the company went bankrupt during the Depression, he poured in his oil money to keep it going, learned to fly. He insisted that the company build a smaller, less expensive plane, presided over the creation of the first Cub. Price: $1,325. In 1936 Piper bought out Taylor, had hardly got started when the company's factory was destroyed by fire. Though only 5% insured. Piper said stoically: "At least we'll getm some publicity out of it."

Borrowing money to start up again. Piper moved to an abandoned silk mill in Lock Haven, set up the Piper Aircraft Corp. Cub sales rose from 22 in 1931 to 687 in 1937, when Piper took over as the No. 1 U.S. light-plane maker. Piper got a tremendous boost from the war. More than 5,000 easily maneuverable Pipers served as reconnaissance, liaison and ambulance planes. They became known to G.I.s as "flying Jeeps" and to the Germans as "hell raisers" because bombing raids often followed their reconnaissance flights. Piper, like other small-plane makers, was shoved into the red after the war by the bust of the small-plane boom, but soon bounced back.

He expects the small plane to become ever more important for hops between small cities that the big airlines cannot service economically, feels that business has just begun to realize the time-and money-saving advantages of flying.

''We haven't seen anything yet," he says. "I never really should have gotten into this business. But I did--and I found my judgment was excellent,"

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