AvLeak's all-time top 100 stars of aerospace & aviation list

[Dale]

On Fri, 04 Jul 2003 09:31:05 -0400, "Scott M. Kozel" > wrote:

>Leonardo da Vinci lived 1452-1519, centuries before the actual aviation
>and aerospace era. Did anyone else on the list predate the actual
>practice by a large margin?

Well, Daniel Bernoulli died in 1782. Maybe that's the second largest "margin"
on the list. (?)

Dale

Richard Branson one notch ahead of Yuri Gagarin? Weird... :)

[OM]

....This one'll no doubt raise some eyebrows, especially some of the
ties, such as positions 25, 67 and 71, or why some were ranked rather
lower than their contributions deserved, especially Tsiolkovsky. And
lord knows what Buzz will say about position 9 vs position 11 and/or
13.

....Of course, the most important question most of us will have is why
Henry isn't on the list :-)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1 Wilbur and Orville Wright
2 Wernher von Braun
3 Robert Goddard
4 Leonardo da Vinci
5 Glenn Curtiss
6 Charles A. Lindbergh
7 William L. "Billy" Mitchell
8 Clarence L. "Kelly" Johnson
9 Neil A. Armstrong
10 Daniel Bernoulli
11 Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager
12 Otto Lilienthal
13 Buzz Aldrin
14 William Boeing
15 Alan B. Shepard, Jr.
16 Henry H. "Hap" Arnold
17 Manfred von Richthofen
18 Samuel P. Langley
19 Igor I. Sikorsky
20 Jules Verne
21 John K. Northrop
22 Herb Kelleher
23 Edward V. "Eddie" Rickenbacker
24 Jacques-Etienne and Joseph-Michel Montgolfier
25 tie Christopher Kraft
25 tie Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
26 Curtis LeMay
27 Ernst Mach
28 Juan Trippe
29 Elbert "Burt" Rutan
30 Theodore von Karman
31 Alberto Santos-Dumont
32 James Van Allen
33 Alexander Graham Bell
34 Ben Rich
35 Alvin M. "Tex" Johnston
36 Richard Branson
37 Yuri Gagarin
38 Octave Chanute
39 James "Jimmy" H. Doolittle
40 Alexandre Gustave Eiffel
41 Robert "Bob" Crandall
42 Space Shuttle Challenger Crew
43 Louis Bleriot
44 Donald Douglas
45 Claire L. Chenault
46 Will Rogers
47 James A. Lovell, Jr.
48 Robert "Bob" Hoover
49 tie Thomas H. Kelly
49 tie Clément Ader
50 Hugh Dryden
51 Pierre-Georges Latécoère
52 tie Marcel Bloch (Dassault)
52 tie Roger Béteille
53 Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom
54 Ferdinand von Zeppelin
55 Jacqueline Auriol
56 Arthur C. Clarke
57 Isoroku Yamamoto
58 Daniel and Harry Guggenheim
59 Anne Morrow Lindbergh
60 Robert J. Collier
61 Gregory "Pappy" Boyington
62 Elmer Sperry
63 James "Jimmy" Stewart
64 Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan
65 Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
66 tie Patricia "Patty" Wagstaff
66 tie Frank Whittle
67 tie Carl Sagan
67 tie Sergey Korolyov
68 Albert Boyd
69 René Leduc
70 John W. Young
71 Gene Roddenberry
72 Valentina Tereshkova
73 Thomas E. Braniff
74 Walter C. "Walt" Williams
75 Jean Mermoz
76 Henri and Maurice Farman
77 Paul Poberezny
78 Jean Bertin
79 Sally K. Ride
80 Roland Garros
81 Osborne Reynolds
82 Amelia Earhart
83 Georges Guynemer
84 H.G. Wells
85 Jean-Pierre Haigneré
86 tie James S. McDonnell, Jr.
86 tie Robert Esnault-Pelterie
87 tie Allan and Malcom Loughhead (Lockheed)
87 tie Marcel Bouilloux-Lafont
88 Richard Bong
89 John H. Glenn, Jr.
90 tie James E. Webb
90 tie Freddie Laker
91 Lawrence Sperry
92 Douglas Bader
93 Howard Hughes
94 Willy Messerschmitt
95 Louis Breguet
96 William A. Moffett
97 William "Bull" Halsey
98 George Mueller
99 Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe
100 Boris Petrov

