News & Events

Igor Sikorsky

Inducted in 1970

First To Design, Produce And Fly A Helicopter In The Western Hemisphere, 1940

1889 – 1972

Germany produced the world’s first controllable transport helicopter in 1940 (the Focke-Achgelis Fa 223 kite), but was slow to exploit the achievement. As a result, Russian Igor Sikorsky was the first to successfully design a practical helicopter.

Sikorsky’s early attempts to fly a helicopter ended in failure and he transferred his interest to fixed-wing aircraft. Giant aircraft such as his “Le Grande” of 1913, the world’s first four-engine airplane, became his trademark.

The Soviet Revolution of 1917 forced Sikorsky to flee Russia. Almost penniless, he made New York his new home and attempted a fresh start. He reestablished his reputation as a great aircraft designer with the twin engine S-29-A. However, he soon abandoned his pursuit of fixed-wing airplanes to return to the subject of his earliest enthusiasm, rotating winged aircraft.

Sikorsky subsequently developed the VS-300 helicopter. This machine had a single main lifting rotor and a small vertical rotor at the tail to offset twisting effects and to supply directional control. The VS-300 made its first successful free flight on May 13, 1940, and set a world endurance record for helicopters of one hour and 32.5 minutes in May 1941.

In later years, Sikorsky’s successes were followed by an ever-improving series of helicopters bearing his name, such as the S-64 “Skycrane,” a flying crane capable of carrying a load of 22,400 pounds. Before his death at age 83, Sikorsky witnessed the worldwide use of helicopters for civilian and military purposes.

Wiley H. Post

Inducted in 1970

First To Fly Solo Around The World, 1933

1898 – 1935

Between July 15 and 22, 1933, in a single engine Lockheed Vega equipped with a Sperry automatic pilot, a radio direction finder and other new devices, Wiley Hardeman Post made a high-speed flight around the world. The solo flight in the “Winnie Mae” lasted seven days, 18 hours and 49 minutes and covered 15,596 miles. It was perhaps the most remarkable display of flying endurance of the decade.

Earlier, in 1931, ex-barnstormer Post and navigator Harold Gatty had thrilled the nation by dashing around the world in the Winnie Mae. The flight was not only a great technical achievement, but also one that demanded extraordinary fortitude. The Vega was airborne over 106 hours; neither Post nor Gatty had an opportunity to sleep. The flight’s elapsed time of eight days, 15 hours and 51 minutes far surpassed the previous record of 21 days set in 1929 by the airship “Graf Zeppelin.”

Post was considered one of the most colorful figures of early aviation. He set many records before being tragically killed in 1935 near Point Barrow, Alaska, in a crash that also took the life of his flying companion, humorist Will Rogers. His aerial achievements proved that shrinking the globe was as much a test of human endurance as a display of technological progress.

Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin, Michael Collins

Inducted in 1969

Neil Armstrong 1930-2012

Edwin Buzz Aldrin 1930-

Michael Collins 1930-2021

The First Lunar Landing, 1969

Apollo 11 blasted off from Cape Kennedy on July 16, 1969, bound for the moon. The crew consisted of Flight Commander Neil Armstrong, destined to be the first man on the moon; Air Force Colonel Edwin Aldrin, who accompanied Armstrong to the lunar surface; and Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Michael Collins, who remained in the command module “Columbia” during the final stages of the mission.

Five hundred feet above the moon’s surface, Armstrong assumed manual control of the lunar module “Eagle” in reaction to a computer malfunction. He had only two minutes to choose between landing or aborting the mission. The anxious moments ended when he reported “Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed.”

On July 20, 1969, at 10:56 p.m., Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the moon and spoke the famous words “that’s one small step for a man; one giant leap for mankind.” Indeed, one of humankind’s oldest dreams had been realized.

General James H. Doolittle

Inducted in 1969

First To Make An All-Blind Instrument Flight From Take Off to Landing, 1929

1896 – 1993

Beginning in the 1920s, “Jimmy” Doolittle compiled an impressive record as an air pioneer. He initially earned national attention in September 1922 when he made the first transcontinental crossing of the United States in a single day, traveling 2,100 miles in 21 hours. In 1927, Doolittle was the first pilot to complete an “outside loop,” a gravity-defying maneuver many considered impossible.

In 1928, Doolittle was released by the Army to head the Full Flight Laboratory. He quickly became involved with the problems of flight in poor visibility, especially with a project to develop instrument flying to combat the menace of fog. Newly developed radio aids, in conjunction with the Sperry gyro-horizon and directional gyro, gave Doolittle the equipment he needed to succeed. On September 24, 1929, flying in a hooded cockpit of a Consolidated NY-2 biplane, then Lieutenant Doolittle was able to take off in a dense fog, fly a specific course, and land without reference to the earth.

