Aeronca Chief family

The Aeronca K series, Aeronca Chief, Aeronca Super Chief, Aeronca Tandem, Aeronca Scout, Aeronca Sea Scout, Aeronca Champion and Aeronca Defender were a family of American high-winged light touring aircraft, designed and built from the late 1930s.

Design and development

Aeronca was noted for producing light side-by-side two-seat touring aircraft since the introduction of the Aeronca C-2 in 1929. A more refined aircraft with an improved undercarriage and steel tube wing bracing struts in place of wires, was developed in 1937 as the Aeronca K, powered by a 42 hp (31 kW) Aeronca E-113 engine, beginning the long line of Aeronca high wing touring, training, military liaison and observation aircraft of the 1930s and 1940s. The K series was powered by a variety of 40 hp (30 kW) to 50 hp (37 kW) Aeronca, Continental, Franklin or Menasco engines.

Consumer demand for more comfort, longer range and better instrumentation resulted in development of the Aeronca 50 Chief in 1938. Although little more than an incremental development of the K series the Model 50 heralded a new designation system used for the high-winged tourers, including the manufacturer and power rating of the engine, dropping the letter designation system. Thus the Aeronca 65CA Super Chief' was powered by a 65 hp (48 kW) Continental A-65 with side-by-side seating and improvements over the 65C Super Chief. Other developments included tandem seating for use as trainer, liaison, observation aircraft or glider trainers as well as float-plane versions. Throughout the production life of the Aeronca Chief family the aircraft was improved incrementally, from a rather basic specification to a reasonably comfortable tourer with car-style interior.

Aeronca 11 Chief

The Aeronca Chief is a single-engine, two-seat, light aircraft with fixed conventional landing gear, which entered production in the United States in 1945.

Designed for flight training and personal use, the Chief was produced in the United States between 1946 and 1950. The Chief was known as a basic gentle flyer with good manners, intended as a step up from the 7AC Champion which was designed for flight training.

Like many classic airplanes, it has a significant adverse yaw, powerful rudder and sensitive elevator controls. It had a well-appointed cabin, with flocked taupe sidewalls and a zebra wood grain instrument panel. There was never a flight manual produced for the 11AC or 7AC series airplanes, as a simple placard system was deemed enough to keep a pilot out of trouble.

Production history

The model 11 Chief was designed and built by Aeronca Aircraft Corporation. While it shared the name "Chief" with the pre-war models, the design was not a derivative. Rather, the post-war 11AC Chief was designed in tandem with the 7AC Champion ("Champ")—the Chief with side-by-side seating and yoke controls, and the Champ with tandem seating and joystick controls. The intention was to simplify production and control costs by building a pair of aircraft with a significant number of parts in common; in fact, the two designs share between 70% and 80% of their parts. The tail surfaces, wings, ailerons, landing gear, and firewall forward—engine, most accessories, and cowling—are common to both airplanes. The Chief and the larger Aeronca Sedan also share selected parts, the control wheels, some control system parts, rudder pedals and control systems, so parts passed from plane to plane to save costs. Production costs and aircraft weights were tightly controlled and Aeronca was among the first to use a moving conveyor assembly line, with each stage taking about 30 minutes to complete.

Aeronca Aircraft

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. In the 1930s and 1940s, the company was a major producer of general aviation aircraft, and also produced the engines for some of their early designs.

Aeronca has now become a division of Magellan Aerospace, producing aircraft, missile, and space vehicle components at the same location adjacent to Middletown’s Hook Field Municipal Airport.

History

Origins

The Aeronca Aircraft Corporation was founded November 11, 1928 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Backed by the financial and political support of the prominent Taft family and future Ohio senator Robert A. Taft who was one of the firm's directors, Aeronca became the first company to build a commercially successful general aviation aircraft. When production ended in 1951, Aeronca had sold 17,408 aircraft in 55 models.

Chief

Chief may refer to:

Title or rank

Aircraft

Media

Literature