Aeronca C-2

The Aeronca C-2 is an American light monoplane designed by Jean A. Roche and built by Aeronca Aircraft. Roche, an Army engineer at McCook Field in Dayton, Ohio, had built a prototype of his stable design that first flew in 1925, and the rights to it were sold to Aeronca in 1928 as the basis for the C-2. Powered by a tiny two-cylinder engine, the C-2 made its first flight in October 1929 and its public debut in St. Louis in February 1930. Its open-pod fuselage earned it the nickname the Flying Bathtub. With only four instruments and a low price of $1,555, later $1,245, it brought flying within reach of private citizens, and Aeronca sold 164 of them in 1930 and 1931 at the height of the Great Depression, helping to spark the growth of private aviation in the United States.