Aeronca, contracted from Aeronautical Corporation of America, located in Middletown,

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, is a US

manufacturer Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a ran ...

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power gen ...

components and

airframe The mechanical structure of an aircraft is known as the airframe. This structure is typically considered to include the fuselage, undercarriage, empennage and wings, and excludes the propulsion system. Airframe design is a field of aerospa ...

structures for

commercial aviation Commercial aviation is the part of civil aviation that involves operating aircraft for remuneration or hire, as opposed to private aviation. Definition Commercial aviation is not a rigorously defined category. All commercial air transport and ae ...

and the

defense industry The arms industry, also known as the arms trade, is a global industry which manufactures and sells weapons and military technology. It consists of a commercial industry involved in the research and development, engineering, production, and servi ...

, and a former aircraft manufacturer. From 1928 to 1951, the company was a major producer of

general aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations with the exception of commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services ...

aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines ...

, and also produced the engines for some of their early designs.Harris, Richard,
Aeronca: Birth of the Personal Plane
" ''AAHS Journal,'' Summer 2007, vol.52, #2,

American Aviation Historical Society The American Aviation Historical Society (AAHS) is a non-profit organization "dedicated to the preservation and dissemination of he history ofAmerican aviation.""AAHS Mission," Winter 2019, ''AAHS Journal,'' vol.64, no.4, page 242, retrieved May 1 ...

Harris, Richard,
Aeronca/Champion History: Beyond the Bathtub -- Chiefs, Champs & Citabrias
" from articles by Richard Harris first appearing in ''In Flight USA,'' 2003-2004, condensed on author's website. Aeronca is now (2011) a division of

Magellan Aerospace Magellan Aerospace Corporation is a Canadian manufacturer of aerospace systems and components. Magellan also repairs and overhauls, tests, and provides aftermarket support services for engines, and engine structural components. The company's busin ...

, producing aircraft, missile, and space vehicle components at the same location adjacent to Middletown's

Hook Field Municipal Airport Middletown Regional Airport, also known as Hook Field, is a city-owned public-use airport located two nautical miles (3.7 km) north of the central business district of Middletown, a city in Butler County, Ohio, United States. The airport w ...

History

Origins

The Aeronca Aircraft Corporation was founded November 11, 1928, in

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

. Backed by the financial and political support of the prominent Taft family and future Ohio senator

Robert A. Taft Robert Alphonso Taft Sr. (September 8, 1889 – July 31, 1953) was an American politician, lawyer, and scion of the Republican Party's Taft family. Taft represented Ohio in the United States Senate, briefly served as Senate Majority Lead ...

who was one of the firm's directors, Aeronca became the first company to build a commercially successful

. When production ended in 1951, Aeronca had sold 17,408 aircraft in 55 models. AeroncaC-2CF-AOR

Production began with the Jean A. Roche-designed

Aeronca C-2 The Aeronca C-2 is an American light monoplane designed by Jean A. Roche and built by Aeronca Aircraft. Development Roche Monoplane Jean A. Roche was a U.S. Army engineer at McCook Field airfield in Dayton, Ohio. Roche developed an aircraft ...

monoplane A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing confi ...

, often called the "Flying Bathtub", in

1929 This year marked the end of a period known in American history as the Roaring Twenties after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 ushered in a worldwide Great Depression. In the Americas, an agreement was brokered to end the Cristero War, a Catholic ...

. The next major model was the

Scout Scout may refer to: Youth movement *Scout (Scouting), a child, usually 10–18 years of age, participating in the worldwide Scouting movement **Scouts (The Scout Association), section for 10-14 year olds in the United Kingdom **Scouts BSA, sectio ...

1937 Events January * January 1 – Anastasio Somoza García becomes President of Nicaragua. * January 5 – Water levels begin to rise in the Ohio River in the United States, leading to the Ohio River flood of 1937, which continues into Fe ...

