Written by JH (6/09); Transcribed by JS (07/09)

Bill’s passion for building model airplanes started at the age of nine. From that time until his death at the age of eighty-two, his life was filled to overflowing with his love of building model airplanes, flying, and competing. All his building was from scratch. He was a three time U.S. team member in international model airplane competitions, a 1973 model airplane champion (U.S.), and a 1970 bronze medal winner in the FAI World Championships in Cranfield, England. Bill’s model of Howard Hughes’ FX11 is in the Heritage in Flight Museum in Delavan, Illinois. A model of an Alaskan bush plane is in the Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum in Anchorage, Alaska. A model of Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed 10E and a model of “Wrong Way Corrigan’s” Curtis Robin now reside in the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome, an aviation museum in Rhinebeck, New York. His model of a B-25 resides in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

Bill was an industrial designer and model builder for MIT Lincoln Lab. Several models were donated by the Lab to the Strategic Air and Space Museum in Ashland, Nebraska (formerly named the Strategic Air Command Museum, located in Bellevue, Nebraska.) He was also the model builder for the Robinson Helicopter Company, building 36 helicopter models that are distributed throughout the world.

He was a member of the American Aviation Historical Society (AAHS) as an Amelia Earhart historian, the Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA), and The International Group for Historical Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR.)

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