Hi, my name is Jay Dixon. I am a retired helicopter pilot with 40 plus years of flying experience behind me. I’ve logged 21,400 hours of flight time, 800 of it in fixed wing, and I hold a FAA mechanic’s license.
My second oldest son is one sharp FAA mechanic with 10 years experience, six as an IA.
I was stationed at Ft. Bragg N.C. In the early to mid seventies, flying out of Simmons Army Air Field. It was about 5 miles from my home to Simmons by road, or less than one mile by animal trail through the Reservation. After a couple of years of going the long way to work, I talked myself into buying a small trail bike to take advantage the short cut. Three painful wrecks later, one of them involved uprooting a young pine tree, convinced me that I was not the biker type and, I should get rid of the two wheeler in the interest of self preservation. As luck would have it, I knew a guy who was trying to get rid of an airplane he kept at the Lumberton Airport some thirty miles away. This was the closest facility to Ft. Bragg where a young Warrant Officer could afford a tie down. Long story short, for a motorcycle and $600.00, I owned a 1953 Piper Tri Pacer, my first, and it was a barrel of fun.
Fast forward to two years ago. I think I have forever lost any memory of why Eric and I were in a hangar at the Abilene Municipal airport, looking at a disassembled Tri Pacer stuffed into the rafters, but we were. Eric was overheard running on about how much he wanted to get his private pilot’s license. The guy leasing the place said, ’if you think you can put it back together, I'll make the deal of the century for you.” Well, a quick check of the logs and it was all over, we were committed to making a 200 mile round trip to fetch our new toy home. Eric took his first flying lesson about three months later in the new plane.
Fast forward another couple of months, and low and behold, we were in another hangar, this time in Vernon Texas, looking at two disassembled and one fully assembled Tri Pacer, plus one Cherokee 180 disassembled, stripped, and ready for paint. We both heard opportunity knocking and wondered how difficult it would be to sell our first Tri Pacer with out losing money. It was wrong to worry because In less than a month the plane was sold with a tidy profit to boot. We only had to wonder if it was happy in Florida.
A few months ago we decided to take the risk and purchase all four planes from Vernon to start up a for profit company dedicated to the rescue of unloved small airplanes, especially Tri Pacers. But first, we needed a name to incorporate. Tri Pacers have long had their critics, mostly by people who have never experienced their superb handling or surprising performance. Even among this crowd, I doubt there’s anyone who can resist a small smile honoring the ageless ,gentle joke about the TriPacer’s appearance. And there you have it, welcome to Milking Stool Aviation Inc. at your service.
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