Pilots

On a Saturday morning, Bill Honan pilots a bright-yellow Stearman across the sky near Warrenton, Virginia. Fifteen hundred feet below and a mile away, the grass airstrip of the Flying Circus Aerodrome is in the midst of an aviation frenzy. Without a radio, Honan studies the action as other classic aircraft fly the pattern or make low formation passes over the field.

As if to announce his arrival, Honan lets the big nose of the Stearman drop. When the strut wires sing loudly enough, he pulls up until the massive prop is clawing at the sky. As the airspeed falls
to zero, he kicks in full left rudder. Blue sky is replaced by a blur of Blue Ridge Mountains flashing past; then the rolling farms below come rushing upward. A few minutes later, the Stearman's wheels are gently rolling in the grass at the aerodrome. The aircraft, one of three Stearmans that Honan flies, soon sits close to the fence by the bleachers where the public can get a close-up view. Before the engine can cool off, it's belching clouds of blue smoke as Honan begins the first of many hops with a paying passenger up front. Later, he'll be flying close formation with other Stearmans.

Stearmans and Honan are intimately acquainted with each other. Honan says he got his A&P mechanic's certificate "sometime in the 1980s. I don't even know." But he remembers rebuilding his first Stearman in 1987. Since then, he's also rebuilt a Tiger Moth, Waco, Cessna 140, Travelaire, "and a lot of a Jenny and a Wright B." He's spent so much time rebuilding old aircraft that he jokes he works at "the trailing edge of technology." After completing 12 Stearmans, with the thirteenth in progress, he says he's had enough. It's time to work on something else for a while, and he's hoping for a Beech Staggerwing or a Vought Corsair. While rebuilding Stearmans has lost its charm, he confesses, "I love instructing in them. It's more challenging than a Spam can. And God knows what students are going to do to you."

Honan's first GA ride was a discovery flight in 1979 in a two-year-old Cessna 150. When it was new the aircraft was used by Cessna for advertising, and Honan recalls seeing it in publications for years afterward. He was 16 when he started flight lessons in Caldwell, New Jersey, in 1980. When his mom wasn't around to drive him the 25 miles to the airport for a lesson, he'd ride his bike. The bike got a pretty good workout because he also used it to travel the paper route that funded his training.

Fixing and flying airplanes has been the bulk of Honan's life. Forty hours a week find him rebuilding classic and historic aircraft in Warrenton. Then he spends as much as 20 hours a week instructing. On weekends he enjoys being a performer at the Flying Circus, a weekend airshow in Virginia. "If you want to call me at home," says Honan, "don't bother calling before 9 p.m. because I won't be there and there isn't a machine." It's a lifestyle that has had its costs. Honan jokes that he suffers from AIDS: aviation-induced divorce syndrome. "I can't remember the last time I took a vacation," he says. When he does have spare time, he can be found learning to tango on the dance floor or polishing his flying skills.

Honan holds numerous certificates and ratings including commercial, multiengine, instrument, and CFI. He also has private privileges for single-engine seaplanes. He earned the seaplane rating on the Chesapeake Bay in an Aeronca Chief riding on floats. In college he flew gliders, and over the years he has flown "every single-engine Cessna and Piper ever made." His all-time favorite aircraft is "probably the Staggerwing. I think I enjoyed it more than any airplane I've flown."

Honan still has some unrealized aviation goals. "I want to get typed in a DC-3. Don't ask me why. Maybe so I can get 10 of my buddies and go someplace real slow." Honan had the opportunity to fly in the venerable transport during a trip to Oshkosh. While a bunch of skydivers were making their exit, Honan was along for the ride. It wasn't his first brush with skydivers. With his sister and some of her friends, Honan went to a jump school on Maryland's Eastern Shore where he got his first and only jump. "One was enough," he says as a grin spreads across his face. "I'll do anything once."