Who is your avaition hero?

[tom d. friedman]

Gary Austin

i'm sure everybody on this board will concur with that 1, it put a lump in my throat!! very nice gesture.

[DC3R4DC47]

Ernie Gann, Antoine de St.Expury,Richard Drury,Len Morgan,Pete Renner ,Richard Hillary,Peter Pease,Bert Stiles,and the crew of APOLLO13

Last edited by DC3R4DC47 on Wed Jun 12, 2013 11:30 am, edited 1 time in total.

[Fearless Tower]

Mine are the designers who created the great planes. Just a few are: Louis Bleriot, Tom Sopwith, Geoff de Havilland, Tony Fokker, Reinhold Platz, Glenn Curtiss, Jack Northrop, Lloyd Stearman, C.G. Taylor, the brothers Gunter, Willi Messerschmitt, Kurt Tank, Jiro Horikoshi, Edgar Schmued, Kelly Johnson, Alexander Kartveli, Chance Vought, Reggie Mitchell, Clyde Cessna, Sidney Camm, Matty Laird, Walter Beech, Alexander Yakovlev, Mikoyan and Gurevich, A.N. Tupolev, Igor Sikorsky, Leroy Grumman, Glenn Martin, William Boeing, Ed Heinemann, James McDonnell.

August

That whole list and you left out Donald Douglas???

[whistlingdeath77]

I'd go boyington. But, it's tough because even a regular joe who never shot down a zero still would be tops in my book

[old iron]

Has to be Adrian Warburton.

RAF reconnaissance pilot based on Malta. If you have never heard of him then Google him and read about the man behind the 'legend'.

Definitely had substantial 'cojones'.

BG

Wow... And he flew Marylands!

No glory, but guts.

[seagull61785]

Yep Kevin he had plenty of guts - flew more than Marylands too.

I don't think many photo-recon pilots ever qualified as an ace but he did.

He even got the airframe fitters on Malta to modify the leading edge long-range (if there ever was a 'long range' Mark of operational Spitfire) fuel tanks and managed to fit a couple of cannon so he could look for trouble after getting his pictures (or more to the point - he could better handle himself if trouble came his way).

Everything I've read about Warburton seems extraordinary. If ever anyone was allowed to fight his own personal war it was him.

Barry

[Ken]

Nice post, Dudley. Like song lyrics that explain a feeling you could never quite put words to yourself. Well said.

Ken

PS: Doolittle

[k5083]

Mine are the designers who created the great planes. Just a few are: Louis Bleriot, Tom Sopwith, Geoff de Havilland, Tony Fokker, Reinhold Platz, Glenn Curtiss, Jack Northrop, Lloyd Stearman, C.G. Taylor, the brothers Gunter, Willi Messerschmitt, Kurt Tank, Jiro Horikoshi, Edgar Schmued, Kelly Johnson, Alexander Kartveli, Chance Vought, Reggie Mitchell, Clyde Cessna, Sidney Camm, Matty Laird, Walter Beech, Alexander Yakovlev, Mikoyan and Gurevich, A.N. Tupolev, Igor Sikorsky, Leroy Grumman, Glenn Martin, William Boeing, Ed Heinemann, James McDonnell.

August

That whole list and you left out Donald Douglas???

Not a big personal favorite of mine, I feel the more innovative design work done in his company was by others. Similar to the Lougheeds, de Seversky and others I didn't mention.

August

[baldrick]

Captain Eric Melrose Brown RN FAA. War time test pilot, retired with some 487 different aeroplanes and over 2400 carrier deck landings in his log book. Records that I have no doubt will never be equaled. Flew almost every British, US, French,Italian, Russian and German (including the ME163 Rocket) war time aircraft fom single seat fighters to massive multi engined German sea planes. He is also a thorough gentleman and is still employed at age 94 by the Royal Navy as a consultant in aircraft carrier design.

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[AFWhite]

Chuck Yeager...I know , I know...stop the cussing at me an' I'll explain!

Outside of "The Right Stuff" movie that came out in '83, I never knew much of him other than he broke the sound barrier...and I knew the movie was a lot of Hollywood fluff too. Yeager's autobiography came out in '86 when I was a sophomore in high school and aspiring towards a career in military aviation. All ego aside, the one thing I learned from reading his book was "KNOW YOUR SYSTEMS".

I went into the Navy as an enlisted aircraft mechanic and aircrewman, eventually becoming a P-3 flight engineer...where "systems knowledge" is key. I always held those words to be gospel and it might have saved my ass or others along the way, who knows, at the very least they got the mission accomplished.

Last edited by AFWhite on Tue Jun 25, 2013 2:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[markboss]

Scott Crossfield,Bob Hoover, and Joe Cotton..
They seemed to be great guys doing what they loved..

[Mark Allen M]

Love him or hate him. He did become an "ace in a day" today in 44

http://www.thisdayinaviation.com/12-october-1944/

[Tomahawk]

Swede Vejtasa - If you don't know this Montana hero, you should. During the Battle of the Coral Sea, on 7 May 1942, in action with VS-5, helped bomb and sink the Japanese carrier Shoho. On 8 May (next day) took out three Zeros in one sortie with an SBD-3 Dauntless! Won back-to-back Navy Crosses for these actions. Later served in VF-10, the Grim Reapers, where on 26 October, 1942, he shot down two Vals and five Kates, again in one sortie. Our government, in its infinite wisdom, brought him home in November 1942, and kept him Stateside for the rest of the war.

[Jack Cook]

My cousin Don 5 kill ace of VMF-112 MIA May 26, 1945 off of Okinawa in a F4U-1D Corsair.

[Silverplate]

For me it's Paul Tibbets.