Piper Clipper

The Winds Beneath My Wings

It seemed strange to look down on from an altitude so easily attained by an airliner upon mountains that my Piper Clipper had struggled to fly over so many decades earlier. Though on its own power, the Clipper could only reach about 11,000 feet with two persons aboard, winds rising upslope against the mountains couldContinue reading “The Winds Beneath My Wings”

Of Mountains, Wings, and Dreams

Above: Piper Clipper and I on Tieton airstrip at Rimrock Lake in the Washington Cascades. Below: Tieton airstrip and Rimrock Lake seen from above thirty years later. What rag-winged, tail-dragger pilot hasn’t dreamed of mountain flying and landing on remote grass airstrips. There’s a bit of bush pilot in most of us, and it didn’tContinue reading “Of Mountains, Wings, and Dreams”

This is the airplane that flew over the mountains on the brink of winter in yesterday’s blog, and is the airplane that I truly learned to fly in. It was built in 1949 and was simple, rugged, and functioned like an airborne jeep. I flew it in and out of hayfields and a golf courseContinue reading “Piper Clipper”