June 16, 2007:  Situated in the former Piper engineering building, the Piper Aviation Museum is a modest affair.  But it has a few noteworthy exhibits.  Among them, this one of a kind PA-29 Papoose, a 1962 prototype aircraft.  Borrowing aspects of the Cherokee design (note the cowling and stabilator) this two seat experimental featured a fiberglass airframe and a sliding canopy.  It was ambitiously innovative for its time; perhaps too much so.  The FAA would not certify it.

June 16, 2007:  It would be sick and wrong NOT to take a photo of a J-3 Cub while visiting the Piper Museum, so here's the obligatory photo.  A beautiful airplane and, for me, symbolic of a simpler time when light aircraft operated off of turf runways without concern for temporary flight restrictions, threats of user fees, and a distrustful general public.

 

June 16, 2007:  Visitors to the museum will find this J-2 Cub, the progenitor of the venerable J-3, hovering above the other exhibit aircraft.

 

June 16, 2007:  Another noteworthy Piper Museum exhibit is this PA-12 Super Cruiser, "City of the Angels".  Along with its sister ship, the "City of Washington" (on display at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum), this aircraft flew around the world in 1947.  The "City of the Angels" was the lead aircraft in the flight of two and is considered the first light aircraft to be flown solo completely around the world.