1939 Taylorcraft BL-65

Self-taught engineer Clarence Gilbert (C. G.) Taylor designed the Taylorcraft series to be his own version of a basic, light, two-seat aircraft. The Taylorcraft Aviation Corporation was the third aircraft company founded by Taylor. He first founded Taylor Brothers Aircraft Corporation in Rochester, NY with his brother, Gordon, in 1926. After Gordon’s death in a 1928 plane crash, Taylor moved to Bradford, PA and opened Taylor Aircraft with the support of the community and local investors. C.G. then designed the Taylor J-2 Cub to be a stable, easy-to-fly light airplane. After design disagreements, investor William Piper bought out Taylor and Piper changed the name to the Piper Aircraft Corporation.  

After his tumultuous fallout with Piper, Gilbert Taylor organized the Taylorcraft Aviation Company in Ohio to compete with the Cub. However, Taylor’s lost control of this company by late 1938 when stiff competition in the small plane market coupled with a fire at the Taylorcraft factory caused financial problems. In October 1938, the Fairchild Aviation Corporation saved Taylorcraft when it loaned the company $30,000 in exchange for 50,000 shares of stock. However, Fairchild also installed a new manager and Taylor was no longer in charge of the company. 

Design and Operation

The mission of the Taylor Aircraft Company (later renamed the Taylorcraft Aviation Corporation) was to build a better small plane than the renamed Piper J-3 Cub. The BL-65 was part of C.G. Taylor’s goal to outperform the Cub. It was called the BL-65 because it was the second model the company produced (the first was the A) and it had a Lycoming 65hp engine. Although the Cub and the Taylorcraft look very similar, there are some differences. Both airplanes have seats for 2 people, but in the Cub the passenger sits behind the pilot, while they sit side-by-side in the Taylorcraft. Additionally, Cub pilots used the standard control stick to fly the plane while Taylor used the then new idea of a control wheel, like a car’s steering wheel, for aileron and elevator control. In the air, the two aircraft performed very similarly. Despite the similarities, more than twice as many Cubs were produced than Taylorcrafts.

A side-by-side seating, high-wing monoplane, this Taylorcraft has been retrofitted by the museum’s restoration shop to become the museum’s “Imagination Plane.”  Visitors to the museum are encouraged to touch, explore, and sit in the cockpit of the blue 1939 aircraft.  Aspiring pilots can operate the controls to move the elevator, rudder and ailerons: turning and pulling the steering wheel control the elevator (pitch) and ailerons (roll) of the plane while the pedals control the rudder (yaw). The interior of one wing is exposed to illustrate the interior wing structure and the process of covering a wing with fabric.

Taylorcrafts at College Park Airport and Columbia Air Center

Primarily owned and flown by private pilots, Taylorcrafts are a light, basic plane made to be easy to fly. Taylorcrafts were flown at College Park Airport in the 1950’s and 60’s, and were probably owned by airport manager George Brinkerhoff for his flight school. 

A Taylorcraft plane was flown at the Columbia Air Center as early as 1945. As manager of the Columbia Air Center, John Greene reported 8 aircraft at the airport in 1945, including one Taylorcraft DCO-65. While not the exact same plane, this later version of the Taylorcraft design still maintained the its basic shape and lightness, but was reinforced to take the stress of flight training, as it was used as a trainer during World War II.