Two Harbors aviator Mike Busch earns FAA Master Pilot Award

Mike Busch’s FAA Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award landed in Two Harbors with more than a certificate and lapel pin. Presented June 3 at the Great Minnesota Aviation Gathering in Buffalo, the honor turned a personal milestone into a public measure of what long experience means for the North Shore’s pilots, mechanics, builders and airport volunteers.

The Federal Aviation Administration says the Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award recognizes pilots who have completed 50 or more consecutive years of safe flight operations. The agency also calls it its most prestigious award for pilots certified under Part 61, and fewer than 1% of U.S. pilots ever earn it. Recipients are listed on the FAA’s online Roll of Honor, a reminder that Busch’s name now sits among a very small group of civilian aviators recognized for endurance and safety.

Busch’s career has long been tied to the region’s aviation network. He worked with Cirrus Aircraft in Duluth after the company expanded into a 30,000-square-foot research and development facility there in 1994, and he later served as a crash inspector, a job that kept him on call around the clock for years. That background helps explain why his recognition resonated beyond one hangar: Busch has been part of the technical and operational culture that shaped modern North Shore flying, not just the social side of it.

His home base in Two Harbors also shows why the award matters locally. Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 1128 meets in Hangar No. 40 at Richard B. Helgeson Airport during the summer and at Two Harbors High School during the school year, keeping aviation in front of both longtime fliers and younger students. The airport, listed under FAA identifiers TWM and KTWM, has attended service Monday through Friday, 24-hour fuel with credit card access, and a winter closure on runway 15-33 except for ski-equipped aircraft.

Busch remains active in aviation education as well. EAA has featured him in webinars and training programming through 2024, 2025 and 2026, including sessions on maintenance, troubleshooting and reliability-centered maintenance. For Lake County, that is the larger story behind the plaque: a veteran aviator whose recognition reflects a living pipeline of knowledge at the airport, where experience still has to be passed down if Two Harbors wants the next generation of pilots and mechanics to keep flying.