William Lloyd Welter

West Point, 1955

Be Thou At Peace

Posted by Daniel Dugan on March 25, 2009:

Classmates, a lot has already been said, but I wanted to express my personal grief for the loss of our friend, Bill (Willie) Welter. I have been in shock since I received the announcement this morning and I feel a lot of pain. We followed such parallel careers - unlike so many Classmates that you never saw much after graduation other than perhaps at reunions. We went out for Plebe swimming together at West Point (he stuck with it, I didn't) and after graduation we followed very parallel careers - Army Aviation, Virginia Tech, Naval Test Pilot School, Edwards AFB and Vietnam (both assignments at the same time), NASA assignments as Army test pilots (he at Langley, me at Ames). He was not high in academic standing at West Point, but later earned a PhD and taught in Community Colleges around Williamsburg even before he got out of the Army, I believe. Very athletic and always stayed busy. One of his recent part time jobs was as "Captain Bill" at Busch Gardens near Williamsburg, VA - piloting a riverboat. We rode the big roller coasters together at Busch Gardens in recent years - Apollo's Chariot and some scary new one in 2007. We had a lot of fun with Rich Cardillo over "hosting." We three ended up in the same BOQ area in Long Binh, RVN for the last 6 months in country. One of us would be the host (providing the Kool Aid and snacks) for the outdoor movies while any war stuff went on well beyond the perimeter. This hosting continued to this day with a competition over who was the best "host" with many lunches and dinners provided. I have to admit that he was #1, although I never would admit it to Bill. We both even flew a rare X type aircraft - the XV-5 Lift Fan. Only a handful of test pilots ever had that opportunity (including Tommie West). I could go on, but this is very depressing. He did lead a very full life, though, and probably never knew what hit him yesterday. I will miss him and I always made it a point to see Bill and Sherry on visits to Langley and Ft. Eustis, VA. DDD Just last week in Florida, I ran into a friend of Bill's who asked about him. It was Bill Corley, an Army Aviator, whom some of you may know. I had not seen him since 1966 when Bill Welter and I sent him off to the Empire Test School with a cast on his finger from the lunch time "combat" basketball at Edwards AFB - i.e., no fouls ever called.

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