My favorite actor/pilot, although I never met him, was James Stewart.

Many don't know he was a b-17 pilot in WWII. He had to work very hard to get into the army, much like Glen Miller, who he later portrayed in a movie. I watched an interview of him once, and he told the story of how he got in. He was underweight for the army, so he ate as much cheese as he could before going to the physical. He was still underweight, but convinced the doc to fudge the records.

If I remember right he stayed in the reserves, even throughout his acting career. He retired as a Brigadier General in the Air Force.

The one thing I haven't been able to forgive Jimmy for was that movie he made called No Highway in the Sky. Jimmy played an absent minded Aeronautical engineer who predicted the tail would fall off of a certain aircraft after so many hours flying. My beef was that he said the stress would cause a miniature atomic explosion or some such nonsense. It kinda ruined the movie for me.

Some of his better aviation work was, Flight of the Pheonix, The Spirit of St. Louis.

-Steve G.