Bruce Douglas darts around his airplane hangar at Appleton Flight Center like a hummingbird.
He’s almost a blur as he buzzes about, pausing briefly to point out various framed newspaper clippings, magazine articles and photos that are evidence of his four decades as a private pilot and aviation enthusiast with a penchant for vintage aircraft.
Douglas, a practicing radiologist in the Fox Valley, has attended every EAA AirVenture fly-in since it moved to Oshkosh in 1970. It was there the Neenah native’s interest in aviation was sparked. He earned his private pilot’s license at age 19 at the encouragement of his college roommate who was already licensed and became a flight instructor shortly thereafter, a passion he has jockeyed around his medical career.
There are five rare aircraft currently in Douglas’ possession, including a 1947 Republic RC-3 Seabee and a 1957 Piaggio Royal Gull amphibian, but he is adamant he is not a “collector.” Every aircraft serves a specific purpose. As a family, Douglas, his wife Anne and their two children used their planes for regular travel.
“This is not a Rolex. This is not a frame-off restoration of a Ferrari,” says Douglas, who is known to bike to the hangar after work in summer, take a plane up for a quick flight, then bike home. “This is functional. But to me, that’s what’s beautiful about it.”
The thrill is not in acquiring aircraft, Douglas says, but rather in the act of flying. As a flight instructor, he routinely witnessed flight’s transformative power when students completed their first solo landing.
“I close the door, you fly and you are a different person 20 minutes later, and for the rest of your life, really,” he says. “And not like I’m the Svengali, but that happened to me, and it happens to me every time I fly.
“Flying just takes you to a different dimension. It puts everything into perspective.”
