[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 1] [Extensions of Remarks] [Pages 788-789] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]IN TRIBUTE TO WALT STARLING ______ HON. FRANK R. WOLF of virginia in the house of representatives Tuesday, January 25, 2005 Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I want to bring to the attention of the House the recent passing of Walt Starling, who many Members who have been serving in the House for a while will remember as the first traffic reporter in the Washington metropolitan area who took to the air to report on rush hour traffic conditions. For over 20 years, twice each workday, Walt circled the Washington skies at 1,200 feet in a Cessna plane that he piloted himself to let us know where the traffic jams were and how to avoid them. I was one of the fortunate ones to ride on a tour around the region. I got the bird's eye view, including the highway network in my district located just outside the nation's capital in Virginia. I also got to know Walt and to rely on his advice on ways to improve transportation in our region. Walt and two airborne traffic reporters in Washington that he trained--Bob Marbourg and Andy Parks--saw the big traffic picture every day from their unique vantage points and gave their professional insight at a town meeting I held in the 1980's on reducing high occupancy vehicle (HOV) rules on I-66. Walt was a caring, dedicated professional who touched the lives of so many people. He also was a devoted husband and father. To his family, we send our deepest condolences and also our thanks for their sharing of Walt with us all. Mr. Speaker, I submit for the Record two articles from the Washington Post of January 5, and January 13, about the life of Walt Starling. On-Air Traffic Reporter Walt Starling Dies (By Joe Holley) Walt Starling, a flying traffic reporter whose live radio reports of Capital Beltway jams, fender benders and bottlenecks helped Washington area commuters get to work every morning and home every night, died Jan. 4 of colon cancer at his home in Laytonsville. He was 52. Mr. Starling was one of the first traffic reporters in the area to become a radio personality. From 1974 until 1995, he folded his 6-foot-4 frame into the cramped cockpit of a Cessna 172 and circled the Beltway at 1,200 feet, looking for ways to keep traffic flowing and commuter frustrations to a minimum, tasks that grew increasingly difficult as the population boomed and traffic increased. He reported traffic twice a day for a succession of area stations, flying an estimated 2.2 million air miles. In recent years, he had been working for WRC-TV (Channel 4) in the District. Mr. Starling's career as an air-traffic radio reporter began as a class project at the University of Maryland in 1973. As he explained to The Washington Post in 1994, he was a senior in the radio and television program, and his assignment was to create a job for himself. He was taking flying lessons at the time and came up with the idea of using a fixed-wing plane to monitor traffic and provide regular radio reports. Fuel, maintenance and insurance would be less expensive than for a helicopter, and a plane would be safer, he maintained. The instructor, also a pilot, was not convinced. ``That's about the dumbest thing I've ever read,'' he told Mr. Starling. Undaunted, Mr. Starling dropped out of school and pitched the idea to WAVA (105.1 FM). The station agreed to give it a try, and on March 4, 1974, he began delivering 10 reports during morning drive time and 10 during the afternoon rush. In the early days of his venture, he was allowed to sell his own sponsorships, so he traded commercial spots for, among other things, eyeglasses, meals, cars and carpeting for his home. Mr. Starling was one of the few traffic reporters in the country who both flew the plane and did the reporting, dual duties that made insurance companies anxious. Circling above the snaking lines of traffic, he managed to work the controls of his plane, spot where the traffic was snarled and then deliver up-to-the-minute information in smooth one-minute reports. He had only two emergency landings during his career, but he knew the location of every swath of green in the area, just in case. His voice had a calming effect on often-harried commuters. At sunset during the winter, he would gently remind drivers to switch on their headlights, and he knew the area so well he could offer alternatives to drivers coming up on bottlenecks. He also trained other traffic reporters, including Andy Parks of WMAL (630 AM) and Bob Marbourg of WTOP (1500 AM). Walter Maurice Starling was born in Washington and grew up in Hyattsville, down the street and around the corner from College Park Airport, where the Wright brothers trained the nation's first military pilots. His father, Walter M. Starling, a businessman who died last month, earned his private pilot's license in 1947 and took his son up for the first time in 1956, when he was 4. (Mr. Starling's sister and son also are pilots.) He graduated from Northwestern High School in Hyattsville in 1970. At U-Md. in the early 1970s, he reported for WMUC (88.1 FM), the campus radio and TV station, but dropped out of school to begin his ``Washington Skywatch.'' He received his undergraduate degree in 1981. Over the years, he reported for WAVA-AM and FM News Radio, WASH (97.1 FM), WPGC (95.5 FM) and WLIT/WARW-FM. His heyday, recalled David Burd of WMAL-AM, was at WASH-FM in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The station was tops in the market, and Mr. Starling's reports were a popular feature. In the early 1990s, as stations increasingly turned to traffic reporting services that offer reports to several stations at the same time, the economics of the individual reporter turned against Mr. Starling. After leaving WARW-FM in 1995, he went to work for WRC-TV, where he began learning the medium of television from the ground up. He was an assignment editor for the station before becoming ill in early 2004. Mr. Starling was an active member of First United Methodist Church in Hyattsville. He also flew as a barnstorming pilot for Flying Circus Airshows and restored vintage planes. Survivors include his wife of 29 years, Sharon Lynn Starling of Laytonsville; two children, W. Brent Starling of Laytonsville and Joanna Lynn Starling of Rockville; his mother, Doris Starling of Silver Spring; a sister, Phyllis Starling of Rockville; and two grandchildren. ____ Blazing a Trail for Traffic Reporters (By Steven Ginsberg) There Bob Marbourg was, before anyone knew who Bob Marbourg was, looking for a [[Page 789]] twirl over the Washington region with Walt Starling, the premier flying traffic reporter of the late 1970s. ``I know you take folks along for a ride with you. I wonder if I might do that with you sometime,'' Marbourg recalled asking Starling at a street fair in College Park. Sure, Starling said. Before long, Marbourg was by Starling's side in his signature Cessna 172. Marbourg took some pictures that Starling liked, and Marbourg was asked to come back again. And again and again. One Memorial Day weekend, Starling suggested to his station manager that Marbourg fill in while he was away and, poof, a radio traffic reporter's career was born. That was the kind of guy Starling was, Marbourg said last week, days after the legend died Jan. 4 at 52 of colon cancer. ``Walt Starling was a radio personality,'' Marbourg said, between his broadcasts at WTOP (1500 AM), a job that Starling helped him get. ``But he was also a man who touched many people in many generous and caring ways.'' Starling was a pioneer in the world of traffic reports and traffic reporters. He was one of the first in the area to become a radio personality, jabbering with his studio counterparts during live reports. Starling also flew in his own way, in a fixed-wing plane when everyone else was circling in helicopters. Starling's fixed-wing idea is now legendary. He dreamed it up for a student project, figuring that a plane would be less expensive to operate than a helicopter. A teacher at the University of Maryland told him the idea was ``about the dumbest thing I've ever read,'' Starling told The Washington Post in 1994. Starling would later say that was just the kind of comment that would get him started. He quit school, refined the idea a little and sold it to WAVA (105.1 FM). On March 4, 1974, he flew the first of an estimated 2.2 million air miles. After WAVA, Starling worked for FM News Radio, WASH (97.1 FM), WPGC (95.5 FM) and WLIT/WARW-FM before hopping over to television at WRC-TV (Channel 4) in the District in the mid- 1990s. Starling served as an assignment editor for the station before becoming ill last year. Aside from the type of craft he used, Starling did something else that most other traffic reporters didn't do: He piloted his plane. At least that's what he did when he hadn't turned over the controls to Marbourg so that Starling could check one of his trusty maps. ``We were out over Rock Creek Park, just over Walter Reed one day,'' Marbourg said, ``and we were flying in a circle while he was trying to find an address. Walter looked up from his map book and all he could see were trees.'' ``Bob, where have you taken us?'' Starling asked, incredulously, before resuming control. Lon Anderson, a spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic who knew Starling's voice as a Washington area resident and knew his professionalism later when they worked together on projects, said that Starling paved the way for all the local radio traffic reporters who followed. ``He was then what Bob Marbourg really is now, the dean of traffic reporters,'' Anderson said. ``He sounded just as professional and knowledgeable and no different'' from today's traffic reporters. ``The difference was he was there ahead of everybody doing this, and everyone followed him. He clearly set the tenor to a large extent that is followed today.'' Bruce Allen, the midday news anchor at WTOP, met Starling when he was working as a traffic reporter in 1980. Allen, who worked for Metro Traffic, said the company was contractually obligated to give Starling all the traffic information it had. Starling was under no such obligation but passed along what he knew anyway. ``It was the personal relationship that made it a two-way flow,'' Allen said. ``I'm one of the zillions who liked the guy and felt good about him. He was a good man.'' ____________________