I hope his son approves of this, I'm putting this out on my own.
I type this through tears, with shaky hands and a heavy heart, so forgive the typos.
Bill Downing aka The Inspector, was my friend for almost 40 years, we were brothers born to different mothers.
We had so much in common and thought so much alike that at times it was scary.
It was that way from day one and though we had our differences from time to time (mostly over politics) we were always close.
I met Bill in 1975 when he was working at Robertson STOL at New Orleans Lakefront Airport installing STOL kits.
He had scratch built a model of a Grumman Goose that I was interested in buying and the friendship took off from there.
At one point not long after my wife and I married, Bill moved in with us for a short time.
Having two guys named Bill got real confusing real fast, so my wife started calling me Bill 1 and him Bill 2, that quickly went down to just Bill (me) and 2 (him).
He remained Bill or 2 for the rest of our friendship, but he was in no way 2nd class.
A couple of you have wondered about his background, 252 crew can (if he wishes to) can fill you in on Bill's training.
He had worked for Boeing on the 727/737 and Hydrofoil lines, for Lockheed on L-1011 line and the North American on the B-1 prototype and had also been a semi truck mech. prior to our meeting.
After his return to Seattle from New Orleans in the late 70s he went back to work for Boeing before going to Badwrench (as he preferred it) and retiring from there.
He loved his craft and took exceptional pride in his work and would brook absolutely no slacking or corner cutting in regards to anything related to aircraft Maint. or safety.
He was also a heck of a model builder and would go out and do scratch built kit conversions that no one else would consider.
He loved all forms of aviation particularly old airplanes and especially warbirds.
It was that love for warbirds that made me tell him to come here and look around, he took to WIX like a duck to water (so for those that had a bone to pick with him you can blame me for dragging him here).
Bill was a walking encyclopaedia of automobile knowledge, he could look at a car part in a junk yard and tell you what make, model, year it came from (I know this 1st hand, I took him to the largest junk yard in So. Idaho a few years ago and he did exactly that).
Any time I had a question about a anything automotive he was my go to guy.
He loved the NHRA and for years was a big NASCAR fan, he took great pride in the 1963 Thunderbird he got from his Dad (who bought it new) and his motorcycles, he almost always had one to ride.
He was funny, had a absolutely twisted sense of humor and could be the grumpiest & most unforgiving SOB you ever met.
He could twist the English language into knots that would defy Webster's entire staff to untangle.
He had a way with words that he could (& DID) use like a knife (as I'm sure most of you know).
This photo of the two of us was taken the last time I saw him at the airport in Boise as he was heading back to Seattle a few years ago, he's in the Red hat and we were laughing at something he said, that both of us thought of at the same time (as was the norm).
This is the Bill Downing I knew & loved and the one I'll always remember.
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He was my friend, my brother and I will miss him til my last breathe.
Fair Skies Bill.
Bill Bailey (Mr Widgeon)
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to this in 3 months: 
Help us get her all the way back 
And there was so much to learn if you just "listened" to what he was saying.
