Piper PA-15 Vagabond
The Piper PA-15 Vagabond and PA-17 Vagabond are both two-seat, high-wing, conventional gear light aircraft that were designed for personal use and for flight training and built by Piper Aircraft starting in 1948. Development The PA-15 was the first post-World War II Piper aircraft design. It utilized much of the same production tooling that created the famous Piper Cub, as well as many of the Cub structural components (tail surfaces, landing gear, most of the wing parts). The Vagabond has a wing that is one bay shorter ( versus ) than that on the Cub, which led to the unofficial term describing the type: Short-wing Piper. This allowed the aircraft to be built with minimal material, design and development costs, and is credited with saving Piper Aircraft from bankruptcy after the war. The prototype PA-15 made its first flight on 3 November 1947, with deliveries of production aircraft beginning in January 1948. Vagabonds used a new fuselage with side-by-side seating for two instead of the Cub's tandem seating. The PA-17 Vagabond version features dual controls, enabling it to be used for pilot training. It has a bungee cord shock-absorbed landing gear (solid gear on the PA-15), and a Continental A-65