Piper Clipper

Off-road Airplane

As mentioned in yesterday’s post at https://eskildoodle.com/2026/08/03/tipi-rings/, I spent a lot of time in the 1970’s and 1980’s flying around in this Piper Clipper airplane. It cruised over plains, explored deserts, and surfed wind currents over the mountains, frequently landing on anything but an established airport. Memories of those great adventures remain vivid to thisContinue reading “Off-road Airplane”

Tipi Rings

While living in southwestern Wyoming in the 1980’s I spent a lot of time exploring the area in my Piper Clipper airplane. It was a cousin to the Piper Cub, and I liked to refer to it as my “off-road airplane.” While skimming over the badlands southwest of Green River, I saw these “tipi rings,”Continue reading “Tipi Rings”

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”