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

....Figure we should probably fill in just who these guys are. Might
make a nice FAQ of sorts :-)


OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

[Henry Spencer]

In article >,
Dale > wrote:
>Weird list. Why is Will Rogers on it (at #46), but Wiley Ford isn't?
>John Glenn is at #89; 25 places below "Wrong Way" Corrigan?

Al Shepard is much higher than Yuri Gagarin.

Richard Branson is way above Korolev.

Willy Ley and Chesley Bonestell aren't there at all.

Yeager is there, but Crossfield, Apt, Walker, Kincheloe, etc. aren't.

Rickenbacker, von Richthofen, Boyington, Bader, etc. are there --
charismatic fighter pilots, yes, but contributors to aviation?? -- and
Erich Hartmann isn't.

The Challenger crew (killed on a supposedly-routine flight) are there, but
Vladimir Komarov (killed testing a new manned spacecraft) is missing.

Langley (who as far as I know, never got anything to fly) is near the
top, while Paul MacCready (Gossamer Condor etc.) is nowhere to be found.

It's good that Burt Rutan is listed, but I miss Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager
(it was they and their helpers, not Burt, who built Voyager).

Tsiolkovsky, who came first but was too little known to be very influential,
is there, but Oberth isn't.

Bleriot below Eiffel? Curtiss and Messerschmitt and Boeing but not Fokker
or de Havilland or Mikoyan?? James Van Allen but not Max Faget or William
Pickering???

A very strange list.
--
MOST launched 1015 EDT 30 June, separated 1046, | Henry Spencer
first ground-station pass 1651, all nominal! |

[Scott M. Kozel]

Dale > wrote:
>
> "Scott M. Kozel" > wrote:
>
> >Leonardo da Vinci lived 1452-1519, centuries before the actual aviation
> >and aerospace era. Did anyone else on the list predate the actual
> >practice by a large margin?
>
> Well, Daniel Bernoulli died in 1782. Maybe that's the second largest "margin"
> on the list. (?)

Isn't the Montgolfier Balloon considered to be the first manned
vehicular flight? That was in 1783.

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blairship.htm

Then, the first successful manned airplane flight was in 1903.

Even though Leonardo da Vinci did work on the theoretical foundation of
aviation, it was literally centuries later before it came to fruition
with actual manned vehicular flight. As such, I'm surprised that he got
the #4 ranking.

Also --
42 Space Shuttle Challenger Crew

But the Space Shuttle Columbia Crew didn't rank within the 100.
Illogical, IMO.


I see that Richard E. Byrd (1888-1957) didn't make the list of 100.

"The exploring expedition organized by Richard E. Byrd in 1928 may be
considered the first of the mechanical age of exploration in
Antarctica. The program was the first of its kind to utilize the
airplane, aerial camera, snowmobile and massive communications
resources".

http://www.south-pole.com/p0000107.htm

--
Scott M. Kozel Highway and Transportation History Websites
Virginia/Maryland/Washington, D.C. http://www.roadstothefuture.com
Philadelphia and Delaware Valley http://www.pennways.com

[Henry Spencer]

I wrote:
>Rickenbacker, von Richthofen, Boyington, Bader, etc. are there --
>charismatic fighter pilots, yes, but contributors to aviation?? -- and
>Erich Hartmann isn't.

Oh yes, forgot to explain this one... For those who don't recognize the
name, Hartmann is the top-scoring air ace of all time, 352 confirmed kills.

