Did you know David Mamet–playwright, screenwriter, director, essayist, loudmouth conservative pundit–was also an aviator? Apparently he learned to fly in his 60s and continues to do so now, in his 70s. Above is a nice little video of him discussing southern Califormia’s role in the history of flight as well as his own family connections to the history of aviation. Click here to read an article about Mamet’s obsessive collecting habit of obscure flight memorabilia. Mamet flies an Aviat Husky, a plane that’s pretty dang bitchin’ for an old show-biz lout to be tooling around the L.A. skies in. Below is a video demonstrating the rugged, powerful little tailwheeler. I’ve had mixed feelings about Mamet over the years–I like his essays a lot, I like some of his plays a lot, I don’t like any of his films, I couldn’t understand a word of a novel he recently wrote and I deplore his windy, self-important turn to conservative politics. But I love his later-in-life discovery of flying and dig that he flies such a bad-ass machine.