On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: Eleven pipers piping. When I was a kid, I didn’t put much stock in some of the gifts touted by the song. Who wants a partridge in a pear tree or a trio of french hens? As for dancing ladies or milking maids, leaping lords and geese and swans, forget it. I did think that five golden rings might be a pretty valuable gift, given that I didn’t know that the song referred to ring-necked pheasants. While pheasants are good eating, I wasn’t much into gifts of food when I was growing up. I had, however, seen an incredible Black Hills Gold ring on the hand of a rich dude who had come to stay at Bo Clark’s guest ranch and I had to admit that the ring looked expensive. Five of them might be sold for enough money to do something serious.

However, my ears perked up at the thought of eleven pipers piping. In those days I hadn’t ever heard the bagpipes played and I didn’t know about them. These days almost every fire department in the country can muster at least a single piper to play Amazing Grace for a fire fighter’s funeral, and I’m sure that places with lots of Irish fire fighters like Chicago and New York had pipers when I was a kid, but I didn’t give bagpipes much of a though at all.

What I did know about was Piper airplanes. My father was a Piper dealer and there were always several Pipers in our hangers, although I’m sure we never had eleven at the same time. Nonetheless, the thought of eleven Pipers was enough to get my imagination whirring. I suppose that one might interpret the song to refer to the Piper PA-11, a variant of the Cub that fit between the J-3 and the PA-18 Super Cub. We’d had a few of them come through our airport and dad had bought and sold one or two. The original PA-11, with the 65hp engine just didn’t have the performance for the mountains where we worked and even the later versions with 90 hp were a bit short on power. By the time I can remember, the mainstay of our working airplanes were Super Cubs with 150 hp engines, sufficient to be used for fire patrol in Yellowstone National Park and the high country of the Beartooths.

In my mind, the PA-11 had another serious shortcoming. Unlike the J3, which was flown solo from the back seat, the seats were moved back in the PA-11, so my dad flew from the front seat. I don’t mind riding in the back seat, but the front seat is a lot more fun. After I grew and put on some weight my dad would occasionally fly from the back seat of a Super Cub when I was with him, though he flew solo from the front seat.

In my mind, however, 11 Pipers was eleven distinct airplanes. While I suppose one could imagine eleven of the same model, in my imagination. Eleven planes would mean at least one of each of the four mainstays of the Piper fleet at the time: The PA-18 Super Cub, the PA-22 Tri-Pacer, the PA-24 Comanche, and the twin engine PA-23 Apache. We had advertising cards that showed all four in flight together in four similar color schemes. Eleven Pipers made it possible to have them in different colors. We had sold Tri-Pacers in Green, Blue, and Red, so I was up for quite a bit of variation in colors and models. However, when I imagined 11 Pipers, there was always on that would be my favorite: A red and white Apache. There are still a few Apaches flying today and one of the most famous is the one owned by Sporty’s Pilot Shop in Batavia, Ohio. that one is Red, just like the plane of my dreams, and is featured in many of their training videos. It is hard to imagine, when looking at the design of contemporary airplanes how I might have thought that the rather stubby Apache looked so sleek and modern. I suppose it was the retractable landing gear, or perhaps the nose that while nowhere near as pointed as some modern airplanes, still looked sleek and fast to me.

I never did own any Piper, let alone an Apache. I did solo and earn my private pilot’s license in a PA-22 TriPacer. I continued to fly as a pilot until our children were approaching middle school age. We owned an airplane with partners for a while, the reality is that I never was qualified to fly a multi-engine retractable airplane, and I could not afford to maintain and use such an airplane even if one was given to me. General aviation is an expensive hobby. Furthermore it can be dangerous when pilots get rusty and push the boundaries of performance, weather, or experience. I have preferred to play it safe and continue to love to fly with qualified pilots, but don’t imagine myself to be the skilled pilot of my childhood fantasies.

In the meanwhile, Piper has gone on to faster and more expensive airplanes. The company is no longer located in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania and now manufactures its planes in Vero Beach, Florida. The flagship of the Piper fleet is the $4.3 million M700 Fury, which seems like a lot for personal transportation unless you compare it to the price of a $6 million fully equipped Pilatus PC-12.

So for this year, I’m reverting to the image of people playing bagpipes. Eleven would be fairly loud, so perhaps they could play outdoors, perhaps for a parade or on the top of a hill where there would be a good echo.

The big thing about the eleventh day of Christmas for me is that tomorrow will be the last day of Christmas. Epiphany Day is Monday and we’ll be off to a whole new season in a whole new year with whole new adventures ahead. I’ve toned down my fantasy life a lot since I was a kid. A ride in a fully restored PA-11 would be a pretty wonderful experience.