(He spent nearly four years on the Eastern Front -- none of this business
of "fifty missions and then you go home" -- where he routinely flew
several combat missions a day in a target-rich environment. And he was
very good and very careful, never taking wild chances that might cut his
career short. He may have been aided a little by poorly-trained opponents
in poor aircraft, but that wasn't the whole story, as witness the fact
that in a brief rotation to the Mediterranean, he added 8 Mustangs to his
kill record.)
--
MOST launched 1015 EDT 30 June, separated 1046, | Henry Spencer
first ground-station pass 1651, all nominal! |

[Brian Gaff]

Laker?
Mr Virgin??

What exactly are the rules behind the list?

I mean, first UK in space was helen Sharman and who was the person
responsible for the first space collision? :-)

What about the pilots of the X planes? or maybe my reader skipped a row
somewhere.

Brian

--
Brian Gaff....
graphics are great, but the blind can't hear them
Email:
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[Matthew B. Ota]

What about Sergei Korolev?

M. Ota

OM wrote:

> ...This one'll no doubt raise some eyebrows, especially some of the
> ties, such as positions 25, 67 and 71, or why some were ranked rather
> lower than their contributions deserved, especially Tsiolkovsky. And
> lord knows what Buzz will say about position 9 vs position 11 and/or
> 13.
>
> ...Of course, the most important question most of us will have is why
> Henry isn't on the list :-)
>

[Terrence Daniels]

"Rand Simberg" > wrote in message
...
> Ehricke's missing, as is Max Hunter and Juan Tripp. And Don Douglas
> and Bill Boeing and Glenn Martin and Jack Northrop and Kelly Johnson
> and Howard Hughes, and Jimmy Doolittle. They've got Roddenberry, but
> where's Heinlein and O'Neill, who also inspired so many, often in a
> more fruitful direction?

I like that Roddenberry is there, but you're right, where's Heinlein and
Doolittle?

And what about Bob Gilruth?

[Henry Spencer]

In article >,
Rand Simberg > wrote:
>Ehricke's missing, as is Max Hunter and Juan Tripp. And Don Douglas
>and Bill Boeing and Glenn Martin and Jack Northrop and Kelly Johnson
>and Howard Hughes, and Jimmy Doolittle.

It's not quite that bad... Trippe is 28, Douglas is 44, Boeing 14,
Northrop 21, Johnson 8, Hughes 93, Doolittle 39. No Ehricke, Hunter,
or Martin, though. No Karel Bossart or Milton Rosen either.

They list Lovell, but no Borman or Conrad. (One might suspect that
Jim Lovell made it onto the list by virtue of a certain movie...)

>They've got Roddenberry, but
>where's Heinlein and O'Neill, who also inspired so many, often in a
>more fruitful direction?

Indeed so. Clarke, but no Asimov.
--
MOST launched 1015 EDT 30 June, separated 1046, | Henry Spencer
first ground-station pass 1651, all nominal! |

[ed kyle]

OM <om@our_blessed_lady_mary_of_the_holy_NASA_research _facility.org> wrote in message >...
> ...This one'll no doubt raise some eyebrows, especially some of the
> ties, such as positions 25, 67 and 71, or why some were ranked rather
> lower than their contributions deserved, especially Tsiolkovsky. And
> lord knows what Buzz will say about position 9 vs position 11 and/or
> 13.
>
>
> 1 Wilbur and Orville Wright
> 2 Wernher von Braun
> 3 Robert Goddard
> ....
>29 Elbert "Burt" Rutan
> ...
>33 Alexander Graham Bell
> ...
>36 Richard Branson
>37 Yuri Gagarin
> ...
> 67 tie Carl Sagan
> 67 tie Sergey Korolyov

How could these listmakers not have placed Korolyov in the
top 10, or even top 5? He was certainly more important for
aerospace than Richard Branson, Burt Rutan, etc. (to date
at least). Korolyov's Semyorka has launched far more space
flights than any other machine (at least four times as many
as the nearest competitor). It launched the first satellite,
it still flies today, carrying crews and supplies to ISS,
and it may soon begin flying from Kourou.