, a two-seater, which was developed into the

Chief Chief may refer to: Title or rank Military and law enforcement * Chief master sergeant, the ninth, and highest, enlisted rank in the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force * Chief of police, the head of a police department * Chief of the boa ...

and

Super Chief The ''Super Chief'' was one of the named passenger trains and the flagship of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. The streamliner claimed to be "The Train of the Stars" because of the various celebrities it carried between Chicago, Ill ...

the next year. The

Ohio River flood of 1937 The Ohio River flood of 1937 took place in late January and February 1937. With damage stretching from Pittsburgh to Cairo, Illinois, 385 people died, one million people were left homeless and property losses reached $500 million ($10.2 billion ...

at the

Lunken Airport Cincinnati Municipal Airport – Lunken Field (Cincinnati Municipal Lunken Airport) is a public airport in Cincinnati, Ohio, three miles (5 km) east of Downtown Cincinnati. It is owned by the city of Cincinnati and serves private aircr ...

resulted in the entire airport area being washed away. Aeronca's factory was destroyed, along with the tooling and almost all of the very early blueprints and drawings. As a result, two years later the decision was made to move out of the floodplain to

Middletown, Ohio Middletown is a city located in Butler and Warren counties in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Ohio, about 35 miles (47 km) north of Cincinnati. The population as of the 2020 census was 50,987. It is part of the Cincinnati metropo ...

. By October of 1940 the plant had to expand by to keep up with production demands.

World War II

The Defender, a tandem trainer version of the Chief with a higher rear seat, was used in training many of the

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...

s who flew in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Several observation and

liaison aircraft A liaison aircraft (also called an army cooperation aircraft) is a small, usually unarmed aircraft primarily used by military forces for artillery observation or transporting commanders and messages. The concept developed before World War II and ...

designs were also produced during and after the war, seeing extensive front line use, including the L-3/

O-58 The Aeronca L-3 group of observation and liaison aircraft were used by the United States Army Air Corps in World War II. The L-3 series were adapted from Aeronca's pre-war Tandem Trainer and Chief models. Design and development In 1941, the ...

. A glider-trainer version of the Defender, the

Aeronca TG-5 Aeronca, contracted from Aeronautical Corporation of America, located in Middletown, Ohio, is a US manufacturer of engine components and airframe structures for commercial aviation and the defense industry, and a former aircraft manufacturer. Fr ...

, replaced the engine with a third seat, facilitating the training of combat glider pilots destined to fly larger craft, such as the

Waco CG-4A Waco ( ) is the county seat of McLennan County, Texas, United States. It is situated along the Brazos River and I-35, halfway between Dallas and Austin. The city had a 2020 population of 138,486, making it the 22nd-most populous city in the st ...

. Aeronca's World War II designs—the Defender, TG-5 and L-3 variants—differed significantly from nearly all previous and subsequent Aeroncas by replacing Aeronca's traditional three-

longeron In engineering, a longeron and stringer is the load-bearing component of a framework. The term is commonly used in connection with aircraft fuselages and automobile chassis. Longerons are used in conjunction with stringers to form structural ...

, triangular-cross-section fuselage with a ''four''-

, rectangular-cross-section fuselage for additional strength.

Postwar

In 1945, following the end of World War II, Aeronca returned to civilian production with two new models, the 7AC Champion and the 11AC Chief. While the Champ shared its tandem seating arrangement with the prewar tandem trainer—and the Chief shared its name and seating arrangement with the prewar Chief designs—both were new fresh paper designs and designed for production economy, sharing over 80% of the components. One of the very few aircraft manufacturers that used an assembly line production layout.Karant, Max,
Flying Check Pilot: The Aeronca Chief
," 'Flying Magazine,'' Dec., 1946.Sargent, Sparky Barnes,
A Honey of a Champion!: The Baker family's award-winning Aeronca
" ''Vintage Airplane,'' Dec., 2007, vol.35, #12, Experimental Aircraft Assn. Keyhoe, Donald E., Major, USAF (noted USAF test pilot),
Plane of the Month: The Aeronca Chief
" ''TRUE: The Men's Magazine,'' Sep., 1946. A benefit of the concurrent development was that the new designs had about 80% of their parts in common. Nevertheless, the tandem-seat Champ—resembling the extremely popular

Piper J-3 Cub The Piper J-3 Cub is an American light aircraft that was built between 1938 and 1947 by Piper Aircraft. The aircraft has a simple, lightweight design which gives it good low-speed handling properties and short-field performance. The Cub is Pi ...

—was favored by the market, evidenced by its outselling its sibling, the Chief, at a rate of 4 to 1. Between 1945 and 1951, nearly 8,000 Champions were manufactured; while over the same period, approximately 2,000 Chiefs were produced.

New ownership

Aeronca ceased light aircraft production in 1951, and in 1954 sold the Champion design to the new Champion Aircraft Corporation of

Osceola, Wisconsin Osceola is a village in Polk County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 2,568 at the 2010 census. Located mostly within the Town of Osceola, the village sits on the border with Minnesota, separated by the St. Croix River. It is along ...

