The Piper PA-16 Clipper is an extended fuselage model of the PA-15 Vagabond.Plane and Pilot: ''1978 Aircraft Directory'', page 59. Werner & Werner Corp Publishing, 1978. Both models were designed in 1947 for the same reason –

Piper Aircraft Piper Aircraft, Inc. is a manufacturer of general aviation aircraft, located at the Vero Beach Regional Airport in Vero Beach, Florida, United States and owned since 2009 by the Government of Brunei. Throughout much of the mid-to-late 20th cent ...

found itself in dire financial straits and needed to create new, competitive models using existing parts and tooling. The result was the Vagabond, essentially a side-by-side version of the

tandem Tandem, or in tandem, is an arrangement in which two or more animals, machines, or people are lined up one behind another, all facing in the same direction. ''Tandem'' can also be used more generally to refer to any group of persons or objects w ...

J-3 Cub credited with saving the company.

Design and development

The PA-16 Clipper is a stretched and refined version of the Vagabond intended to seat four people (or "two-and-a-half to three" as often told by Clipper pilots). It is equipped with an extra wing tank, added doors to accommodate the new seating, and a

Lycoming O-235 The Lycoming O-235 is a family of four-cylinder, air-cooled, horizontally opposed, piston aircraft engines that produce , derived from the earlier O-233 engine.Textron Lycoming: ''Operator's Manual, Textron Lycoming Aircraft Engines, Series O-2 ...

, the same engine that would later power the

Cessna 152 The Cessna 152 is an American two-seat, fixed- tricycle-gear, general aviation airplane, used primarily for flight training and personal use. It was based on the earlier Cessna 150 incorporating a number of minor design changes and a slightl ...

. The PA-16 Clipper retained the control sticks that had up to that point been common in aircraft derived from the "Cub" family. In 1949, the Clipper sold for $2995. The average four-place airplane on the market at that time cost over $5000. Only 736 Clippers were built in the one year of production before Piper changed to the

Piper PA-20 Pacer The PA-20 Pacer and PA-22 Tri-Pacer, Caribbean, and Colt are an American family of light strut-braced high-wing monoplane aircraft built by Piper Aircraft from 1949 to 1964. The Pacer is essentially a four-place version of the two-place PA ...

Pan Am Pan American World Airways, originally founded as Pan American Airways and more commonly known as Pan Am, was an airline that was the principal and largest international air carrier and unofficial overseas flag carrier of the United States for ...

Airlines, which traditionally called its famous luxury airliners "Clippers", took offense at Piper using the name for its light aircraft. As a result of this pressure Piper further refined the model, adding wing flaps, further fuel tanks and replaced the control sticks with yokes. A more powerful

Lycoming O-290 The Lycoming O-290 is a dual-ignition, four-cylinder, air-cooled, horizontally opposed aircraft engine. It was first run in 1939, and entered production three years later. A common variant of the type is the O-290-G, a single-ignition model wh ...

125 hp engine was installed and this model became the

Operational history

Despite the low number of aircraft built, according to the

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is a Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government agency within the United States Department of Transportation, U.S. Department of Transportation that regulates civil aviation in t ...

, in April 2018 there were still 303 examples in service in the United States.

Specifications (PA-16)

References

;Notes ;Bibliography *Piper's Golden Age by Alan Abel, Drina Welch Abel, and Paul Matt *The Pilot's Guide to Affordable Classics by Bill Clarke *

External links

* {{Piper Cub aircraft 1940s United States sport aircraft High-wing aircraft Single-engined tractor aircraft

Clipper A clipper was a type of mid-19th-century merchant sailing vessel, designed for speed. The term was also retrospectively applied to the Baltimore clipper, which originated in the late 18th century. Clippers were generally narrow for their len ...

Aircraft first flown in 1947 Aircraft with fixed conventional landing gear Single-engined piston aircraft

Design and development

Operational history

Specifications (PA-16)

See also

References

External links