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So far First Flight has created 80 blog entries.
4 08, 2014

Anne Baumgartner Carl and Jean Hixson

Inducted in 1999

First Women To Fly American Military Aircraft; Women Air Service Pilots

Anne Baumgartner Carl
1918 – 2008

Jean Hixson
1922 – 1984

During the early months of World War II, there was a critical shortage of male pilots. America’s foremost woman pilot, Jacqueline Cochran, convinced General H. “Hap” Arnold that a corps of properly trained female pilots could serve as backups for male pilots needed for combat duty. Eventually, 1,074 women completed training and earned their silver wings, thus forming the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP). They were the first women to fly American military aircraft. Anne Baumgartner Carl and Jean Hixson were among that group.

Anne Baumgartner Carl learned to fly in 1940 at Somerset Hills Airport in Basking Ridge, New Jersey. She soloed with just eight hours of instruction in a 50-horsepower Piper Cub. Carl learned about the WASP while working as a writer for the New York Times and in January […]

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4 08, 2014

John P. Stapp, M.D.

Inducted in 1998

Pioneer In Aerospace Medicine

1910 – 1999

John Stapp began his career as a medical officer in the United States Air Force where he organized and founded two laboratories, the Aeromedical Facility at Edwards Air Force Base, California, and the Aeromedical Field Laboratory at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico. From 1946 to 1963, Dr. Stapp pioneered research on the effects of mechanical forces upon living tissue.

Among the many projects that Stapp directed, the High Speed Sled Project is of special note. During these tests, he was the chief volunteer, making 29 of the rocket sled runs himself. On December 10, 1954, Stapp became the “fastest person on earth” when the rocket sled reached 632 miles per hour in 5 seconds and decelerated to a stop of 690 feet in 1.4 seconds at 40 times the speed of gravity. This stop is equivalent to hitting a brick wall at 60 […]

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4 08, 2014

Colonel Joe Kittinger

Inducted in 1998

First To Fly Solo Across The Atlantic Ocean In A Helium Balloon, 1984

1928 – 2022

Joe Kittinger, a native of Orlando, Florida, and eventually a Colonel in the Air Force, began flying aircraft in 1949. Kittinger qualified in practically all types of flying machines including hang gliders, hot air and gas balloons, propeller driven aircraft, and jet aircraft.

On August 16, 1960, he set three world records: the highest parachute jump (102,800 feet), the longest parachute free fall (4 minutes 36 seconds), and the first person to exceed the speed of sound without an aircraft or space vehicle (714 mph during free fall). In September 1984, Kittinger set a world record for the longest distance flown in a 3,000 cubic meter helium balloon. This first solo transatlantic balloon flight from Caribou, Maine, to Montenotte, Italy, covered 3,543 miles in 86 hours.

Colonel Kittinger received the Distinguished Flying Cross on five occasions, […]

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4 08, 2014

Tom Davis

Inducted in 1997

Pioneer In Commercial Aviation

1918 – 1999

Tom Davis was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He fell in love with aviation at an early age when his father took him to see barnstorming pilots fly. By the time he entered high school, Davis was spending his allowance on flying lessons. Davis spent one summer working for his former flight instructor who owned the Camel City Flying Service, which sold and leased planes, performed maintenance and trained pilots.

Early in his senior year at the University of Arizona, Davis quit school and returned home to help his struggling former employer whose company faced overdue loan payments. He helped repay the loan and reorganize the company a few months later. In 1940 he changed the company’s name to Piedmont Aviation, Inc., the holding company for Piedmont Airlines. During World War II, the company trained military pilots.

On February 20, 1948, Piedmont Airlines made its […]

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4 08, 2014

General Henry H. Arnold

Inducted in 1997

Father Of The United States Air Force; First Five-Star General

1886 – 1950

For 40 years, General Henry H. Arnold worked to advance the cause of American military air power and an independent Air Force. His efforts were finally recognized when on September 18, 1947, the United States Air Force was established as a separate branch of the Armed Forces.