- Ed Kyle

[Rand Simberg]

On Fri, 4 Jul 2003 20:18:11 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(Henry Spencer) made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

>In article >,
>Rand Simberg > wrote:
>>Ehricke's missing, as is Max Hunter and Juan Tripp. And Don Douglas
>>and Bill Boeing and Glenn Martin and Jack Northrop and Kelly Johnson
>>and Howard Hughes, and Jimmy Doolittle.
>
>It's not quite that bad... Trippe is 28, Douglas is 44, Boeing 14,
>Northrop 21, Johnson 8, Hughes 93, Doolittle 39. No Ehricke, Hunter,
>or Martin, though. No Karel Bossart or Milton Rosen either.

Really? I did a search. I guess I screwed it up somehow. That's
what I get for using ctrl-F in Windoze...

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
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[Rand Simberg]

On 4 Jul 2003 14:58:57 -0700, in a place far, far away,
(ed kyle) made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

>How could these listmakers not have placed Korolyov in the
>top 10, or even top 5?

Did the mention Tsien?

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers:

[Mike Rhino]

Are any wing-walkers on the list?

The Wright brothers borrowed ideas from others. I don't know their names,
but they were influential.

[Peter Stickney]

In article >,
(Henry Spencer) writes:
> In article >,
> Dale > wrote:
>>Weird list. Why is Will Rogers on it (at #46), but Wiley Ford isn't?
>>John Glenn is at #89; 25 places below "Wrong Way" Corrigan?

Well, Corrigan _was_ a better storyteller.

> Willy Ley and Chesley Bonestell aren't there at all.

Or Hermann Oberth.

Or for that matter, Lee Begin, Ed Schmued... But Leduc is there. Go
figure.

> Yeager is there, but Crossfield, Apt, Walker, Kincheloe,
etc. aren't.

>
> Rickenbacker, von Richthofen, Boyington, Bader, etc. are there --
> charismatic fighter pilots, yes, but contributors to aviation?? -- and
> Erich Hartmann isn't.

Well, in Rickenbacker's defense, he was a lot more than a "Charismatic
fighter pilot". He was also a very early and long-term mover and
shaker in the development of Air Transportation, running Eastern Air
Transport/Eastern Air Lines from teh 1930s through the 1950s. He was
also a key member of a number of wartime Production and Advisory
Boards during WW 2.


>
> The Challenger crew (killed on a supposedly-routine flight) are there, but
> Vladimir Komarov (killed testing a new manned spacecraft) is
> missing.

Or, for that matter, teh Columbia crew, as well.
>
> Langley (who as far as I know, never got anything to fly) is near the
> top, while Paul MacCready (Gossamer Condor etc.) is nowhere to be found.
>
> It's good that Burt Rutan is listed, but I miss Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager
> (it was they and their helpers, not Burt, who built Voyager).
> Bleriot below Eiffel? Curtiss and Messerschmitt and Boeing but not Fokker
> or de Havilland or Mikoyan?? James Van Allen but not Max Faget or William
> Pickering???

And why Leduc, and Latecoere, and not Farman?

And no Sam Heron, Halford, Renschler, or von Ohain.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

[Steven James Forsberg]

In sci.space.policy Scott M. Kozel > wrote:
: OM <om@our_blessed_lady_mary_of_the_holy_NASA_research _facility.org>
: wrote:
:>
:> ...This one'll no doubt raise some eyebrows, especially some of the
:> ties, such as positions 25, 67 and 71, or why some were ranked rather
:> lower than their contributions deserved, especially Tsiolkovsky. And
:> lord knows what Buzz will say about position 9 vs position 11 and/or
:> 13.
:>
:> ...Of course, the most important question most of us will have is why
:> Henry isn't on the list :-)
:>
:> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
:>
:> 1 Wilbur and Orville Wright
:> 2 Wernher von Braun
:> 3 Robert Goddard
:> 4 Leonardo da Vinci

: Leonardo da Vinci lived 1452-1519, centuries before the actual aviation
: and aerospace era. Did anyone else on the list predate the actual
: practice by a large margin?

