Article, photos and video: http://www.salisburypost.com
Monday, June 18, 2012
By Karissa Minn
Howard Miller and his sons Joe, Tom and Perry Miller are joining in “The Sentimental Journey” in Lock Haven, Pa. The celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Piper Club aircraft will take place Wednesday through Saturday.
“They say it’s the Cubs coming home, because that’s where they were made,” Tom said.
They will be flying a 1946 Piper J-3 Cub, a 1947 Cessna and a rare 1934 Taylor E-2 Cub. Paper maps and landmarks will guide the way on the 8-hour journey.
The Piper Cub came into the Miller family 60 years ago.
One day, Howard’s twin brother Harold landed at an airfield near Elkin and walked up to meet the owner.
“He saw the man had three pretty girls,” Howard said, “and he went back quite often.”
After a storm damaged one of the wingtips on the owner’s red and white airplane, he agreed to sell it to the twins in 1952. Both generations of Millers have repaired and restored it over the years.
The family bought the bright yellow Taylor Cub, Howard said, from a man who ran a flight school in Roanoke.
“We managed to get all of the pieces and put it together in ‘87 or ‘88,” he said.
He and his sons said Saturday that only three airplanes of that particular model are still flying.
“There are eight in the world,” Perry said, “and five of them are in museums.”
• • •
For nearly 70 years, the Miller men haven’t been able to keep their feet on the ground.
Joe, Tom and Perry all currently work for U.S. Airways. Joe and Tom are captains, and Perry works as a mechanic.
Their father inspired them to take to the skies, and in some cases taught them how. Howard was a commercial pilot for more than 30 years.
When they were 17 years old, Howard and Harold applied to train as pilots for the U.S. Army Air Force. They were accepted, but the war ended before they could go to flight school.
Both of them then went to school at Spartan School of Aeronautics in Oklahoma, where they took their first solo flights in June 1946.
Around that time, they found out that surplus Army Air Corps training airplanes were being sold off. They pooled their money and bought one for $382 - not including the repairs they had to make to get it in the air.
When Howard and Harold flew the plane home, they landed on a field at their older brother’s farm, Howard said.
After deciding that the land would make a good airstrip, the twins’ older brother, Jimmy, built a hangar at what is now Miller Airpark. The family later opened a flight school.
Both of the twins finished their training as pilots and mechanics, Howard said, and they signed on with Piedmont Airlines in 1953.
In 1975, Harold died of cancer at age 49. Howard continued to fly for about 15 more years until his retirement.
The family decided to keep the airport open, survey lots around the runway and make an airpark out of it. There are now 20 homes adjacent to the runway at Miller Airpark, and each one has its own hangar.
• • •
Tom, the middle sibling, said he remembers a telling photo from when he and his older brother Joe were 3 and 4 years old.
“We’re in this crabapple tree in front of the house,” he said. “Joe has an Eastern Airlines DC-3 in his hand, and I have a C-47 with Normandy stripes. That’s kind of how it turned out.”
Joe joined Piedmont Airlines (now U.S. Airways) in 1983, while Tom joined the Air Force for eight years before becoming a commercial pilot himself.
He now flies Airbus A320s, the same plane that Chelsey “Sully” Sullenberger flew in 2009 during his famous emergency landing in the Hudson River.
“I flew the same day he did, and from New York to Charlotte, too,” Joe said. “I just didn’t run into any geese.”
Joe plans to fly with his brother Tom on the journey to Lock Haven.
The youngest brother, Perry, went to work for the airline in 1984.
“I’m a mechanic for a living,” he said. “I just fly for fun, which is kind of better than flying for work.”
Perry and Tom both stop by Miller Airpark to help work on the airplanes. Joe said he visits regularly to fly around a bit and see the family.
“I used to take students as an instructor,” he said. “Now I just try to spend time with my dad and brothers as much as I can.”
When Joe gets back from Pennsylvania, he said the first thing he wants to do is regain his instructor’s license.
Then, he wants to teach his own teenage son how to fly.
Article, photos and video: http://www.salisburypost.com
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