A Photograph Signed by More Than One Hundred Aviation and Space Pioneers. Major James Adams, operations supervisor at Floyd Bennett Field, New York City's first municipal airport, assembled this outstanding collection of autographs beginning in the early 1930s. The signatures are on a large photograph, 20" x 16", featuring three United States Naval biplanes flying in formation past the Empire State Building. The photo has signatures ranging from early aviators Orville Wright and Louis Bleriot, record setters Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart, astronauts, and virtually every other aviation luminary of the twentieth century, including:
Buzz Aldrin - lunar module pilot on Apollo 11, the first lunar landing and the second man to set foot on the Moon; Neil Armstrong - the first person to set foot on the Moon; Frank Borman - commander of Apollo 8, the first mission to fly around the Moon; Gene Cernan - co-pilot of Gemini 9A, lunar module pilot of Apollo 10, and commander of Apollo 17. In that final lunar landing mission, he became "the last man on the Moon"; Charles Conrad - the third man to walk on the Moon; Walt Cunningham - he was the lunar module pilot in the Apollo 7 mission; Donn Eisele - command module pilot for Apollo 7; Dick Gordon - one of only 24 men to have flown to the Moon; Jim Lovell - the commander of Apollo 13, which suffered an explosion enroute to the Moon but was brought back safely to Earth by the efforts of the crew and mission control; James McDivitt - command pilot for Gemini 4; Wally Schirra - one of the original astronauts chosen for the Project Mercury, America's first effort to put men in space and the only person to fly in all of America's first three space programs (Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo); Dave Scott - commander of the Apollo 15 mission, the seventh person to walk on the Moon, and the first person to drive on the Moon; Deke Slayton - one of the original "Mercury Seven" NASA astronauts; Thomas Stafford - commander of Apollo 10, which included the first flight of the lunar module during a Moon orbit and the first rendezvous while in the Moon environment; John Young - commanded the Apollo 16 mission and became the ninth man to walk on the Moon; Lee Ya Ching - China's "First Lady of Flight", helped organize China's first civilian flying school and served as the school's sole female instructor; Jacqueline Cochran - a pioneer American aviator, considered to be one of the most gifted racing pilots of her generation; Amelia Earhart - a noted American aviation pioneer, and author was the first aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean and the first woman to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross; Viola Gentry - established a solo endurance flight record for women pilots; Laura Ingalls -earned a Harmon Trophy in 1934 for flying from Mexico to Chile, over the Andes Mountains to Rio de Janeiro, to Cuba and then to New York; Beryl Markham - a British-born Kenyan author, pilot, horse trainer, and adventurer; Frances Marsalis - with another female pilot, attempted, in 1932, to set an endurance record by staying airborne for nearly 10 days, with midair refueling; Amy Mollinson - a pioneering English aviatrix who, flying solo or with her husband, Jim Mollison, set numerous long-distance records during the 1930s. She flew in the Second World War as a part of the Air Transport Auxiliary where she died during a ferry flight; Ruth Nichols - aviation pioneer and the only woman yet to hold simultaneous world records for speed, altitude, and distance for a female pilot; Gerd Achgelis - founded, with Henrich Focke, the Focke-Achgelis German helicopter company which produced the Focke-Wulf Fw 61, the first fully controllable helicopter; W. H. Alexander - pilot for Aeromarine Plane & Motor Company in the 1920s; Louis Bleriot - the first man to fly across the English Channel; Russell Boardman - in 1931, with John Polando, set a long distance non-stop world record flying from New York to Istanbul, Turkey in 49 hrs and 20 minutes; Hugo Eckner - the head of the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin during the inter-war years, and the commander of the famous Graf Zeppelin on most of its record setting flights, including the first airship flight to the Arctic and the first airship flight around the world. He was, by far, the most successful airship commander in history; B. H. Griffin - aviation pioneer; Charles Lindbergh - pilot of the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight from New York to Paris in 1927; Jack O'Meara - early glider pilot; Augustus Post - pioneer balloonist and aviator; Alex Seversky - Russian naval aviator in World War I, who lost a leg in combat, but continued to fly, shooting down six German aircraft. He worked as a test pilot and became an assistant to air power advocate General Billy Mitchell, aiding him in his push to prove airpower's ability to sink battleships; Dean Smith - airmail pilot best known for a telegram he forwarded to Air Mail Service officials after a forced landing on May 15, 1923, "Dead sticked. Flying low. Only place to land on cow. Killed cow. Wrecked airplane. Scared me." Gene Vidal - one of the first Army Air Corps pilots and co-founder of three American airlines; Orville Wright - with his brother Wilbur, is generally credited with inventing and building the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight on December, 13, 1903; Claire Chennault - a United States military aviator who commanded the "Flying Tigers" during World War II; Jimmy Doolittle - an American aviation pioneer who served as a general in the United States Army Air Forces during the World War II and was awarded the Medal of Honor as commander of the "Doolittle Raid"; Robert W. Douglass Jr.