Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 16, 1995 TAG: 9504170031
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
It was his 84th birthday, and the oldest commercial pilot in Roanoke glided his Twin Comanche over Smith Mountain Lake's sparkling late-afternoon waters.
"When I get so I can't fly, I'm buying me a boat," he said Thursday, tipping the plane so his passenger could see a speedboat buzzing along a finger of the lake.
Bill Saker's boating days seem to be a ways off.
He'd just flown a charter trip the morning of his birthday, and he's still logging 150 air hours a year. Even his plane is an old-timer: He's had it 24 years.
Saker has flown Elizabeth Taylor, singer Andy Williams and goodness knows who else in almost 50 years of charter service. "I flew half a million people. I can't remember all of them," he said, searching his memory for the names of celebrities and members of Congress he's ferried across the country.
Born the son of a sponge diver in Brazil, Saker's teen-age heart drifted to the skies when Charles Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic in 1927. By his 20s, Saker had his private pilot's license and by his 30s, his commercial one.
He was an Air Force instruments instructor during World War II. He was a daredevil - and movie-star handsome. He did barrel rolls and loop-the-loops at air shows in his Stearman bi-wing.
"I did 33 loops before I even quit, one time." Another time, his license was yanked when he didn't bother to don a parachute while flying in the open-air plane.
Still dashing at 84 - muscular, tan and with a trim white mustache - he continues to scoff at danger. "I've been in a lot of storms, lightning all around me, but it didn't bother me."
Bored one moonlit night around 1961, he got in his plane at 2 a.m. and buzzed downtown Roanoke, flying just 200 feet above the town. Forty people called police about it, and Saker was grounded for a month.
He has owned 13 planes and never crashed a one, although he once got lost, landed in a cornfield, got out and asked a guy who pointed in the direction of an airport 10 miles away.
Wes Hillman, 73, who earned his commercial license in 1940, has known Saker for decades. "One time there was a storm that blew through and tore up a bunch of airplanes, and Bill's was one. He flew it down to Montvale" - to an airplane repairman - "with half the wing on one side gone."
Again, no problem. "Just lucky, I guess," Saker said.
Bill Saker Flying Service wasn't his only Roanoke business. He ran Saker's Esso in old Northeast Roanoke before that area was demolished to build Interstate 581 and the Roanoke Civic Center. He also operated beauty salons at Crossroads Mall and other locations.
Though he has had plenty of girlfriends, he has never been married. "Never," he said emphatically.
Ever worn glasses? "Never," he answered, just as emphatically.
by CNB