By Rod Ohira
Advertiser Staff Writer

William "Willy" Schauer puts on his leathers, cranks up the engine of his one-seat plane Baby Lakes and travels to Mokule'ia twice a week to visit his friend Jim Blewster. Traffic is never a problem, and the trip from Honolulu takes only 18 minutes.

"I've got wind blowing in my face and bugs in my teeth, but there's no speed limit or traffic cameras at 10,000 feet," said Schauer, a commercial pilot who turns 78 Thursday.

"I can fly upside-down if I want to," he added. "To me, it's always better to be in the air than on the road with a bunch of automobile aimers. They're aimers because they don't know how to drive, they only know how to aim."

Schauer, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and fighter pilot, flew 453 sorties and amassed 807 combat hours in Korea and Vietnam. He has flown 124 types of aircraft — from Blanik gliders to Mach-2 F-4 Phantom fighter jets — since officially becoming a pilot in 1948.

Unofficially, Schauer's first solo flight occurred in November 1944 in a helicopter he had just repaired.

A native of Hayden, Ariz., Schauer came to Hawai'i when he was 16 and graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1941. In February 1942, he began working on combat aircraft as a civilian apprentice mechanic at Hickam Air Force Base. Knowing how to fix and fly planes is a rare combination.

"It gives me a big edge," Schauer said. "I can tell from listening to the engine before a flight if something is wrong. If a car misfires once in a while, it's no big deal. But if a plane misfires once, it is a big thing."

At almost 78 years old, William 'Willy' Schauer still enjoys flying aerobatics in his one-seat, home-built plane Baby Lakes. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

Volunteering time to aviation groups, building and restoring planes, and servicing them won't pay the $448 a month rent in Hangar 422 at Honolulu's General Aviation Airport, off Lagoon Drive, but he doesn't seem to mind.

A board member of the Hawaii Historic Aviation Foundation, Schauer keeps the foundation's three aircraft in working order and does the strip-down for annual Federal Aviation Administration inspections. Otherwise, his daily project is a 25-year work in progress called Starduster Too, a propeller plane he eventually will donate to the foundation.

"I tell people it's 90 percent complete, with 90 percent to go," Schauer said.

"Willy is Mr. Aviation," said Tweet Coleman, the Federal Aviation Administration's Pacific representative. "He has volunteered thousands of hours to the youth of Hawai'i in introducing them to aviation."

Schauer was a Civil Air Patrol volunteer for 15 years who regularly participated in search-and-rescue operations.

But it's what he willingly does for friends such as Blewster that makes him special. Blewster, a retired Army colonel with the unique birth date 10/20/30, is recovering from surgery and not qualified to fly his small plane alone. So Schauer goes to Dillingham Air Field and flies with him.

"We do aerobatics," Schauer said. "I love flying and having the freedom to turn the plane upside-down if I want to or just go straight. It's just fun for us, not essential to the world. And at our age, we have few enjoyments."

An "outside loop," where the pilot is upside-down at the low end of the loop, is a Schauer specialty. The maneuver requires great stamina because the negative G (acceleration of gravity) pull is rushing blood from the pilot's leg to brain.

"It's high tech, complex aerobatics that younger pilots in their mid-20s to 40s might attempt," Coleman said. "I marvel at his personal stamina."

From his first plane ride in 1942, Schauer was determined to become a pilot. He was drafted into the Army Air Corps in 1945 and worked again as crew chief mechanic. But the stint allowed him to go to flying school on the GI Bill.

On the advice of a Hawai'i Air National Guard sergeant, Schauer took the Air Force test in 1949 and became a pilot. He was commissioned a 2nd lieutenant on October 29, 1950. A year later, he was flying combat missions in Korea.

Since Schauer returned to Hawai'i in 1975 after retiring, he has hauled freight for Horizon Air, piloted First Hawaiian Bank's Learjet and flown private tours in a Cessna. But nothing compares to cruising the skies alone in Baby Lakes, a home-built airplane with a wing span of 16 feet, 8 inches and a 100-horsepower engine.

"Speed is great, but not necessary," said Schauer. "I'm lucky. I've been doing what I want to do all my life."

Reach Rod Ohira at 535-8181 or rohira@honoluluadvertiser.com.

Correction: William "Willy" Schauer retired from the Air Force as a lieutenant colonel. An incorrect rank was reported in a previous version of this story.