Piper Colt back in Lock Haven after 61 years away

LOCK HAVEN, PA – It’s a story fit for retelling at this June’s Sentimental Journey to Cub Haven: a Piper Colt built in Lock Haven in 1961 on Thursday made a final flight back to its birthplace, a gift from owner Bob Carlisle of Medina, Ohio to the Piper Aviation Museum.

Carlisle piloted his two-seat Colt training aircraft for a leisurely two-and-a-half-hour flight from near Akron to Piper Memorial Airport. He taxied the plane to the front of the nearby museum (the old Piper engineering building) where he was warmly greeted by a bevy of museum officials, including President Ron Dremel, vice-president Charlie Rosamilia, board director Cathy Redmond, along with city museum manager Ed Watson.

Carlisle, now 69, recently retired from his construction business in Ohio and said the gift to the museum was part of his scaling-back a bit and shared a father-son story on how it took its Lock Haven to Ohio to Lock Haven journey.

A general aviation enthusiast if there ever was one, he relished telling the plane’s history. His late father Ben owned and flew the Colt back in general aviation’s hey-day in the 1960s and ‘70s out of the Concord, OH airport, ultimately selling it in 1980. Son Bob got into flying with his father and as he said, they “were always looking for places to fly.” The younger Carlisle decided it would be a nice gesture for him to track down the 1961 Colt, buy it and present it back to his father. That happened in 2006 when he found the plane at an airport in West Virginia, purchased it and brought it to Medina and surprised him with the original Colt; dad Carlisle looked it over and saw the plane’s number and said, “It’s not just any old blue-and-white Colt. It’s 5545Zulu, my very own.”

Father and son flew the Colt that day and the elder Carlisle continued to fly it until shortly before his passing in 2010; he even soloed in it up until the final few months of his life. Son told father at that time he would take care of the plane for him. On Thursday he took the final step, completing the Piper Colt’s circuit, from Lock Haven to Ohio, from father to son, and back to Lock Haven.

Now, the younger Carlisle said, museum-goers for generations to come can appreciate the Carlisle-donated Colt, the newest Piper plane to be part of the Piper Aviation Museum.