Can anyone tell me what the vintage Piper Yoke emblem is supposed to be?

Tantalum

Tantalum

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San_Diego_Pilot
..so both our Aztec and Comanche in the club are of an older 1960s vintage, and both have the peculiar yoke emblem that I can't figure out

Is this a bird shooting into the sky with a snake in its mouth?
upload_2022-5-17_15-5-3.png

upload_2022-5-17_15-5-13.png

I don't have actual pictures from the plane but Google does a good enough job


There must be some story or explanation to this, maybe one of you on here will know? I couldn't find anything hunting online..
 
Your guess is as good as mine as to what that design is supposed to represent. But as far as I can find, it never appeared anywhere other than the yoke center medallions and instrument hole blank plugs on PA-23, PA-24 and PA-30 airplanes up to 1968/69. It was not in any Piper print advertising, nor did it appear on aircraft exteriors. It was on the yokes of the very first Apaches in 1954 and the first Comanches in 1958.

pa-23-150_1954_pnl_1203.jpg

The Aztec C, Comanche B and Twin Comanche B were the last models to have it.
 
Thanks @Pilawt! I can't for the life of me figure out what it's supposed to be.. however, I did continue down a rabbit hole and thought it might have something to do with Native American culture, IE, Aztec culture.

The closest thing I can find is the Aztec legend of the Snake and the Eagle, which is apparently where the city of Tenochtitlan was founded by seeing an Eagle perched on a cactus eating a snake

upload_2022-5-17_17-52-16.png

Maybe they dropped it as they felt it to be potentially in poor taste? It goes with Piper's theme of naming their craft after indigenous peoples... could also just be a coincidence
 
Maybe a worm, but it doesn’t look like a snake to me
 
The snake/eagle thing seems to make sense, but that yoke medallion was in the Apache six years before the Aztec was introduced. Hard to find anything offensive about that logo. (Oh, wait. This is 2022. Everything is offensive. :rolleyes: ). I think they probably just thought it was too art-deco for 1968, and when all low-wing Pipers had six-pack panel redesigns inspired by the '67 Arrow, they switched to the new rams-horn yokes and 'P' logo medallion.

pa-24-260_1969_pnl.jpg
 
Tantalum said:
Thanks @Pilawt! I can't for the life of me figure out what it's supposed to be.. however, I did continue down a rabbit hole and thought it might have something to do with Native American culture, IE, Aztec culture.

The closest thing I can find is the Aztec legend of the Snake and the Eagle, which is apparently where the city of Tenochtitlan was founded by seeing an Eagle perched on a cactus eating a snake

View attachment 106924

Maybe they dropped it as they felt it to be potentially in poor taste? It goes with Piper's theme of naming their craft after indigenous peoples... could also just be a coincidence
Click to expand...

I think this is close in that Piper is representing itself as an Eagle and a powerful and superior product.

What does an eagle and snake tattoo mean?

Eagle tattoos and snake tattoos are traditional symbols of power and superiority, with eagles representing authority over the competition. The eagle swallowing the snake signifies control, particularly that which is smaller than it — just like how an eagle will eat up a snake in the wild.
 
Piper created the yoke emblem out of respect for the Five Nations of Lock Haven, PA. Along the borderline of what is now PA and NY, there existed from time immemorial, a very powerful federation of Indians, composed of the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas, known as the Five Nations. Piper used the 5 stars to honor that lineage, along with a flying peace pipe.
 
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