- commanded the Seventh Air Force in the Central Pacific, 1944-1945; Don Gentile -- served in the famed "Eagle Squadron" before transferring to the U. S. Air Corps in 1942. His final score was 21.8 air kills, with 6 ground kills; Harold H. "Hal" George - in 1917, commissioned a first lieutenant in the Signal Corps' Aviation Section and went on to command the 201st Aero Squadron in World War I; Barry Goldwater - a five-term United States Senator from Arizona, the Republican Party's nominee for president in the 1964 election and a major general in the U.S. Air Force Reserve; Harold Hartney - originally served in the Royal Flying Corps where he scored five confirmed victories. He was promoted to major and given command of the American 27th Aero Squadron where he scored two more victories by the end of World War I; Tex Hill - a member of the 1st American Volunteer Group, "the Flying Tigers", and a fighter pilot and flying ace in World War II, with later service in Korea; George C. Kenney -- a United States Army Air Forces general during World War II, he was commander of the Allied air forces in the Southwest Pacific Area 1942 until 1945; William E. Kepner -- famed pioneer balloonist who commanded the 8th Air Force's Second Bomber Division; Frank Lahm -- in October 1909 trained by Wilbur Wright to become one of the United States Army's first pilots; Dean Ivan Lamb -- an aviator, who, as a mercenary during the Mexican Revolution, encountered a pilot-mercenary for a rival faction. The resulting engagement was quite possibly the first dogfight in history, and consisted of the pilots firing pistols at each other; Curtis LeMay -- a general in the United States Air Force credited with designing and implementing an effective systematic strategic bombing campaign in the Pacific Theatre of World War II; Billy Mitchell -- an American general who is regarded as the father of the U.S. Air Force and regarded as one of the most famous and most controversial figures in American airpower history; George Pomeroy - a pilot in World War I & World War II who flew in the Air Mail Service and placed in the Bendix Race; Eddie Rickenbacker - an American fighter ace in World War I and Medal of Honor recipient, who, was also a race car driver and automotive designer, a government consultant in military matters and a pioneer in air transportation; Cesare Sabelli - a World War I Italian ace with twelve wartime decorations. His assistance in Fiorello LaGuardia's New York mayoral campaign led to Sabelli's status as "the Italian-American Charles Lindbergh"; Carl Spaatz - an American general in World War II and the first Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force; Paul Tibbetts - pilot of the Enola Gay when it dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima; General Ernst Udet - was the second-highest scoring German flying ace of World War I with 62 victories, second only to Manfred von Richthofen; Hoyt Vandenberg - a U.S. Air Force general, its second Chief of Staff, and commanding general of the Ninth Air Force, a tactical air force in England and in France during World War II; Theodore Van Kirk - navigator of the Enola Gay when it dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima; Oscar Westover - a major general and chief of the United States Army Air Corps; Ted Williams - nicknamed "The Kid", was an American left fielder in major league baseball, who served as a United States Marine Corps pilot during World War II and the Korean War; Chuck Yeager - test pilot and the first man to break the sound barrier; Richard Byrd - a pioneering American polar explorer, aviator, and a recipient of the Medal of Honor; Joseph "Jacko" Clark - earned his Navy pilot's wings graduating in Aviation Class No. 21 at Pensacola, Florida and became a strong advocate and accomplished specialist in naval air, ending as a rear admiral; Donald McMillan - an American explorer, sailor, researcher, and lecturer who made over thirty expeditions to the Arctic during which he pioneered the use of radios, airplanes, and electricity in the Arctic; Arthur Radford - a United States Navy admiral, Commander-in-Chief of the United States Pacific Command and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Al Williams - was instrumental in the development of dive-bombing tactics that helped win World War II. A navy flyer from the beginning, he was also a test pilot and made the first solo flight to Hawaii from the U.S. mainland; Bert Acosta - co-pilot of the America, the third aircraft to successfully travel nonstop across the Atlantic; Ben Adamowicz and Joe Adamowicz - an American businessmen of Polish descent and amateur flyers, who flew across Atlantic in 1934 to Poland on Bellanca Y300 City of Warsawe plane; Bernt Balchen - Norwegian-American polar and aviation pioneer who co-piloted the third aircraft to successfully travel nonstop across the Atlantic; J. Erroll Boyd - known as "The Lindbergh of Canada" he flew from Canada to London in 1930, the first person to cross the North Atlantic outside the summer season; Clarence Chamberlin - was the second man to solo pilot across the Atlantic Ocean, and he was the first to carry a passenger; Lee Gehlbach - racing pilot of the legendary Bee Gee aircraft; Paul Codos - a French aviator who broke numerous records of speed and distance in the 1930s; Doug "Wrong Way" Corrigan - an American aviator nicknamed "Wrong Way" when, in 1938, after a transcontinental flight from Long Beach, California, to New York, he flew from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York, to Ireland, even though he was supposed to be returning to Long Beach; Lincoln Elsworth - spent $100,000 to fund Roald Amundsen's 1925 attempt to fly from Norway to the North Pole. Ellsworth was a pilot of one of two aircraft on this trip: the