The sputtering engine didn't bother Bill Luther at all. It was just a bit of battery trouble before the airplane ride that would mark his 85th birthday.

After a quick jumpstart, the red-and-white biplane trundled onto the grass runway at Kampel Airport in Warrington Township. Luther sat in the open-air seat in front. The plane's owner, Tom Kampel, sat behind him.

Originally built in 1938, the Stearman was the same kind of plane Luther had flown as a flight-instructor-in-training during World War II. He last flew any kind of plane in the 1970s.

Shreve learned of Bill Luther's wish at a meeting of the HiFliers Breakfast Club. The club brings together aviation enthusiasts on the second Thursday of every month at the Manchester Café.

At the club's August meeting, Luther leaned across the table and asked Shreve about a possible flight. Shreve, who owns an airfield near Kampel's in northwestern York County, said he would see what he could do.

Shreve is friends with Kampel, who was happy to oblige with a ride. "Those old pilots are fun to fly with," said Kampel, president and chief executive officer of Kampel Enterprises, which shares space with the airport.

Luther's interest in aviation began as a child. In 1927, he asked his father, Dorsey, to take him to see Charles Lindbergh in Washington, D.C. Lindbergh had just returned from his solo trans-Atlantic flight.

Luther learned to fly in 1941. During World War II, he enlisted and trained to become a flight instructor. The war ended while Luther was in training, so he returned to civilian life. He and his father, a Chevrolet dealer, opened an airport in Salix, their Cambria County town.

To make ends meet, the Luthers got into crop dusting and chased hungry armyworms around the state. In the early 1950s, Bill Luther became manager of the Johnstown airport. An insurance industry job brought him to York in 1956.

Luther continued to fly into the 1970s. He would take his wife on Sunday morning excursions before they were married, in 1976. It was the second marriage for both. They live in Manchester Township.

In the early 1970s, Luther quit piloting. In 1981, he took up sailing, and he still sails three days a week out of a marina near Middle River, Md.

"I see these airplanes, little ones, big ones, jets, military planes. It kind of gives you the idea it would be nice to do that again," Luther said.

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