The Taylor Chummy , originally the Arrowing Chummy is a light utility aircraft made by the Taylor Aircraft Company in the late 1920s. It was the fore-runner of the highly successful Piper Cub series.
6-458: The Chummy was designed by brothers C. Gilbert Taylor and Gordon Taylor in 1928. It is a braced, parasol-wing monoplane with two seats side-by-side in an open cockpit. Power was supplied by a tractor-mounted radial engine. Fixed, tailskid undercarriage was fitted, initially with a through-axle, but later with divided main units. The name "Chummy" was chosen by Gilbert because of the side-by-side seating, an unusual feature in an era when tandem seating
12-510: The bankruptcy of the Taylor Brothers company in 1930. Data from "The Airplane Division" General characteristics Performance Ford Airport (Dearborn) Ford Airport in Dearborn, Michigan , United States, was one of the first modern airports in the world. It operated from 1924 to 1947. The site is now part of Ford Motor Company's Dearborn Proving Ground . The airport
18-569: The crash. The crash was attributed to the passenger's hand "freezing" on the control stick, and subsequent Chummys included a spring-loaded safety mechanism that allowed the pilot in command to override the other set of controls. One of the C-2s built had a wing modified with a seven-degree, variable-incidence wing for entry into the Guggenheim Safe Airplane Competition . The Chummy was expensive and did not sell well, leading to
24-455: The design of airports throughout the U.S. The original aircraft facilities were in use as part of the Ford testing facilities at the proving ground. However, the original (greatly modified) passenger terminal was demolished in 1961, and the remaining hangar, used as an experimental engine test facility since the late 1940s, was demolished in 2018. Only The Dearborn Inn , a hotel that was built across
30-425: Was about 360 acres (150 ha) in size. This airport saw many world and U.S. "firsts": the first U.S. airport hotel, the first concrete runways, the first U.S. scheduled passenger service, the first contracted airmail service, the first radio control for a commercial flight, and the first U.S. passenger terminal. The buildings were designed by architect Albert Kahn and are considered to have greatly influenced
36-440: Was the norm. About nine examples were built, but the exact number is uncertain due to many records being lost in a 1937 factory fire. Additionally, some earlier Chummy models were rebuilt into later models. On April 24, 1928, Gordon Taylor crashed a Chummy at Ford Airport , Dearborn, Michigan . His passenger, Aaron Rosenbleet, was killed instantly, and Taylor died of his injuries shortly after reaching hospital. Gilbert witnessed
#949050