craft were forced down onto the ice short of their goal, and the explorers spent thirty days trapped on the surface; James C. Fitzmaurice - an aviator pioneer and a member of the crew of the airship Bremen, which made the first successful Trans-Atlantic aircraft flight from East to West; George Haldeman - a pilot and flight instructor who trained a number of would-be pilots, including young Ruth Elder. In the fall of 1927, Haldeman and Elder attempted a transatlantic flight five months after Charles Lindbergh had soloed across the Atlantic, but bad weather and a leaking oil line forced the two to ditch in the Atlantic 300 miles short of their goal; Stanley Hausner - a Polish-American aviator who once ditched in the Atlantic while trying to fly from New York to Warsaw in 1932. He was killed in an airplane crash in 1935; Frank Hawks - a lieutenant commander in World War I and a record holding aviator who took a 23-year-old Amelia Earhart on her first airplane ride at a state fair; Howard Hughes - an American aviator, industrialist, film producer/director, philanthropist, and one of the wealthiest people in the world; C. S. "Casey" Jones - a celebrated, daring, and slightly comic pilot from Garden City, Long Island; Grover Loening - an American aircraft manufacturer; Donald B. MacMillan - former college professor, longtime Arctic explorer who had also been with Peary in 1909, and a pilot who partnered with Admiral Byrd in the 1925 MacMillan Arctic Expedition; Ashley McKinley - an aerial photographer, who, with Admiral Byrd, made the first flight over the South Pole; Jimmie Mattern - a Hollywood stunt pilot flying in the films Hell's Angels, Lilac Time, and Wings, who attempted to beat the around the world flight record set by Wiley Post and Harold Gatty; Dick Merrill - an early aviation pioneer who was the highest paid air mail pilot, flew the first round-trip transatlantic flight in 1936, was Dwight D. Eisenhower's personal pilot during the 1952 presidential elections, set several speed records, and would go on to be Eastern Air Lines' most experienced pilot with over 36,000 hours until his retirement in 1961; Jim Mollinson - husband of Amy Mollinson, he was a famous Scottish pioneer aviator who set many records during the rapid development of aviation in the 1930s; Alfred de Monteverde and George de Monteverde attempted a transatlantic flight in 1935; Rex Noville - radio operator for Richard Byrd when their Fokker monoplane crash landing in the sea off the French Coast in a 1929 transatlantic flight; William P. Odom - in 1947, flew a Douglas A-26 Invader named the Reynolds Bombshell in a round the world flight; Clyde Pangborn - known as "Upside-Down Pangborn" was an American aviator who performed aerial stunts during the 1920s. Along with his co-pilot, Pangborn was the first person to fly non-stop across the Pacific Ocean; Francesco de Pinedo - a famous Italian aviator born into a noble family, who, in 1925, he flew a, biplane flying boat for 55,000-mile in six months, from Rome to Australia, to Tokyo, and back to Rome; George R. Pond - who, with his co-pilot, perished in 1935 trying to set an England-to-Australia flight record; Wiley Post - the first pilot to fly solo around the world, he was also known for his work in high altitude flying and the development one of the first pressure suits; Harry Richman - an singer, actor, dancer, comedian, pianist, songwriter, bandleader, and night club performer, was also an amateur aviator being the co-pilot in 1936, with famed flyer Henry Tindall "Dick" Merrill, of the first round-trip transatlantic flight in his own single-engine plane. Richman had filled much of the empty space of the aircraft with ping pong balls as a flotation aid in case they were forced down in the Atlantic, and after the successful flight he sold autographed ones until his death; Thor Solberg - after a successful flying career in the United States of America, in 1935, he flew from the United States to Norway in the footsteps of the Norwegian Viking explorer Leif Eriksson; A. W. Stevens - in 1932, he flew five miles above earth's surface at Fryeburg, Maine, to photograph eclipse of the sun; Russell Thaw - participated in two of the cross-country Bendix trophy races, he came in third in the 1935 race from Los Angeles to Cleveland, and, in World War I, became one of the most noted American pilots, obtaining five air victories; Roscoe Turner - an aviator who was a three-time winner of the Thompson Trophy; J. R. Wedell - an early pilot and racer; Hubert Wilkins - an Australian polar explorer, pilot, soldier, geographer and photographer. Only a year after Charles Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic, Wilkins and his pilot Carl Ben Eielson made a trans-Arctic crossing from Point Barrow, Alaska, to Spitsbergen; Roger Q. Williams - in July 1929 Williams, with Lewis Yancey, broke the over-water flying record by making a non-stop flight from Old Orchard Beach, Maine to Santander, Spain. The 3,400 mile flight took 31 hours and 30 minutes. After minor repairs in Spain, the Bellanca monoplane continued on to Rome; Lon Yancey - an American aviator and air navigator who toured America, Central America, and the Caribbean in a Pitcairn autogyro; Clayton Knight - an ex-pilot created the aviation comic strip 'Ace Drummond'; Fiorello La Guardia - Mayor of New York; "Zack" Moseley - created the famous comic-strip character, daredevil stunt pilot Smilin' Jack Martin, who took on the air war in China during the darkest days of World War II; Prince Phillip - the husband and consort of Queen Elizabeth II and a Marshal of the Royal Air Force; Maxwell Taylor - an American soldier and diplomat; Lowell Thomas - an American writer, broadcaster, and traveler; and others.
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