“Hap” Arnold graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in the class of 1907. He served as a lieutenant with the infantry for several years after leaving West Point. In 1911, Arnold received flight training at the Wright School of Aviation at famous Huffman Prairie near Simms Station in Dayton, Ohio. Arnold later wrote in his autobiography, “More than anyone I have ever known or read about, the Wright brothers gave a sense that nothing is impossible.” On May 9, 1911, Lieutenant Arnold made his first solo flight. […]

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4 08, 2014

Lawrence B. Sperry

Inducted in 1996

Inventor of the Autopilot, Turn and Bank Indicator, and Parachute Pack

1892 – 1923

Known to his fellow aviators as “Gyro,” Lawrence Sperry was to many a handsome figure who might have stepped from the pages of a novel. His contributions were not in the entertainment industry, but rather in the many innovative flight instruments he constantly conceived, developed and personally tested.

Among Sperry’s creations are the automatic pilot, the turn and bank indicator, the seat pack parachute and retractable landing gear. He was among the first to fly at night and regularly flew night flights for the Army in 1916. He was one of the first to make parachute jumps for fun, and at the Dayton Air Show in 1918 thrilled crowds with a bold parachute jump. One of his greatest achievements in the field of military aviation was the development of the aerial torpedo.

Sperry lost his life on December […]

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4 08, 2014

Paul Poberezny and Tom Poberezny

Inducted in 1996

Founder and President, Experimental Aircraft Association

Paul Poberezny, 1921 – 2013

Tom Poberezny, 1946 – 2022

Paul H. Poberezny is one of the most decorated men in the international aviation community, having received hundreds of trophies, awards and honors for his countless contributions to the world of flight. He is best known as the founder of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), one of the world’s leading aviation organizations.

The career of Paul Poberezny includes nearly 30 years of military service as a pilot, test pilot and veteran of both World War II and the Korean War. He is the only man in the armed forces to attain all seven aviation wings the military offered and did so without having the benefit of military aviation training. Paul has logged more than 30,000 hours of flight time, has piloted 391 different types of aircraft, and designed and built more than 15 different planes.

Tom Poberezny, […]

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2 08, 2014

Francis and Gertrude Rogallo

Inducted in 1995

Developed The First Successful Flexible Wing

Francis Rogallo
1912 – 2009

Gertrude Rogallo
1914 – 2008

Francis Rogallo began his career as an engineer with the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) in 1936. While working at the NACA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, in the late 1940s, he envisioned the possibility of a simpler, more practical, and less expensive aircraft for sport and recreation. Since the research center did not wish to undertake such a project, Rogallo decided to pursue the idea on his own in his spare time.

Rogallo conceived the thought of making an aircraft wing as a parachute-like flexible structure that would open and maintain its shape by wind pressure. With his wife Gertrude’s help, he made small models that were tested in a wind tunnel at their home. After extensive experimentation, he designed the first Rogallo wing, for which Gertrude sewed the prototype from material scavenged from the […]

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2 08, 2014

Eugene B. Ely

Inducted in 1994

First Aviator To Take Off From A Ship, 1910, And First Aviator To Land On A Ship, 1911

1886 – 1911

Eugene Burton Ely, a civilian pilot from Iowa, became the first man to take off from the deck of a ship. He flew a Curtiss Model D bi-plane from a platform constructed on the bow of the cruiser USS Birmingham at Hampton Roads, Virginia, on November 14, 1910.

Rain and fog threatened to delay the flight, but Ely pressed on. Witnesses saw the daring aviator coast down the platform, drop to the bay, hit the water with a splash, rise again, and continue onward to a safe landing two and one-half miles away on Willoughby Spit.

Two months later, on January 18, 1911, Ely successfully executed the first airplane landing on a ship, again in a Curtiss airplane. He departed Tanforan Field near San Francisco wearing a padded football helmet and […]

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2 08, 2014

President George Herbert Walker Bush

Inducted in 1994

First Military Flyer To Become President Of The United States, 1988

1924 – 2018

George Bush was the first rated military combat pilot to be elected President of the United States. Bush enlisted in the United States Navy on June 12, 1942, his 18th birthday. He became the youngest pilot in the Navy when he received his wings and a commission in June 1943.

While on active duty during World War II, Bush flew torpedo bombers from the aircraft carrier USS San Jacinto in the pacific campaign. His Grumman TBF “Avenger” torpedo plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire and shot down in September 1944 over the Bonin Island of Chichi Jima, 600 miles south of Japan. Bush was sole survivor of the three-man crew and was rescued by the Navy submarine USS Finback. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross plus three Air Medals for his courageous service.

Bush was elected to […]

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