Pilot in post-show crash lived to fly, son says

PORTLAND – Robert Guilford lived his life with his head in the clouds – and often enough, his feet were there too.

The 73-year-old aviation attorney from Los Angeles crashed a vintage combat jet into a suburban neighborhood on Sunday, moments after taking off from a nearby air show in Hillsboro. He was the only fatality.

Family members and colleagues described Guilford as an experienced pilot who lived his life either flying, or dreaming of the next time he’d be up in the air.

Steve Guilford said that his father flew for 45 years, logging more than 4,000 hours in the air as the owner of vintage combat airplanes, including a P-51 Mustang, a Corsair and the British-made Hawker Hunter jet that crashed on Sunday.