Sounds like a pretty ethno-centric list. If you're going to include
da Vinci so high, then what about early Chinese pioneers in rocketry and
kite flying?

regards,
----------------------------------------------

[Peter Stickney]

In article >,
"Mike Rhino" > writes:
> Are any wing-walkers on the list?
>
> The Wright brothers borrowed ideas from others. I don't know their names,
> but they were influential.

Well, the Wrights studied what was going on with the others at the
time who were pursuing powered flight. (The credible ones, anyway,
like Lilienthal, Chanute, Pilcher, adn Langley - Octave Chanute was a
good friend of theirs, and kept them informed) They realized, though,
after studying the work of these folks that none of them really
understood what they were up to, either in terms of basic
aerodynamics, or the more critical factors of stability and control.
The Wrights approached the problem of flying systematically, using
models adn wind tunnels to produce the first accurate tables of teh
characteristics of airfoils, and their behavior under various
conditions. They then decided on a rather different approach than had
been taken by others, namely, building a reliably-flying comtrollable
aircraft first, then adding power to it. They used this glider
experimentation, initially in Ohio, and from 'bout 1900 on, at Kill
Devil Hills in North Carolina, to teach themselves how to fly.
Everybody else was of the mind that they'd build a full-up aircraft,
and just jump into it and fly it. That method doesn't work so very
well - just ask the ghost of Charles Manley, Samuel Langley's engineer
and test pilot, and the pioneer in water ditching (Having crashed
twice before the Wrights flew in 1903). The Wrights, as a result of
this incremental development and test program went to North Carolina
on their 1903 expedition armed with a better knowledge of the
fundamentals of aerodynamics, a proven flyable airframe (The 1903
Flyer was a slight incremental development of their phenomenal 1902
glider) and more piloting time than anyone else in the world.

While they certainly examined the ideas of others, they examined them
on their merits, and found most of the previous work lacking.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

[Jack Frillman]

OM wrote:
> ...This one'll no doubt raise some eyebrows, especially some of the
> ties, such as positions 25, 67 and 71, or why some were ranked rather
> lower than their contributions deserved, especially Tsiolkovsky. And
> lord knows what Buzz will say about position 9 vs position 11 and/or
> 13.
>
> ...Of course, the most important question most of us will have is why
> Henry isn't on the list :-)
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>


> 20 Jules Verne
> 32 James Van Allen
> 46 Will Rogers
> 67 tie Carl Sagan
> 71 Gene Roddenberry
> 84 H.G. Wells
> 97 William "Bull" Halsey

Why are these guy on the list?

2 authors from the 1800's ( yea I know Wells was also in the 1900's)
2 scientists.
1 humorist
1 TV producer
1 Admiral.

What did any of them have to do with aviation?

[Tony Rusi]

OM <om@our_blessed_lady_mary_of_the_holy_NASA_research _facility.org> wrote in message >...
> ...This one'll no doubt raise some eyebrows, especially some of the
> ties, such as positions 25, 67 and 71, or why some were ranked rather
> lower than their contributions deserved, especially Tsiolkovsky. And
> lord knows what Buzz will say about position 9 vs position 11 and/or
> 13.

Obviously Avleak is still part of the problem not the solution. Who
has pointed out the error in our wayward socialist space programs?
Robert Truax has! He was pushing for "a rocket for the rest of us"
decades before anyone else, and he actually built rockets. He was not
hung up on reusability like NASA is or was.