, which continued building variants of the Champion as well as the derivative design, the

Citabria The Citabria is a light single-engine, two-seat, fixed conventional gear airplane which entered production in the United States in 1964. Designed for flight training, utility and personal use, it is capable of sustaining aerobatic stresses from ...

. The venerable aircraft design was acquired again by the

Bellanca Aircraft Company AviaBellanca Aircraft Corporation was an American aircraft design and manufacturing company. Prior to 1983, it was known as the Bellanca Aircraft Company. The company was founded in 1927 by Giuseppe Mario Bellanca, although it was preceded by p ...

in 1970 and again to

American Champion American Champion Aircraft Corporation, is a manufacturer of general aviation aircraft headquartered at the Rochester, Wisconsin airport. Founded in 1988 on the acquisition of the Champ, Citabria, Scout, and Decathlon, it has been producing repla ...

in 1988, where it remains in production. Aeronca purchased the

Longren Aircraft Corporation The Longren Aircraft Corporation was an airplane design and manufacturing firm founded in 1911 by pioneer aviator Albin K. Longren. From facilities in Topeka, Kansas, Longren produced numerous models of aircraft until its first bankruptcy in 1924. ...

in 1959. However, by 1965 it was nearly bankrupt and a new president, Alfred A. Handschumacher, was hired to return the company to profitability. In the early 1970s, Aeronca was contracted by

Bede Aircraft Bede Aircraft Corporation was founded by aeronautical engineer Jim Bede in Cleveland in 1961 to produce the BD-1 kit aircraft, which eventually became the American Aviation Corporation's AA-1. The company also created and produced a number of adva ...

to assemble its first Bede BD-5J Microjet—the world's smallest jet airplane—but, after its experiences with the prototype, Aeronca declined to be further involved with the program. In 1978 Aeronca planned to start aircraft production again with production of a prototype very light business jet, the

Foxjet ST600 The Foxjet ST600 was a small business jet under development in the United States in the late 1970s. Problems with development, particularly in finding a suitable powerplant, caused the project to be abandoned before any substantial work on the p ...

. The project was eventually cancelled due to lack of WR-44 engine availability.

Fleet Aerospace Fleet Aircraft was a Canadian manufacturer of aircraft from 1928 to 1957. In 1928, the board of Consolidated Aircraft decided to drop their light trainer aircraft and sold the rights to Brewster Aircraft. Reuben H. Fleet founded Fleet Aircraft in ...

launched a successful hostile takeover of the company in 1986. Aeronca now builds components for aerospace companies including

Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product ...

Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense technology company. With 90,000 employees and an annual revenue in excess of $30 billion, it is one of the world's largest weapons manufacturers and military techn ...

, Lockheed and

Airbus Airbus SE (; ; ; ) is a European Multinational corporation, multinational aerospace corporation. Airbus designs, manufactures and sells civil and military aerospace manufacturer, aerospace products worldwide and manufactures aircraft througho ...

. In its 23-year history as a general aviation and military aviation manufacturer, Aeronca produced 17,408 aircraft spanning 55 different models.

Products

Aircraft

Missiles

GT-1 (missile) The GT-1 (Glide Torpedo 1) was an early form of stand-off weaponry developed by the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. Intended to deliver an aerial torpedo at a safe range from the launching aircraft, the weapon proved successful ...

Engines

Aeronca E-107 The Aeronca E-107 was one of the first low-cost reliable engines of the post-World War I era. Design and development The E-107A was a production aviation flathead engine designed to replace a Morehouse engine on the first prototype of the Aero ...

Aeronca E-113 The E-113 was a small flat-twin piston engine developed by Aeronca for use in some of their light aircraft. It was an overhead valve development of the flathead configuration E-107. Design and development Originally fitted with a single ignit ...

References

Notes

Bibliography

"Aeronautical Corporation of America (Aeronca)"
by Roger Guillemette, ''US Centennial of Flight Commission'', retrieved 20 January 2006.

External links

Aeronca Aviators Club
started by Joe Dickey. Has Quarterly Newsletter
National Aeronca Association
associated with the original Aeronca factory.
Aeronca Aircraft History Museum
Director Todd Trainor, supporting various models of the aircraft.
Aeronca Club of GermanyAeronca Club of Great BritainFearless Aeronca Aviators
a very popular Aeronca email list. {{American Champion Aviation in Ohio Manufacturing companies established in 1928 Companies based in Ohio Aircraft manufacturers of the United States Aircraft engine manufacturers of the United States Middletown, Ohio 1928 establishments in Ohio