Eight Mercer Island seniors — including former Air Force pilots and current Museum of Flight docents — took to the skies last Tuesday in “Dream Flights,” courtesy of Ageless Aviation Dreams Foundation (AADF).

Ageless Aviation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to honoring seniors and military veterans living in long-term care communities. Since forming in 2011, AADF has given more than 1,500 Dream Flights nationwide. Tuesday’s event was their first in Seattle.

The pilot was Mike Winterboer, an American Airlines pilot. He and his wife, Diane, travel the U.S. as part of the AADF’s volunteer crew. The goal of the organization, which is supported by donations and sponsorships, is to “give back to those who have given.”

The seniors, who reside at Covenant Shores, strapped on a leather helmet, goggles and headset to take flight in a fully restored, 1942 open cockpit Boeing Stearman biplane, the same aircraft used to train military aviators during World War II.

The flights were delayed slightly due to a morning fog, but the sun eventually came out as the passengers were treated with gorgeous views of Mount Rainier, taking off from Boeing Field in Seattle.

“It was so much fun. I realized how much I miss flying,” said David Selvig, 78, after his flight.

As an aeronautical engineer and manager with the Boeing Company for 38 years, Selvig worked with the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy to design commercial and military airplanes. He was a member of the flight test crew for the original Boeing test airplane and a former light airplane pilot, and is currently a docent at the Museum of Flight in Seattle.

Other Dream Flight recipients included U.S. Air Force veterans David Wolter, 93, Johnny Therrell, 85, and Dave Wellman, 79, with U.S. Navy veterans John Sager, 86, Burt Jarvis, 90, Bob Welsh, 83, and U.S. Army veteran Don Van Nimwegen, 76.

Wolter, a colonel in the Air Force who served during World War II and from 1942-1970, was a copilot on a B17 Bomber. He was shot down on a daylight raid to Berlin on March 4, 1944, and parachuted into Northern France, where he stayed with the French Underground for seven weeks prior to his capture in civilian clothes.

Wolter was a prisoner in Paris, interrogated in French and German prisons until July 1944, when he became a Prisoner of War. He was liberated in April 1945. After returning home, he went to medical school using the GI Bill and returned to active duty as a medical officer before retiring.

Sager, a lieutenant in the Navy from 1953-1956, first flew in a Stearman — the same plane used during Tuesday’s flight — shortly after the end of World War II. His uncle, a Navy flight instructor, bought a Stearman and gave him a ride. He said it was “a real thrill.” His love of planes began at age 9, when he began building model airplanes, a hobby he continues to this day as a member of the Radio Aero-Modelers of Seattle (RAMS). He logged about 250 hours in a Standard Libelle sailplane.

Therrell, a first lieutenant in the Air Force during the Cold War, graduated from Aviation Cadet Class 53-B with a light bomber rating. He finished combat training in a Douglas B-26 and while en route to Korea he was reassigned to the 47th Bomb Wing, RAF Sculthorpe. The 47th was the first nuclear unit permanently stationed in Europe. At the end of his duty, he was aircraft commander of the B-45.

Wellman was a captain in the Air Force during the Vietnam War. Of the times Wellman remembers most of the Vietnam War, he describes a bombing raid briefing at 2300 hours on Dec. 31, 1965, at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam.

Van Nimwegen was a captain in the Army during Vietnam War. He served in the Medical Corp at Pleiru Evac Hospital as an anesthesiologist, and received the Soldier’s Medal for helping remove a live rocket fuse from a soldier’s thigh.

Jarvis was an electronic technician in the Navy during World War II, and Welsh a lieutenant commander from 1963-1965. Welsh served as a physician offering obstetrics/gynecology services at the Naval Submarine Base New London.

Roxanne Helleran, resident life director at Covenant Shores, said it’s important to her to provide meaningful experiences like these for her residents.

Covenant Shores is a faith-based, not-for-profit continuing care retirement community in Mercer Island. For more, see www.covenantshores.org.