Captain Bill Riggs

It is with great sadness that I inform my fellow RVators that William (Bill) Riggs passed away Saturday morning (4/17/10) at his home after a yearlong battle with cancer. Bill was a professional pilot that learned to fly at 18 and flew for USAir for 30 years. 2 years ago, after seeing what fun others of us were having with our RV-6?s at Louisa field, Bill sold his C-180 to buy Robbie Attaway?s purple hot rod RV-6. Bill?s ?6 made us a ?Flight of Four?. Being the Captain and CFII, Bill was the guy that kept us straight and was always quick with the tips to be better pilots and sign our log books after BFR flights .
Bill really enjoyed the ?Fun Flying? that brings RV-Grins to all our faces. He didn?t let the fact he had the fastest RV around go un-noticed, in a joking kind of way and didn?t hesitate to throttle back once we asked! I can easily say he made me a better pilot for knowing him and will surely be remembered on every lunch fly-out. Blue Skies Bill !!

He went by Bill Riggs in the Forums
http://www.vansairforce.com/community/member.php?u=7171

Link to Obituary
http://obit.woodwardfuneral.com

Condolences to his family and friends. It must have been a pleasure to know him.

Wow, that is very sad.

I bought Bills Cessna 180, 2493C, after he was bitten by the RV bug. He said after he bought his RV6, he didn't fly his C-180 any more. I have gotten many compliments on the c-180, all of which he earned with his restoration of it.

http://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/photo/331896.html

My thoughts are with his family, he was a great guy.

Lance Fugleberg

C-180

lancef53 said:

Wow, that is very sad.

I bought Bills Cessna 180, 2493C, after he was bitten by the RV bug. He said after he bought his RV6, he didn't fly his C-180 any more. I have gotten many compliments on the c-180, all of which he earned with his restoration of it.

http://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/photo/331896.html

My thoughts are with his family, he was a great guy.

Lance Fugleberg

Click to expand...

Lance,
Thanks for the nice comments about Bill and his Pride and Joy, before the RV-6.
I think Bill owned the C-180 for 16 or 17 years and he was one to really take care of his airplane, spare no expense kind of guy. Sorry I didn't meet you when you picked up the Cessna and I don't recall Bill mentioning that you were a RV guy either, but I may have missed that in the conversation.
Seems to me he mentioned that the guy that bought his 180 lived in ND and was kind of remote and flew planes more than driving cars to get around in.
Not sure if that was true or Bill's normal stretching the truth into a better story. He did love that Cessna tail dragger. He actually was the guy that made a grass strip get added to the Louisa Airport, I mean like getting guys together and actually doing the work too!! I knew he was serious about an RV when he said he would sell his Cessna 180 !!!!

Here is a typical RV story and I'm sure others have heard slightly different versions of. Bill had been watching the RV's on the field grow from 2 to 3 and other RV's stop over to visit us and two of us flew formation takeoffs, etc. Bill soon invited us to join in on the lunch fly outs with the other local "certified" airplane guys. Bill had flown right seat in the RVs a couple times while doing BFR's for us and you know he took the stick!
One day while hangar flying like we love to do, Bill chatted with me personally and said, you know, I'd get one of these RVs if I wasn't so old (66) and with a heart issue in my past, I might not pass a physical soon ! I looked at him very matter a fact and said, Bill, all of us are one medical away from a Light Sport......and the other 3 of us bought our RV's instead of building them as you never know how long you have and we need to have as much fun as we can fit into our time here. Well.......that night we started emailing links to RV's for sale, with comments like "how about this one? what do you think?"
and it wasn't long before he settled on Robbie Attaway's purple hot rod.
What sealed the deal was that Robbie was a retired airline pilot too and they became fast friends....pun intended! I wasn't sure who was more excited that Robbie's RV-6 would be coming to Louisa, Bill or ME!!
Our flying community is a small one that found an RV guy getting Bill's beautiful Cessna 180.....Thanks again for replying to my post, Bill's lovely wife, Sandy, read your post and was pleased to hear the connection.
Regards,

I had just started building my RV-8 the fall before I met Bill and bought his 180, that is probably why he didn't mention it. He showed me his new RV-6, but we didn't spend much time at the airport because the weather was crappy. Just enough time for a checkout, and Bill took us to a country club to buy us dinner. We spent the night in a hotel, and he met us at the airport to see us off, and fill up the plane for us on his dime.

I knew he was a class act when filled up the plane with gas, and replaced the battery after I had paid for it. He thought the battery was a little weak when he took a friend of mine up to checkout the plane the week before I bought it.

Lance Fugleberg