WESTERLY, R.I. — When Bob Hall turned 80 almost a decade ago, his children helped him cross an item off his bucket list: he wanted to parachute from a plane.

So, with the Providence native and World War II vet about to turn 90, his six children knew they had set the bar pretty high.

But Hall still had one item on his list: he wanted to fly again in an Avenger, a torpedo bomber like one he flew in as a gunner off the California coast during the war.

After a Japanese submarine had surfaced off the coast and shelled oil fields at Santa Barbara, the Navy began patrolling.

"We were looking for Japanese subs up and down the California coast," he reminisced on Monday. They would fly from the Monterrey Naval Air Station, south to San Diego, and back. "We never saw a Japanese submarine, but the pilot would fly low over the beach because of all the bathing beauties."

For his children, finding an Avenger for their father to fly in was nearly as fruitless as hunting Japanese subs had been for him.

"All six of us went to work on the internet," said Chris Frado, his oldest daughter. Locating a TBM-3 or TBF-3, as the planes were officially designated, was not terribly difficult. "He had posed next to the plane, he had touched the plane, but not flown in it," Frado said.

His daughter-in-law Donna Hall tracked one down at the Collings Foundation in Stow, Massachusetts. But the foundation's TBM was for display only; it didn't fly. The foundation suggested she call Mark Simmons, who runs the Heritage Flight Foundation, based in Connecticut.

His children's question paralleled the challenges he had faced trying to join the Navy in September 1944.

Born Robert D. Hall Jr. on Oct. 25, 1927 he was only 16 when he and a high school buddy decided to join the service together. "I couldn't wait to get in," Hall said Monday. "Because they were fighting the Japanese. Nobody could wait to get in in those days."

Seventeen-year-olds were allowed to enlist.

"I went up to the town hall and bought a copy of my birth certificate," Hall recalled. "I erased the seven and changed it to a six."

That made him a year older, but he faced one more obstacle: he was color blind and flunked the enlistment physical.

But luck would shine on him, in the form of a Navy petty officer who saw the dejected teen leaving the enlistment station.

"Hey, buddy, you want to get in the Navy real bad?" the petty officer asked him, and then gave him the name of an eye doctor who had been dishonorably discharged and had stolen a copy of the Navy color-blindness eye-test charts. For $20 — a lot of money for a teen in 1944 — the doctor coached him how to beat the test by memorizing the charts and other tricks.

For Hall's children, luck shined on them in the form of Simmons, the vice president and pilot of the Heritage Flight Foundation. The foundation, of Pawcatuck, Connecticut, flies a TBM-3E out of Westerly State Airport.

A 30-minute ride costs $1,500, most of which goes into operating the aircraft during the flight and maintaining it, according to Simmons. A 30-minute flight burns about $400 in aviation gasoline, he said.

All six kids chipped in for the ticket, according to daughter Frado. "I'll do anything for my dad."

So it was that Bob Hall stood next to a bright blue TBM Monday morning.

"The last one of these I saw was at the Monterrey Naval Air Station," he said. He had been late from the mess hall that morning and raced to the airfield just in time to see the plane he was supposed to be on take off. The next time he saw it, it was on the back of a truck, smashed to pieces. The pilot had flown into a mountain.

There would be no such unhappy ending on Monday.

Simmons brought the three-bladed prop to life in front his hangar at the edge of the airfield. When the engine was running, he folded the wings of the plane alongside its body.

"Like a big bug," exclaimed Natalie Clancy, Hall's sister, who still lives in Riverside, where she, Hall and siblings grew up.

The wings of a TBM fold tight next to its body to make room for more planes when operating off an aircraft carrier.

Simmons taxied to the end of the airport's main runway, cranked the engine and started the roll down the runway.

Hall, who now lives in Northfield, Massachusetts, went aloft wearing a silk scarf that had belonged to his first wife, Jane Judson Hall, who died in 2010 after 60 years of marriage.

After takeoff, he circled the field and made a low pass down the runway, the roar of the engine making everything on the ground vibrate.

Then Simmons headed for the coast, including the Westerly beaches.

"We went down low so he could see some bikinis," said daughter Karen Hasenfus, the only family member to join Hall, Simmons and crew chief Kevin Edgecomb on the four-seat plane.

Toward the end of the flight, Simmons made a pass over the airport, banking steeply to the left, showing the belly of the plane to Hall's family in front of the hangar, before banking to the right, letting everyone see into the cockpit and wave to Hall.

"Definitely felt that g-force thing, and it makes you a little nauseous," Hasenfus said, "but it was thrilling."

Back on the ground, as the plane taxied to a stop, Hasenfus dabbed at her eyes, wiping away tears. "It was just emotional to be able to share this with my dad," she explained.

For Hall's part, the flight brought one surprise:

"Kind of bumpy," he said. "I was surprised at how bumpy it was."

And his kids may have set to bar too high for his 90th.

"They're going to have to top it for my 100th birthday."

But Hasenfus hinted that their plans may be related to their parents song:

"Fly Me to the Moon."