Myrna CG Mibus - Idyllwild

I'm happy to share that I've had another feature story published in Piper Flyer Magazine - The Practical Piper Pacer. Cover and center title spread of The Practical Piper Pacer My first Piper Flyer article,   Airshow Entertainer: Lowell White’s Vagabond – A Piper Vagabond Finds Its Way Home , was published back in November 2014. Writing for Piper Flyer was a great experience so I was thrilled when editor Heather Skumatz contacted me to see if I wanted to write an article on Piper Pacers for the magazine. For a moment  I considered passing up the assignment because my schedule at the time was super busy and the deadline just two weeks away. But the idea of writing about Pacers - that's the kind of airplane I own and know so well -  was way too tempting. So, instead of passing up the opportunity, I asked Heather if I could write the story from the first person perspective (primarily to save time) and bump out the deadline a few days. She said yes to both so I g...

This morning we flew our Piper Pacer to a fly-in breakfast in Shell Lake, Wisconsin. We like attending these fly-in events but haven't been to many in the last few years. Breakfasts are typically on a Saturday or Sunday morning and our weekends have gotten busier and busier as the kids have gotten older. But flying to Shell Lake is an annual tradition for us - and this morning the weather was absolutely perfect - so off we went. This morning, much of the ground below us was covered in fog making for some magical views of the world below.

With our trip to the Short Wing Piper Club convention in Saratoga Springs, New York right on the horizon, I realized it was past time for me to write down hotel reservation information and the like. I set off in search of a nice little notebook to write things in and discovered what I call The Airplane Notebook. It's a smallish, spiral bound, blue notebook with lined pages. The cover has a cut out with a little silver airplane in the window. I picked it up in about 2005 to use as a travel journal for our SWPC trip to Vancouver, Washington. I haven't taken The Airplane Notebook on every trip to the SWPC Convention but it has gone with us to most of them. It's also traveled with us on other trips, too, like a flying trip to Custer, South Dakota one October, as well as a trip I took via commercial airline back to Washington State to write about Stewart Systems, a environmentally friendly airplane paint system. The Airplane Notebook turned out to be more of a place to jo...

We're gearing up to go on our annual vacation to the Short Wing Piper Club convention. There's always a lot to do before heading out of town and this year we're feeling a little more behind than usual.    The Pacer's annual just got signed off tonight. Owen and I both have to get current in the plane before we head out on our big trip with the family to Saratoga Springs, NY. We have to pack, of course. We have to deliver Rocket the dog to the kennel, George Lucas the Guinea Pig to my parents' house and Zelda the Leopard Gecko to the reptile sitter. Owen's been busy with work and I have been, too. So we're all kind of running around doing our best to get ready to go and feeling more than a bit frazzled. Well, that's all the more reason to look for some Vacation State of Mind moments in our days! I snapped this shot of Ryan a couple of days ago because I realized that I was in a perfect Vacation State right at home. Here are the perfect little ...

I love to travel.  I love the adventure of going somewhere new, of finding fun little places for a cup of tea or perfect pastry. I enjoy meeting new people and exploring areas that are off the beaten path. Traveling gives me a chance to see the world and how other people live and come back home with a fresh perspective. I'm hardly lacking when it comes to travel adventures. I get the chance to go on a big trip to our Short Wing Piper Club convention each year ( like our trip to Utah last summer ) and have gone many, many other places and have been on amazing adventures. But the silly thing is I have this tendency to compare myself with people who get to travel more than I do. And when I compare I start thinking that I don't get to go anywhere. And that's a total lie. I've realized a few things lately: I've gone more places and seen more things than most people I am so lucky and truly blessed to have had so many great opportunities to travel! I have a great...

Ever since we bought our Piper Pacer, a classic tube and fabric four-passenger airplane, our family has loaded it up each summer and flown off to the annual Short Wing Piper Club convention. This airplane type-club convention has taken us all over the country - as far west as Vancouver, WA, as far east as Kingston, Ontario, Canada, and many points in between. We’ve attended every convention since 2003 - this year marks our tenth in a row! When we tell people we have a plane and fly it across the country they usually think we fly fast and get places quickly. They also often have this idea that our plane is big and expensive. In reality my Pacer is about the size of a VW Bug and a person can buy one for far less than they would spend on a full-sized SUV (I call our plane our SUV - ShortWing Utility Vehicle). And though we do average around 124 miles per hour we only fly about four to five hours per day so getting places still takes a long time. It's kind of squishy in the ...

We had a great time at the Short Wing Piper Club convention , the annual gathering of people who own, fly and simply admire " short wing" Piper airplanes. This year's convention was held in Spearfish, South Dakota. About 170 people attended and 42 Short Wings airplanes. The convention is full of social activities, some meetings and presentations and a lot of hanging out and looking at airplanes. It's the ninth convention our family has attended, last year we flew to Middletown, Ohio and other years have brought us to Vancouver, WA and as far northeast as Kingston, Ontario, Canada. We figure that since 2003 we've flown over 8,300 miles in our little Pacer just attending conventions. That's about 80 some hours in a little airplane. This year I, Owen and the kids did a presentation titled "Short Wing Family" at the convention. The secondary title, by the way, was "How to fly all over the country with your family and still like each other when ...

It's been a good Father's Day. We started things off with a short flight to Stanton Airfield for their Father's Day Fly-in, an annual event for the Mibus Family. Stanton is located near Northfield, Minnesota and the field holds a lot of history . Open since 1942 when it was owned by Carleton College to train pilots for WWII, the grass strip airfield is on the National Register of Historic Places. It's also one of our favorite places to fly to because it's close, there are two huge grass strips to land on and they have ice cream in the freezer and the old-fashioned pop machine. Pretty much a perfect airport, if you ask me. There's an exhibit about Stanton Airfield opening at the Northfield Historical Society on Thursday called " Historic Stanton Airfield - Where History Touches the Sky." It sounds like it will be a cool exhibit and I believe it will be up at the Historical Society until late August. Not sure about the details but you can f ind det...

Sunday we loaded up our 1955 Piper Pacer, took off from our airpark home and spent five hours cruising along at 7,500 feet above the ground to Middletown, Ohio. What’s in Middletown, Ohio? It’s the location of this year’s Short Wing Piper Club Convention and it’s where we’re spending our family vacation. This summer marks our eighth summer vacation spent with our Short Wing Family, a group of aviators who love vintage Piper airplanes, at the Short Wing Piper Club Convention .  2010 - Rose and Ryan strapped in and ready to go to Middletown, Ohio. Before you think we have some big fancy airplane, let me tell you that our Piper Pacer is not big or fancy. Inside we have less room than you would have in a VW Bug, the avionics (radios and navigation gear) are basic, the cruise speed relatively slow (about 123 mph) and the purchase price far less than most new Sport Utility Vehicles. We bought the plane eight years ago because we wanted an inexpensive, economic family airplane. New...