Bell Helicopter engineer had passion for flying [Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas]

Sept. 01--ARLINGTON -- Melton Luttrell vividly recalls the first time he flew in a two-seat glider with his longtime friend Marvin Willis.

"We had no sooner gotten off the ground until he recited me this poem," said Luttrell, a retired Lockheed Martin electrical engineer who lives outside Aledo.

"Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings," the poem begins, ending with "... put out my hand and touched the face of God."

High Flight, the ode to the joy of flying, fit a man who learned to fly as a teen, served in the U.S. Air Force, made his living as a Bell Helicopter engineer, and was a passionate glider for more than 50 years.

Mr. Willis died Aug. 24 in a Denver hospital, where he had been flown for emergency surgery from a remote Colorado resort. He died of a ruptured aortic aneurysm, said his son. He was 81.

The Willises had been at the resort to indulge a passion for square dancing and round dancing, which is choreographed ballroom dancing. They would have celebrated their 61st wedding anniversary Thursday.

"I can't imagine my life without him. I will miss his just being here," Betty Willis said of her husband, whom she met in Methodist Sunday school in Arlington when they were preteens.

He had been "in excellent health" and even participated in a national gliding competition in South Carolina in May, she said. And they were active in the Circle Eight square dance club, in which Luttrell served as a dance caller.

John Marvin Willis was born Dec. 30, 1928, in Arlington, the son of W.I. Willis, a rural mail carrier, and Alma Willis, a homemaker.

He and Betty Booker began dating as Arlington High School freshmen.

"Dates involved him arriving at my house," Betty Wills said. "We walked downtown to a Saturday afternoon movie. Then we came back to my house where my mother usually made a dessert. Then we listened to Hit Parade on the radio."

As a teenager, Mr. Willis secretly took flying lessons at a school run by an old "barnstorming" pilot. The secret ended when he sought his parents' permission to fly solo at age 16.

The couple married in 1949 while he was attending Texas A&M University, where he received a degree in mechanical engineering. He served in the U.S. Air Force before beginning his long career at Bell, which included work on the XV-15 prototype for the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor military aircraft that can fly like a helicopter or airplane.

His passion for gliding -- also known as sail planing -- ran more than 50 years. He didn't quit even after breaking his back in a pancake landing in Aspen, Colo., in the mid-'60s, Betty Willis said.

He once flew 350 miles from Texas to Kansas by catching rising currents of warm air to propel him along, she said.

For most of his adult life, Mr. Willis didn't attend church. But five years ago, he embraced the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington, which fit his "concept/need for a liberal religious experience," he wrote.

Betty Willis said her husband's happiest moments were the births of their three children and two grandchildren.

But winning a gliding contest and teaching young people also ranked high, she said.

Other survivors include son Greg Willis of Carrollton; daughters Claire Willis of Denton and Laurie Willis of Austin; a sister, Thelma Ragland, of Abilene; and a brother, Lynn Willis, of Marble Falls.

Jack Z. Smith, 817-390-7724

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