The Taylor Chummy, originally the Arrowing Chummy is a light utility aircraft made by the Taylor Aircraft Company in the late 1920s. It was the fore-runner of the highly successful Piper Cub series.
The Chummy was designed by brothers C. Gilbert Taylor and Gordon Taylor in 1928. It is a braced, parasol-wing monoplane with two seats side-by-side in an open cockpit. Power was supplied by a tractor-mounted radial engine. Fixed, tailskid undercarriage was fitted, initially with a through-axle, but later with divided main units.[1] The name "Chummy" was chosen by Gilbert because of the side-by-side seating, an unusual feature in an era when tandem seating was the norm.
About nine examples were built, but the exact number is uncertain due to many records being lost in a 1937 factory fire. Additionally, some earlier Chummy models were rebuilt into later models.
On April 24, 1928, Gordon Taylor crashed a Chummy at Ford Airport, Dearborn, Michigan.[2] His passenger, Aaron Rosenbleet, was killed instantly, and Taylor died of his injuries shortly after reaching hospital.[2] Gilbert witnessed the crash.[2] The crash was attributed to the passenger's hand "freezing" on the control stick, and subsequent Chummys included a spring-loaded safety mechanism that allowed the pilot in command to override the other set of controls.
One of the C-2s built had a wing modified with a seven-degree, variable-incidence wing for entry into the Guggenheim Safe Airplane Competition.[3]
The Chummy was expensive and did not sell well, leading to the bankruptcy of the Taylor Brothers company in 1930.[3]