Man Attempts to Be World’s Oldest Living Pilot

On Tuesday, Peter Weber Jr., 95, from Cameron Park, flew a plane three times around an airfield in Placerville, hoping to set a Guinness World Record as the world’s oldest active pilot, according to the Sacramento Bee.

A new category has been created by Guinness, Weber declared: the oldest living licensed qualified pilot flying alone. He had been communicating with Guinness during previous weeks.

The record for the oldest pilot, according to Guinness, was held until this week by Cole Kugel, who was 105 when he flew in 2007, dying later that year.

Weber, a U.S Air force veteran who rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel, retired in 1970. He started in the Army’s combat engineers unit, but transferred to the Army Air Corps after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. He flew P-38 fighters in World war II in the South pacific, later becoming a flight instructor for pilots in the Korean War and returning to pilot an AC-130 gunship in Vietnam.

On Tuesday, after he flew the rented Diamond DA20, one of 37 models he has flown in his 72 years of flying, Weber asserted, “I feel great. It was a short flight, but it was all the (Guinness) requirements…I like to fly. I fly at least twice a month. I like to observe and take anybody up for a ride who wants to go.”

Weber, who has been married for 72 years, has flown an estimated 10,000 flight hours.