Roche published his engineering ideas for the aircraft in Aerial Age Weekly and Slipstream Monthly magazines.

The aircraft used a triangular cross-section welded steel tube fuselage, with wood wings, was fabric-covered, and used wire bracing throughout.

[1] The Aeronca C-2, powered by a tiny two-cylinder engine, made its first flight in October[2] 1929, with its public debut in St. Louis in February 1930.

[citation needed] The C designation derived from the fact that Aeronca had earlier been formed as the Cincinnati Aeronautical Corporation,[3] Equipped with only four instruments (altimeter, oil temperature, oil pressure, and tachometer),[2] a stick, and rudder pedals (brakes and a heater at extra cost), the C-2 was priced at a low $1,555 (later US$1,245),[2] bringing the cost of flying down to a level that a private citizen could perhaps reach.

[4] Aeronca sold 164 of the economical C-2s at the height of the Great Depression in 1930-1931, helping to spark the growth of private aviation in the United States.

A can of gasoline was handed up from a speeding Austin automobile to a C-2 pilot, (who hooked it with a wooden cane) during a 1930 air show in California.