William Lear, Jr.

PORT ORANGE - "Old fighter pilots never die, they just get hoisted away."

William P. Lear Jr. said that five years ago when he got to fly a Vodochody L39ZO training jet after being lifted into it, his first and last flight since he quit flying fighter jets in 1960. He died Monday at age 81, the way he wanted - in his hangar, "his condo," at his Spruce Creek Fly-In home.

"He loved flying. He was a flier's flier," friend and neighbor Jack Watson said as he gazed at the pictures of planes and presidents that made Lear's life what it was. "Amazing. He had an amazing life."

The son of the designer and manufacturer of the Learjet, William P. Lear Jr. had a storied career in his own right.

Lear, an Air Force veteran who was in the same pilot class with astronaut Buzz Aldrin, was an experienced pilot well before he joined the service.

Lear took up flying at 15. As a 17-year-old, he became the youngest pilot to fly a Lockheed P-38 Lightning - the Army's fastest and most heavily armed fighter during World War II. He raced that same plane for the Bendix Trophy in the late '40s.

Besides pictures with Aldrin from a recent reunion, pictures of John Glenn, Arleigh Burke (when he was chief of Naval Operations), Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Margaret Thatcher grace the walls of his hangar.

"Neither he nor his father graduated high school, but both were extremely intelligent, brilliant men," said his wife of 17 years, Brenda Lear. "The Big Daddy," as Lear Jr. referred to his father, had 150 patents including Motorola radios and eight-track cassette players. "But it was my Bill who had the wing design for the Learjet."

While working as president of Learjet International, the Swiss branch of his family's company, he was the only foreign pilot to fly the experimental P-16 jet, after two prototypes crashed.

"They weren't sure if it was the design or the pilot, so they called in Bill to test the plane," said Brenda Lear. "It was this wing design that was incorporated into the Learjet."

Though Lear lived and worked in Europe for 28 years and had dual citizenship in Switzerland, "he was an American through and through," Watson said.

During the last years of the Cold War in the '80s, Lear was involved with a covert gun-running group that bought arms and other military equipment from Iron Curtain countries to undermine Soviet aggression, he wrote in a book about his life, "Fly Fast. . . Sin Boldly."

He wrote the book with his favorite blue parakeet, Georgie, sitting on his laptop.

"He loved that bird," his wife said. "He talked in Bill's voice. Sometimes the bird would do a little something on the screen and Bill would say to him, 'I guess you didn't like that part.' "

But all those details make it sound as though Lear was all work, which his friends say is far from true.

Lear was known for his quick wit, great memory for limericks and bawdy sense of humor.

"He was not afraid to be rough in his talk, but with him, it was just funny," John McCollister said. "I think it was because he had the twinkle in his eye of Santa Claus."

Lear's sense of humor remained intact through his ill health. On the wall of his hangar office is a cartoon Lear commissioned depicting him from 6 feet under showing his intense love for his widow, dressed in black, stands at his grave.

Instead of memorial services, Brenda Lear is planning a grand party, likely in January.

Besides his wife, Lear is survived by his daughter, Saskia Lear Gem, of Luxembourg; his sister, Patricia Lear, Reno, Nev.; and five grandchildren. Volusia Memorial Port Orange is in charge.

From the 1930 federal census, William Lear, Jr. lived with his parents and sister in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois. The family at the time consisted of:

• Head William P Lear 27
• Wife Madelyn Lear 24
• Son William P Lear, Jr. 1
• Daughter Shirley P Lear infant