Bill was Editor-in-Chief of Business & Commercial Aviation from 2000 to 2020. During his stewardship, the monthly magazine received scores of awards for editorial excellence.
He is the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement in Journalism Award from the National Business Aviation Association; the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Aerospace Media Awards; the Aviation Journalism Award from the National Air Transportation Association; and an Aerospace Journalist of the Year Award for Business Aviation.
Previously, Bill served as Managing Editor of Aviation Week Television. He was the top editor for both Flying and Professional Pilot magazines, as well as a member of the senior editorial staff at Reader's Digest. He also managed communications for FlightSafety International.
Bill has authored or co-authored three aviation books, was an essayist for National Public Radio, wrote aviation documentaries for The Discovery Channel and has written for numerous publications including The New York Times, Smithsonian Air & Space, Popular Mechanics and The Associated Press, among others.
An active aviator, Bill holds a Commercial Pilot license, along with multiengine, instrument, seaplane and glider ratings.
We were standing back in steerage, awaiting those in front to grab their carry-ons and deplane, so we could do the same. Two women behind me struck up a conversation about laborsaving appliances. The younger woman said, “I don't know what I'd do without my garbage compactor. I use it all the time.” The other woman said, “That's fine, but I couldn't live without my dishwasher.”
Walt Fricke returned to the U.S. in 1969 in a bad way. The 19-year-old Army warrant officer's left foot had been severed, save for his Achilles tendon, when one of the rockets on his Huey gunship exploded as he was letting down into a hot LZ in Vietnam. The field doctors wanted to amputate, but he dissuaded them. Once stabilized, he was transferred to a hospital in Fort Knox, Ky., 600 mi. from his family and fiancee, Julie in Traverse City, Mich.