I think Goddard should be on top of that list because he actually
built the first liquid fueled rocket. Thinking about it just isn't as
important as actually doing something, so davinci and the russian
should go to the bottom of the list. Thinking is 1% of the work. 99%
of the work is actually doing something. That is why Goddard should be
ahead of Von Braun, because he learned from Goddard.

[Scott M. Kozel]

Jack Frillman > wrote:
>
> > 20 Jules Verne
> > 32 James Van Allen
> > 46 Will Rogers
> > 67 tie Carl Sagan
> > 71 Gene Roddenberry
> > 84 H.G. Wells
> > 97 William "Bull" Halsey
>
> Why are these guy on the list?
>
> 2 authors from the 1800's ( yea I know Wells was also in the 1900's)
> 2 scientists.
> 1 humorist
> 1 TV producer
> 1 Admiral.
>
> What did any of them have to do with aviation?

Halsey was one of the top commanders and tacticians of the U.S. fast
aircraft carrier task forces in WWII.

'Designated a naval aviator in 1935 at the age of 52, he took command of
USS Saratoga from 1935 until 1937. In February 1942, then Vice Adm.
Halsey while serving as commander, Carrier Division Two aboard the
flagship USS Enterprise, led the first counter-strikes of World War II
against the Japanese with carrier raids on the Gilbert and Marshall
Islands. Later that year, his task force launched the famous "Doolittle
Raid" against targets on the Japanese homeland.'

'Assigned as commander, South Pacific Force and South Pacific Area on
October 18, 1942, Halsey led the Navy, Marine Corps, and Army forces
that conquered the strategically important Solomon Islands.
Subsequently as commander, Third Fleet, his task forces consistently won
hard fought victories during campaigns in the Philippines, Okinawa, and
other islands. Nicknamed "Bull" Halsey he embodied his slogan, "Hit
hard, hit fast, hit often." On December 11, 1945, he became the fourth
officer to hold the rank of fleet admiral.'

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/halsejr.htm

--
Scott M. Kozel Highway and Transportation History Websites
Virginia/Maryland/Washington, D.C. http://www.roadstothefuture.com
Philadelphia and Delaware Valley http://www.pennways.com

[Kevin Willoughby]

Jack Frillman said:
[quotes re-sequenced]
> What did any of them have to do with aviation?

Note the title: 100 stars of aero*SPACE* and aviation.


> > 20 Jules Verne
> > 67 tie Carl Sagan
> > 71 Gene Roddenberry
> > 84 H.G. Wells

Each of these people has been an important influence, encouraging
others to get involved in space exploration.


> > 32 James Van Allen

The first space scientist? He should clearly be on the list. (We can
debate the position on the list.)
--
Kevin Willoughby

We'd spend the remaining time trying to fix the engine.
-- Neil Armstrong

[Jack Frillman]

Kevin Willoughby wrote:
> Jack Frillman said:
> [quotes re-sequenced]
>
>>What did any of them have to do with aviation?
>
>
> Note the title: 100 stars of aero*SPACE* and aviation.

Oops.
Thanks for pointing out the obvious to me. :-)

>
>
>
>>>20 Jules Verne
>>>67 tie Carl Sagan
>>>71 Gene Roddenberry
>>>84 H.G. Wells
>>
>
> Each of these people has been an important influence, encouraging
> others to get involved in space exploration.

Sagan maybe... but the others are debateable IMHO.

>
>
>
>>>32 James Van Allen

What about all the Astronomers that proceeded him?



>>
>
> The first space scientist? He should clearly be on the list. (We can
> debate the position on the list.)

[Jack Frillman]

Kevin Willoughby wrote:
> Jack Frillman said:
>
>>>>>20 Jules Verne
>>>>>67 tie Carl Sagan
>>>>>71 Gene Roddenberry
>>>>>84 H.G. Wells
>>>>
>>>Each of these people has been an important influence, encouraging
>>>others to get involved in space exploration.
>>
>>Sagan maybe... but the others are debateable IMHO.
>
>
> Roddenberry isn't debatable. Several astronauts have made clear that
> Star Trek was an influence on their interest in space. The first
> Shuttle was named Enterprise due to popular demand.
>
> A cording to Apollo 11's CM pilot, the CM on that historic flight was
> named Columbia, in part, due to the influence of Verne's Columbiad.

