All-Time Top 100 Stars of Aerospace & Aviation Announced

Lycos - PR Newswire ^ | 06/18/2003 | Chris Meyer of Aviation Week

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

The voting website, designed and hosted by IBM, featured more than 760 candidates in 15 categories. To ensure the credibility and professional caliber of the Top 100 results, the ballot was only open to ICAS and AIAA affiliates and members, Aviation Week group subscribers and Next Century of Flight program partners.

Kind of answers my question.

[RoughDobermann]

LOL! P-38 ace in the Pacific, as I'm sure you know. Managed to to kill himself when his P-80 flamed out on takeoff. 'Chute wrapped around the tail and he went in with his plane. Yeager considered him arrogant and claimed that he died because he didn't learn about his aircraft before he flew it = NOT A TEST PILOT.

[yarddog]

The all time ace of aces, Erich Hartman is not on the list.

Incredible!

[scab4faa]

No Cpt Kirk or Mr. Spock?

[RoughDobermann]

The all time ace of aces, Erich Hartman is not on the list.

Oh come on! Big deal! He just down, what was it, 300 Russians or something!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

More information on each of those selected with information on their accomplishments:

THE RESULTS ARE IN!

[VOA]

My own (incomplete) amateur and unabashedly personal list:

1. Wilbur and Orville - for making it really happen

2. Chuck Yeager - for daring to go someplace that LOTS of experts thought meant death
And to do it with some banged-up ribs.

3. Lindbergh - For doing something that many failed at. And being crazy enough
to lift off when he hadn't even slept for a day and a half (IIRC).

4. Every RAF pilot or crew member during The Battle of Britain, no matter where
they came from: The British Isles, Canada, all the other Commonwealth countries,
the USA, Poland, France, and many other over-run countries.

5. The crew of the Enola Gay - for taking on a task that probably saved
a million or more lives...but for which millions would irrationally curse them.

6. The designers of the P-51 Mustang - for sheer genius in combining
beauty with lethality.

7. The Flying Tigers - for doing dirty deeds that needed to be done

8. Admiral Thomas Moorer (and a few other guys) - For getting aloft during the
Pearl Harbor attack.

9. The crews of three squadrons of TBD torpedo planes from carriers Hornet (CV-8),
Enterprise (CV-6) and Yorktown (CV-5) -- for sacrificing themselves
with no hits...but allowing dive bombers to end the Japanese Imperial Navy's
carrier force during the Battle of Midway.

10. Every person who's been a crew member in a space program or worked as
a test pilot -- for pushing the edge of the envelope, no matter the risks.

[Cloud William]

Bong was the top WWII ace fighter pilot.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

No doubt. What innovative work did Carl Sagan do for aerospace? He was on PBS TV, narrated documentaries, and he wrote a book compiling other people's astronomy/astrology discoveries. The biggest thing about Carl Sagan was his ego.

Ray Bradbury was a good sci-fi writer, but I don't remember him doing any groundbreaking aerospace work, either.

[Cloud William]

Correction: Top *American* ace.

[yarddog]

I think his official total was 352.

The thing which really stands out is he flew over 1000 missions. I once read a web site which I have been unable to find again which detailed the accuracy of different countries air to air victory claims in WWII. He went to real unusual lengths to check the facts, and in fact made several trips to China to find wrecks.

His final conclusion was that the Germans were the most accurate, and in fact may have been too conservative. The Americans were next, then the British, Japanese then the Russians who he said just made their's up.

[Damagro]

Chuck Yeager #11 ? Should be top 5

[RoughDobermann]

Yep, I think you're right. That number sounds right. Of course, I think he flew continuous combat missions for 6 years without be rotated, unlike Allied pilots = very high kill numbers.

[hole_n_one]

[GOP Jedi]

Any "aviation top 100" list should contain the name of Glenn L. Martin.

Tell me about it! The man who contributed half of Lockheed Martin's name got stiffed. (Lockmart is the biggest player in the defense industry, followed closely by Boeing.)

[hole_n_one]

You didn't get the joke, did you?

[RoughDobermann]

That'd be Bong. IIRC, someone sent him a case of booze when he earned his CMH. He refused it (didn't drink/religious).

[DPB101]

19. Igor I. Sikorsky

He deserves to be in the top five. In 1914 he built the world's first four engine bomber and flew it 1,600 miles. In the 1960s he watched his helicopters pluck Mercury astronauts from the sea. He was most proud of the search and rescue work his helicopters did.

"The work of the individual still remains the spark that moves mankind ahead"
Igor I. Sikorsky 1889 - 1972

[Damagro]

I'd rank Chuck Yeager brfore Armstrong also. But it is not ridiculous to reverse them, they were both men of great courage going into the unknown courageously. Both are legitimate heroes

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Good list!