William T. Piper, Sr. was a dynamic president of Piper Aircraft during the period of the late1930’s through 1960’s and as such was very influential in aviation. In the book Mr. Piper and his Cubs, he relates that as each of his sons would be home from college, during the summer in the middle 1930’s, Mr. Piper would provide his sons with a new Taylor J-2 Cub. Instructions were to go forth through the country side demonstrating the airplane and barnstorm, by hopping passengers, to earn money to support himself and the Cub. He was not to return before the end of the summer, or until he had sold the Cub. One son, Tony Piper, came to Mexico Farms during the summer of 1936 with a Taylor Cub especially painted a non-standard bronze and cream color, with his name ‘Tony’ on the cowling. Using Mexico Farms as a base Tony visited various surrounding communities and operated from nearby farm fields while offering passengers flights. During this time the Taylor Aircraft Company had a liberal factory sponsored financing plan that allowed one to purchase a Taylor J-2 Cub for about $1,265. Ronald ‘Torque’ Landis and four others were able to raise the down payment to purchase the ‘Tony’ Cub. Torque Landis, who was known as ‘Mr. Aviation’ locally, used this airplane to hop passengers and instruct many student pilots, including several prominent citizens. He also allowed them to rent the Cub for solo flying, thereby making money for the monthly payments. Some individuals who flew the Tony Cub included Robert Deffibaugh, Ben Franklin, Russell Carder, William Geppert, Bill Getty, Jack Delagrange, William Keiling, and Joe Brown. The Cub paid its way for a few years even though Torque was not an authorized flight instructor and his soloed pilots were aerial outlaws, not recognized by the Civil Aeronautics Authority as licensed pilots. Probably the Cub was not in license either as it was never hangared and as a club plane was operated in a haphazard manner.
Joe Brown, who learned from Torque, related that while Landis was performing snap rolls with the right window and door open, the window was torn off. On another occasion while attempting to land on runway 27 in front of an approaching thunderstorm, high winds blew the Cub over coming to rest upside down on the tall field corn growing on the north side of the runway, but causing little damage to the aircraft. The broken propeller from this aircraft has been retained by the author as a long standing conversation piece. The four cylinder Continental Engine of 37 hp produced only marginal power at best and after many hours of hard use would not rev up to full rpm take off power. Once Bobby Deffinbaugh persisted in a long take off run and forced the Cub into the air, then stall-mushed across the road at the end of runway 27 crashing onto a fence post that came through the floor of the fuselage between his legs. In 1940, while preflighting the Cub, Joe Brown stated he discovered that the fuselage longeron tubings close to the tail were rusted. At the time Joe was only a student pilot and this was called to the attention of Bogus Johnson to solicit his advice as to whether Joe should fly the craft. Bogus noted the rusting and potential dangerous situation and used his foot, with its heavy work shoe, to stomp the weakened longeron tubing, crushing the aft end of the fuselage, thereby rendering the Cub obviously non-airworthy and effectively ending the life of the Tony Cub.
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Wings Over Cumberland 