Still seems dubius too me. Then why not Kubrick?
It seems to me that the list should be for those that did something
concrete like inventing or making something or setting some kind of
flying record.

[Kevin Willoughby]

Michael Walsh said:
> As far as science-fiction goes, Arthur Clarke has a valid non-fiction
> reason for being on the list because of his paper on communication
> satellites.

Also, he was a space/science popularizer. If Sagan deserved to be on
the list, Clarke deserved to be higher on the list for just his
popularization work.
--
Kevin Willoughby

We'd spend the remaining time trying to fix the engine.
-- Neil Armstrong

[dave schneider]

Well, half of the "10 Great Pilots" list from *Air & Space Smithsonian*
(Mar 2003, pg 67) made it to the AvLeak list; looks like A&S was only
talking about pilots with wind beneath their wings, though.

Here's their list, the AW position at the end:

#1 James "Jimmy" H. Doolittle (39)
#2 Noel Wien (--)
#3 Robert "Bob" Hoover (48)
#4 Charles A. Lindbergh (06)
#5 Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager (11)
#6 Scott Crossfield (--)
#7 Erich Hartmann (--)
#8 Anthony W. LaVier (--)
#9 Jean Mermoz (75)
#10 Jaqueline Auriol (--)

/dps

[Bill Higgins]

On Sat, 5 Jul 2003, Mike Rhino wrote:

> Are any wing-walkers on the list?

Number 6, Charles A. Lindbergh.

Guess Ormer Locklear didn't make the cut.

--
"The vehicle exploded on takeoff, | Bill Higgins
but the pilot didn't notice." | Fermilab
--The 27 June 1994 DC-X rocket mishap | Internet:
explained by Alan Anderson |
)

[Raymond Chuang]

I wonder why Alexander M. Lippisch is not on the list. :-(

His research into unusual aerodynamic configurations during the 1930's and
1940's (flying wing, swept-back wings, delta wings) made it possible for
today's high-speed flight operations.

--
Raymond Chuang
Mountain View, CA USA

[Paddler]

Where is Sir Isaac Newton? I know orbital mechanics is only a small part
of space flight but you know...it does help to know where you are going..;>

[Rick DeNatale]

On Fri, 04 Jul 2003 14:56:15 +0000, Henry Spencer wrote:

> It's good that Burt Rutan is listed, but I miss Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager
> (it was they and their helpers, not Burt, who built Voyager).

Yeah, but Dick hogged the controls of the Voyager and didn't let Jeanna
fly very much.

[Dan Foster]

In article >, Rick DeNatale > wrote:
> On Fri, 04 Jul 2003 14:56:15 +0000, Henry Spencer wrote:
>
>> It's good that Burt Rutan is listed, but I miss Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager
>> (it was they and their helpers, not Burt, who built Voyager).
>
> Yeah, but Dick hogged the controls of the Voyager and didn't let Jeanna
> fly very much.

Wasn't she sick with some sort of stomach virus for some or much of the
flight? Still remember that remarkable flight - truly remarkable, and
enjoyed seeing it in the National Air & Space Museum (NASM) a few years
later.

-Dan

[Rick DeNatale]

On Sat, 05 Jul 2003 00:30:24 -0400, Peter Stickney wrote:

>>> 25 tie Antoine de Saint-Exupéry ?
>>
>> Aircraft designer, I believe. French, obv.
>
> Early long range pilot/Airline pioneer. Aviation writer of some
> esteem. Disappeared while flying recce flight over occupied France.

Actually, I beleive he went down in the Mediterranean.