General Doolittle is probably most remembered for his Tokyo raid during World War II. He led sixteen B-25 Mitchell medium bombers against the Japanese home islands in April 1942. After the war, Doolittle returned to private business, but continued to serve on many advisory boards and commissions. In 1950, the Harmon International Aviation Awards Committee named him “Aviator of the Decade.”

Glenn Hammond Curtiss

Inducted in 1969

Pioneer Aviator, Designer and Manufacturer, 1911

1878 – 1930

After starting a career as a bicycle racer and builder like the Wright brothers, Curtiss’ interests shifted to motorcycles. In 1907, riding an 8-cycle machine he designed and built, Curtiss set a world speed record of 136.3 mph. He then joined Alexander Graham Bell’s Aerial Experiment Association as an engine builder. Curtiss designed the AEA’s third plane, the “June Bug,” and in July 1908 piloted the first official public flight in the U.S., flying one mile. This won him the 1908 Scientific American Trophy. He was awarded the Trophy again in 1909 for flying 24.7 miles in 52 minutes, and later that year won international air race meets in France and Italy. In 1910, he won the Trophy again for the first flight from Albany to New York.

In 1909, Curtiss established America’s first aircraft manufacturing company, and his planes flew on to set new aerial records. In 1910 and 1911, civilian pilot Eugene Ely flew Curtiss aircraft while making the first take off from a naval ship and then the first landing aboard ship. One week later, on January 26, 1911, Curtiss personally flew the first hydroplane (seaplane) for the U.S. Navy in a flight at San Diego. In February 1911, Curtiss carried the first passenger in a seaplane and thereafter fitted wheels to the craft, creating the first amphibious airplane.

In 1914, Curtiss produced a multi-engine flying boat, intended to fly the Atlantic, but World War I blocked the plans. During the war, Curtiss’ factories employed 10,000 workers producing the famous Jennies trainers and seaplanes. In 1919, after Curtiss left the firm, a Curtiss NC-4 flying boat, flown by U.S. Navy pilots, made the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean.

Curtiss retired from the aircraft business in the 1920s but his planes were the main stock of the famous “barnstormers” and air shows. Curtiss died at age 52 in 1930.

General Charles E. Yeager

Inducted in 1968

First Person To Pilot An Aircraft At Supersonic Speed, 1947

1923 – 2020

On October 14, 1947, Captain “Chuck” Yeager, a World War II fighter pilot, became the first to break the sound barrier in a needle-nosed Bell X-1. The four rocket motors of this tiny research craft could gulp an entire supply of fuel in two and one-half minutes. To save fuel, the Bell X-1 was carried aloft by a B-29. The craft was released over Muroc Dry Lake, California. Yeager leveled the craft and fired its rockets. “Boy, it sure went,” he later recalled.

At 37,000 feet, the X-1 flew nicely, but began to buffet as it approached the sound barrier. When an airplane travels at the speed of sound, the air particles ahead are compressed into a “wall of thick air.” Early engines could not supply enough power to push through this invisible wall and assaults on the barrier had proven hazardous and deadly. Yeager pushed on and accelerated the craft past the shock wave with a speed slightly greater than Mach 1, the speed of sound.

Before Yeager’s accomplishment, many agreed the sound barrier was an impenetrable obstacle to faster flight. However, with the world’s first supersonic flight, Yeager proved that speeds faster than sound were attainable.

Chuck Yeager passed away December 7, 2020 at age 97.

Amelia Earhart

Inducted in 1968

First Woman To Fly Solo Across The Atlantic, 1932
First Pilot To Fly Solo Hawaii To California, 1935

1897 – 1937

Amelia Earhart made world headlines with the first transatlantic solo flight by a woman when she flew a Lockheed Vega from Newfoundland to Londonderry, Northern Ireland, May 20-21, 1932. This was exactly five years after Lindbergh’s first solo flight from New York to Paris. For her accomplishment, Earhart received the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Four years earlier, in 1928, Earhart had received international notice by becoming the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, but as a passenger. On June 17, 1928, Earhart had flown aboard a Fokker C-2 Tri-motor piloted by Wilmer Stutz from Newfoundland to Wales. Thereafter, Earhart began to set records as a pilot herself.

In 1929 Earhart won third place in the first Women’s Air Derby race from Los Angeles to Cleveland. In 1930 she set an international speed record of 181 mph, then turned to flying autogyros. In 1931 she flew the newly developed rotating aircraft round-trip across the continent from New York to California.

Following her 1932 exploits, Earhart became the first pilot to fly solo the 2,400 miles from Hawaii to California, then added to her feat by flying from Los Angeles to Mexico City, and then Mexico City to New Jersey. Pursuing a long-held dream to fly around the world, Earhart set out in 1937 with navigator Fred Noonan in a twin engine Lockheed Electra. The plane left New Guinea July 3rd but was never seen again, leaving her ultimate fate an unsolved mystery to this day.

