Did you know that actor/director/restauranteur/sailor/guy who-co-produced ‘The Sting’ Tony Bill was a serious pilot and aviation history buff? A master pilot and aerobatics flyer, he’s owned and flown an envy-producing bunch of vintage hangar-candy among which are a 1946 Globe Swift, a 1935 Aeronica Chief, a 1929 Parks P-2A bi-plane, a 1955 Bonanza F-35 and, just for modernity’s sake, a 1970 Cessna 310. Above is a nice little interview with Bill from the ‘Legends Of Aviation’ series where he talks about his beginnings in aviation (he was the youngest person ever in California to receive a pilots liscence at age 15–the minimum legal age now is 16). He also speaks of meeting aviation/aerobatic pilot legend Bob Hoover, who complimented him on the realism of the flying scenes in a World War 1 movie Bill directed that I’ve not previously heard of called ‘Flyboys’. For those of you who are happily free of the obsession known as being an ‘AvGeek’, being complemented by Hoover about your achievement in flight is akin to getting a call from Stanley Kubrick telling you he likes your movie. Since Bill mentions barnstorming, an obsession of his that led to the naming of his production company ‘Barnstormer Films’ I’ve included below a very nice mini-doc on the history of Barnstorming, very much a lost art.  Bill is also an avid aviation book and memorabilia collector and apparently donated a large collection of stuff to the SFO Museum, which established the Tony Bill Aviation Library. Bill has always come off as a rather low-key, modest fellow and I’m struck by how much he’s accomplished and how simple he makes it all sound. As the World War 2 saying went: ‘Keep ‘Em Flying!’