[4] Piper, often called the "Henry Ford of Aviation", firmly believed a simple-to-operate, low-cost, private airplane would flourish, even in the darkest depths of the Great Depression.

On March 16, 1937, a fire destroyed the Bradford Piper factory and the company relocated to an abandoned silk mill in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania.

[6] Piper continued operations in Lock Haven throughout World War II, building military versions of its J-3 Cub as the L-4 Grasshopper.

Almost 7,800 of the 35,000 civil aircraft built in the United States that year were Pipers, but a strike led to a shortage of steel tubing, interrupting production, and 1,900 workers had to be suspended as a result.

[12] In 1948, with two thirds of its workforce laid off, Piper only lost $75,000, but it found itself no longer the leader in a shrinking market, falling behind Cessna, which itself only delivered 1,600 aircraft; the Ponca City factory was closed.

[13] The outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 helped to stimulate production at Piper, which again won large orders for military versions of the Cub.

[13] In its business planning following the war, it became clear the Lock Haven facility would not support larger manufacturing efforts, and in 1955 it acquired rights to property at the Vero Beach Municipal Airport.

[14] In 1960, the line of Piper aircraft consisted of agricultural and two-passenger variants of the Super Cub, the Caribbean, Colt and Tri-Pacer, two versions of the PA-24 Comanche, the Pawnee, the Apache and its new larger derivative the Aztec.

[23] The Lock Haven facility was nearly destroyed in 1972 when torrential rains from Hurricane Agnes caused the Susquehanna River to flood in June.

The manufacturing plant was flooded to a depth of 16 feet (4.9 m), effectively destroying about 100 aircraft and causing an estimated $23 million in damage.

[24][25] Much of the tooling necessary for production of several designs, including the Aztec, Navajo, and Comanche, was also destroyed,[citation needed] and the Piper PA-31T Cheyenne program received a setback when the prototype was damaged just after the Federal Aviation Administration awarded it Type Certification.

[27] After the flood, Piper gave 32 written-off PA-28s, PA-31s and PA-23 Aztecs to NASA, which used them for crash tests at the Langley Research Center, using a rig originally built to simulate spacecraft landings on the moon for the Apollo program.

In 1991 the Lakeland, Florida factory was sold and closed and by July that year the workforce had shrunk to 45; with only $1,000 in available cash remaining, Piper filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after a proposed takeover by competing French manufacturer Socata failed over the issue of product liability.

[42] In December 2008, the company announced it would defer the $10 million incentive that required hiring 400 new workers by 2012 for the PiperJet project and retain 1,417 employees through 2015.

Piper spokesman Mark Miller stated company regretted the pain caused by the layoffs and indicated the employees would be rehired when the economy improves.

During his four years at Piper, Bass oversaw development of the PiperJet, the Meridian G1000 and the Matrix, and negotiated a new business partnership with Honda.

[51] On 2 November 2009, company president John Becker announced his resignation effective 1 December 2009 "to pursue other career opportunities".

[52][53] On 4 January 2010, the company announced Boeing subsidiary Aviall would act as Piper's sole global parts distributor.

At the same time, executive vice president Randy Groom also resigned from the company and it was announced that the Piper Altaire program was "under review".

[57] Only one week later, on 24 October 2011, Piper Aircraft announced it had "indefinitely suspended" all work on the Altaire project and would be laying off 150 of its 850 employees, plus 55 contract workers, due to the program's cancellation.

[58] In December 2011, Piper announced it was attempting to renegotiate the 2008 deal it had made with the state of Florida and Indian River County for incentives.

[60] In July 2015 the company announced it was laying off 15-20% of its workers, about 150 people, as sales were faltering amongst world markets, especially Asia, Latin America and Europe.

The PA-23 Apache was one of the first aircraft associated with the term "air taxi", although it was superseded in that role by faster and more spacious designs from competitors Beechcraft and Cessna.

Variously named Cherokee Six, Lance, and Saratoga, these were available as both fixed- and retractable-gear models and also with normally aspirated, fuel-injected, and turbocharged engines.