page_title: Piper Aircraft
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Piper Aircraft / History
caption_attribution_description: English: By 1972 the Lunar Landing Research Facility was no longer in use for its original purpose. The 400-foot high structure was swiftly modified to allow engineers to study the dynamics of aircraft crashes. The Impact Dynamics Research Facility is used to conduct crash testing of full-scale aircraft under controlled conditions. The aircraft are swung by cables from an A-frame structure that is approximately 400 ft. long and 230 foot high. The impact runway can be modified to simulate other grand crash environments, such as packed dirt, to meet a specific test requirement. In 1972, NASA and the FAA embarked on a cooperative effort to develop technology for improved crashworthiness and passenger survivability in general aviation aircraft with little or no increase in weight and with acceptable costs. Since then, NASA has "crashed" dozens of GA aircraft by using the lunar excursion module (LEM) facility originally built for the Apollo program.
context_page_description: Piper Aircraft, Inc. is a manufacturer of general aviation aircraft, located at the Vero Beach Municipal Airport in Vero Beach, Florida, United States and owned since 2009 by the Government of Brunei. Throughout much of the mid-to-late 20th century, it was considered to be one of the "Big Three" in the field of general aviation manufacturing, along with Beechcraft and Cessna.
  Between its founding in 1927 and the end of 2009, the company produced 144,000 aircraft in 160 certified models, of which 90,000 are still flying.
context_section_description: The company was founded as the Taylor Brothers Aircraft Manufacturing Company in September 1927 by brothers Clarence G. Taylor and Gordon A. Taylor in Rochester, New York. The company was renamed Taylor Brothers Aircraft Corporation in April 1928, shortly before Gordon Taylor died in an aircraft accident on April 24, 1928. The company was enticed to move to Bradford, Pennsylvania, with the promise of a larger facility and investment capital from local businessmen, including an initial investment of $400 from local oil industry engineer William T. Piper. The move was completed in September 1929.
caption: Piper PA-31 Navajo airframe used for crash testing by NASA after a 1972 flood inundated Piper's factory
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