Sad day, god bless Bob
I've known Bob McKay for 35 years. He was one of the first three glider pilots I met the day I walked onto Air Sailing Gliderport in the summer of 1980 as a 23 year old kid who just bought his first glider. Bob was a founding member of the Board of Trustees of Air Sailing.
Bob was one of the kindest, gentlest, most interesting men I have ever met.
A few others have mentioned the book his sister, Mary, wrote about their family's experiences in the Philippines during WW II. In case you would like to read the book, it is:
"My Faraway Home: An American Family's WWII Tale of Adventure and Survival in the Jungles of the Philippines"
by Mary McKay Maynard
Bob did indeed own a nice RV-6 for a number of years, and used it to commute over the hill from Cameron Park to Air Sailing. And he loved that plane.
Prior to that, he had a Globe Swift.
Bob could sit around the camp fire and tell stories all night long from his childhood growing up at the silver mine on Mt Paterson, to his time as a "guest" of the Japanese, to the day he returned home to Oakland on a destroyer after the war and was met by his family, to all kinds of flying adventures and mis-adventures, in power planes and gliders. But all his stories were devoid of ego, full of chuckles and humor and love and "there but for the grace of god...".
He was generous with his time, his love, and his wisdom.
Cloudstreets and tailwinds, Bob.