I will never forget that eight point roll, on the deck, into the dead engine. And then - the quietest crowd I've ever been in, when he feathered the second engine. Thirty thousand people on the ramp, and you could hear that bird swooshing throught the sky.
And then raving about it on the ride home, only to hear my old man say it was nothin' compared to watching Harold Johnson loop a Ford Trimotor right out of the takeoff roll, or Bevo Howard cut a ribbon six feet above the runway - inverted - with his hands clasped outside the cockpit.
Ah well, at least I wasn't born too late to see Hoover fly.
Obligatory thread contribution:
Propeller - fan whose purpose is to keep the pilot cool (turn it off and watch him sweat).