Foil: 17 Panel: 2 Column: 3 Line: 38

Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:

Basil N. (Bill) Politis began his lifelong love of flying in 1962 at Washington-Virginia Airport in Falls Church, VA. He would schedule time when he had the money to fly, mostly in half hour increments, and would use the shorter, fifteen-hundred-foot runway to practice the more difficult maneuvers required for the short approach that was backed up to a drive-in movie screen. More than once he used the Piper Colt to send the theater’s maintenance men scurrying for their trap door.
In the following years he flew the Cessna 150, 172 and 210, as well as the Grumman American Yankee and Cheetah airplanes before purchasing his first airplane, a Piper Tri-Pacer at the Woodbridge, VA airport. He flew this airplane all over Virginia and Maryland as well as on business trips to Chicago, New York, and West Virginia. After moving to Herndon, VA, he purchased a brand new Cessna172 and was based at the Dulles International Airport before it was frequented by the airlines.
He often shared the four fifteen-thousand-foot runways there with a man who came to practice approaches in a Boeing Airliner that said ‘UNITED STATES of AMERICA” on the side. He continued flying through moves to Chicago, back to Washington, D.C., and lastly to Atlanta, where he earned his multi-engine and instrument ratings and bought a Beechcraft Sierra for traveling. After 41 years, he still continues flying as often as possible and loves it second only to his family. It is because he shared his passion, enthusiasm, and appreciation for flight with us that we, his children, are proud to place his name on the National Air and Space Museum Wall of Honor. Up, Snoopy, up.