Jacqueline Cochran

Inducted in 1968

First Woman To Pilot An Aircraft Supersonically, 1953

1906 – 1980

On May 18, 1953, aviatrix Jacqueline Cochran became the first woman to pilot an aircraft supersonically. She broke the sound barrier, flying 625.5 miles per hour, in an F-86 Sabre and thus joined the previously male only “supersonic club.” Years later, on June 3, 1964, Cochran piloted an F-104G Starfighter at twice the speed of sound, establishing a woman’s world speed record of 1,429 miles per hour.

Cochran learned to fly at age 22 in order to expand her cosmetics business. She soon caught racing fever and competed in numerous races during the late 1930s and early 1940s. Cochran won several air records, including the women’s west to east transcontinental speed record and altitude records. She became the first woman to make a “blind” landing and the first to fly a warplane across the Atlantic Ocean. From 1938 to 1940, she received the Harmon Trophy as the outstanding woman flier in the world.

Early in World War II, Cochran served with the British Air Transport Auxiliary. After returning home, she organized a program to train women ferry pilots for the Army Air Force. Her trainees and the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron were merged into the U. S. Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP). Cochran was appointed Director of Women Pilots when the organization was created in 1943.

The Harmon International Aviation Awards Committee named Cochran “Aviatrix of the Decade” in 1950. By 1961 she held more speed records than any other pilot in the world.

Rear Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd

Inducted in 1968

First To Fly Over The North Pole, 1926
First To Fly Over The South Pole, 1929

1888 – 1957

Lieutenant Commander Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett were the first airmen to fly over the North Pole in the “Josephine Ford,” a Fokker Trimotor equipped with skis. Shortly after midnight on May 9, 1926, navigator Byrd and pilot Bennett lifted off a snow-packed runway at Kings Bay, Spitsbergen in Norway. They headed across the formidable arctic wasteland and at 9:02 a.m. crossed the top of the world, 800 miles from their take-off point.

On Thanksgiving Day, November 28, 1929, pilot Bernt Balchen, Byrd and a crew of three climbed aboard the Ford Trimotor that Byrd had named “Floyd Bennett” after his old comrade who had died in 1928. At 3:29 p.m. they left the ice pack, headed due south at a speed of 90 miles per hour and climbed to 8,000 feet. As the craft approached the Queen Maud mountain range, the crew was forced to throw overboard everything not tied down, including emergency supplies, to reduce weight so that the craft could clear the glacial summits and reach the polar plateau. At 1:14 a.m. on November 29, Byrd reported by radio “we have reached the South Pole.”

Though each polar flight was completed in less than a day, the excursions’ logistics required months of planning and execution. The Antarctic expedition was a particularly massive undertaking. Byrd went $184,000 in debt to outfit two ships, three planes and 82 men. Fifty men remained in the frozen desert for two years in this scientific endeavor.

Byrd was awarded the Navy Cross for his double success. More importantly, he had opened the way for trans-arctic passenger routes, as well as for routine exploration of both the earth’s poles.

Charles A. Lindbergh

Inducted in 1967

First Non-Stop Solo Flight From New York To Paris, 1927

1902 – 1974

Charles Lindbergh was not the first pilot to fly across the Atlantic: there were 12 prior crossings, five of them non-stop. However, Lindbergh’s solo flight from New York to Paris in May 1927 electrified the world and directly impacted American aviation, air transport and popular attitudes toward flying.

Lindbergh’s hazardous lone journey started in the early morning of May 20, 1927, with little pre-flight notice. At the heart of the Ryan “Brougham” NYP plane, called the “Spirit of St. Louis” for his sponsors, was a single 220-horsepower Wright Whirlwind engine. Lindbergh was counting on its efficiency and reliability to enable him to win the $25,000 Orteig prize for the flight. To save weight, the Ryan high-wing monoplane carried no radio or parachute; every possible ounce was eliminated to provide space for fuel. For instance, Lindbergh used a periscope to see directly forward because his vision was blocked by an extra fuel tank. Still, Lindbergh’s heavily burdened craft barely missed the telephone wires during his take-off from Roosevelt Field, Long Island. Flying eastward through fog and darkness and battling lack of sleep, Lindbergh completed the 3,600-mile journey in 33 hours and 29 minutes. At Le Bourget Field in Paris, huge surging crowds met Lindbergh, some ripping off wing fabric for souvenirs.

Lindbergh used his global status to advance aviation throughout the world, and with his wife, Anne Morrow, spent the 1930s as an active advocate of aeronautics. The pair flew exploratory routes across the oceans, across the Arctic and across the north Pacific on behalf of American aviation companies and airlines.

During World War II, Lindbergh flew as a civilian technical advisor improving the performance of U.S. military planes and engines in the Pacific, and even flew some combat patrols.

Lindbergh’s epic solo flight transformed public opinion on the value and significance of aircraft, air travel and aeronautics, helping lay the foundation for the future development of U.S. aviation.