Biography

Major General William "Bill" Anders

Bill Anders, call sign "Viking", is a retired Major General of the USAF Reserve with over 8000 hours of flying time.  He was also a NASA astronaut and crewmember on the historic Apollo 8 mission to the Moon over Christmas of 1968.  Apollo 8 was the first flight by mankind away from our home planet Earth to another body in our solar system. It was also the first manned flight of the Saturn V rocket.  During their 10 orbits of the Moon the crew read the first few verses from the book of Genesis and Bill took the famous Earthrise photograph.

General Anders is a Distinguished Graduate of the US Naval Academy (Class of 1955), an enshrinee of the National Aviation Hall of Fame, and the retired Chairman and CEO of the General Dynamics Corporation (who built the F-16). He has also been the co-holder six world flight records.

During his Air Force career he flew numerous aircraft including the F-89 "Scorpion", the F-101 "Voodoo", the T-33 jet trainer as an instructor pilot, helicopters, and even NASA's Lunar Landing Training Vehicle (LLTV), the rocket powered "flying bedstead". He has also competed in the Reno Air Races.

Today he is flying the Heritage Flight Museum's P51D Mustang "Val-Halla", of WWII fame, the "Cadillac of the skies" ( or -- the F8F-2 Bearcat "Wampus Cat", the Navy's highest performance propeller driven fighter of late WW II and Korean War vintage).