Mike Busch received the FAA’s Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award last month at the Great Minnesota Aviation Gathering at Buffalo Municipal Airport in Buffalo, MN. The Master Pilot Award is the most prestigious award presented by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to civilian pilots. Named in honor of aviation pioneers Orville and Wilbur Wright, it recognizes pilots who have dedicated a lifetime to aviation. Fewer than 1% of pilots in the United States ever achieve this distinction.
Busch is a prominent figure in the general aviation community with strong ties to the region’s aviation infrastructure, specifically through his years at Cirrus Aircraft in Duluth. He joined the fledgling aircraft builder in Baraboo, WI, in 1993, and moved to Duluth with the firm when it came here in 1994. Prior to his retirement, Busch was the crash inspector, a critical position the FAA requires aircraft manufacturers to have available to respond to crashes alongside FAA inspectors. “I was on call, 24/7, for 14 years,” Busch said.
He is a longtime member of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), an international organization of aviation enthusiasts, pilots, and aircraft builders. The group originally started as a small club for individuals who built or modified their own homebuilt aircraft. It has grown into a massive global community that celebrates all facets of general aviation, recreational flying, and aviation history. The local chapter 1128 promotes general aviation through activities at the Richard B. Helgeson Airport in Two Harbors.
Busch is considered one of the nation’s foremost authorities on piston aircraft maintenance and ownership. He maintains a hangar at the Two Harbors airport, where he is currently restoring a 50-year-old Grumman American AA-1 B. The AA1B is a classic, two-seat general aviation aircraft built in the early 1970s. It is known for sporty handling, unique construction, and a sliding canopy that allows pilots to fly with the cockpit partially open on warm days.
The previous owner of Busch’s plane was the father of a Navy aviator who died flying in combat during the Vietnam War. In a tribute to his late son, the grieving father finished the aircraft in the historic U.S. Navy livery, matching every paint code and insignia of his son’s squadron plane.
In 2024, Busch sold his high-performance, self-built powerhouse that he called the F1 Rocket. This sleek single-engine plane could get him from Two Harbors to Minneapolis in less than an hour.
To qualify for the Master Pilot Award, Busch needed to meet several strict FAA criteria. He had to have 50 or more years of piloting experience. The 50-year timeline officially begins on the exact date of the pilot’s first solo flight, which for Busch was June 1967, while he was serving in the US Navy in Puerto Rico. The nominee must be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.
Finally, the nominee must never have had an airman certificate revoked. The FAA also thoroughly vets the applicant’s history for past accidents or significant civil enforcement actions.
Pilots do not automatically receive the award. A formal application package must be submitted to the FAA Flight Standards District Office or an FAA Safety Team program manager. Three formal endorsement letters from other FAA-certified pilots who can personally attest to the nominee’s long-standing record of safety and professionalism. Busch was unaware that he’d been nominated for the award, so receiving the honor at the Buffalo gathering was a deeply meaningful recognition of his life’s work in aviation. His name and award date are permanently etched into the electronic Roll of Honor hosted on the official FAASafety.gov database.
Busch is a gregarious, knowledgeable, yet humble man. He has influenced and mentored more people than he realizes. Among his progressive achievements, he deliberately hired qualified women to work at Cirrus. Unlike the stereotypical engineer, Busch has a delightful, if sometimes dark, sense of humor.
He was born in Dayton, OH, which is fitting for someone receiving a Wright Brothers award. When he was 11, his stepfather accepted a transfer to West Africa and, after a few years, moved the family to Copenhagen. The multilingual teenager returned to the USA, went to college, and eventually joined the Navy. His diverse career includes a stint as a repo man, recovering cars and airplanes that lenders had foreclosed on. He built homes and communities in the manufactured housing business. In all he did, aviation was a bright, deep throughline.
Today, after more than 50 years, Busch’s connection to Two Harbors and the broader North Shore aviation scene stems from his extensive career as an aviation maintenance expert, pilot, and industry pioneer. He was an integral part of the team at Cirrus during the critical launch and early consumer years of the revolutionary SR20 and SR22 aircraft lines, and was known among early owners for his hands-on customer support, technical responsiveness, and dedication to troubleshooting. In 2008, the FAA Administrator honored him as the national Aviation Maintenance Technician of the Year.
