It's not just that Ed Judd loved to fly; the retired airline pilot who died in a plane crash lived to fly, friends said.

"He would fly for nothing, but when he got paid, he was very happy about that," said Ted Simmons, a fellow member of the Retired United Pilots Association.

Cecil Edward Judd, an 83-year-old San Clemente resident, died after his twin-engine plane crashed in a vacant lot near a school after taking off from Oceanside Municipal Airport Tuesday morning.

Ian Gregor, spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said the small airplane crashed near Highway 76, bursting into flames. County workers near the site of the crash told the San Diego Union-Tribune they heard noises that hinted at possible engine trouble as the plane cleared some trees. Judd was the only passenger aboard the Beechcraft 95-855.

He was a senior captain, one of the highest ranks among commercial pilots, for United Airlines for years, until retiring at 60, which was required back then by the airline, said Simmons, who founded a Dana Point subgroup of RUPA about 13 years ago.

For the past six years, Judd was a regular at the group's monthly meetings, where about 25 retired pilots would meet at the Wind and Sea, a restaurant in Dana Point. Over platefuls of calamari, the group would sit on the restaurant's deck and gab about the good old days. They exchanged books about aviation and Judd always had something to say.