The International Cessna^® 170 Association

Would anybody have any idea why in 1954 my aircraft would have been sold to Piper Aircraft Corporation? I have been looking through the records and notice that my aircraft spent some time with Piper Aircraft Corporation as the owner in Lock Haven.

Corporate espionage?

I am not sure but it looks like it stayed there for 4 years, until being sold to a farm in Arizona. Looking through these records is pretty neat, this thing had like 20 owners everywhere from California, Canada, Arizona, Michigan, RI, NY, PA, Mass. and more. It looks like it was ground looped at least 3 maybe 4 times too. Lower front skins, doorposts, gearbox and right wing replaced 2 or 3 times.

As a bonafide Piper Cub/Super Cub fanatic/owner I think I have about every book written about Piper. Piper did purchase and/or rent competitors aircraft to evaluate and compare. None of my books say that they bought a Cessna 170 but they still might have. Quote from the book Cesssna Wings for the World: " To prevent everyone from detecting the new secret model, (the 172) we couldn't operate from Cessna Field, so a remote, hidden facility was scouted. Fortunately, an abandoned sod field was discovered 50 miles west of Wichita in Kingman, Kansas, with a barn/hanger hidden in trees on the south side,making it an ideal spot to operate from. To enhance secrecy, the first flight was made early on a Sunday morning, sneaking out and flying around the city Kingman, with Obed Wells flying chase in a C-170 to bring us back. We really felt that we had pulled it off. It wasn't untill many years later while I was visiting "Smitty" Smith, Chief of flight test at Piper Aircraft, that he showed me a picture of the "first" take-off! "

Actually, my spies tell me that Piper bought that C-170 for the use of their executives who didn't want to be seen in a Pacer.

There are many, perfectly-legitimate reasons that Piper might come into ownership of a Cessna.
It could have been taken-in on a trade.
It could have been involved in a failed FBO/flight-school which had financing from Piper.
It could have been involved in a repossession, either a private owner foreclosure, second-lien, Piper-financed take-over, ...the list could be endless.

Or it may simply have been that Piper needed a good, dependable airplane.

I myself prefer to believe that old man Pipers son wouldn't have been caught dead in one of those airplanes with a ferrous metal frame, covered with rags, and powered by one of those Lycoming vibrators. He had more class than that.

No BL. I've meet Bill Piper's son and he was Piper thru and thru to the end.