5 American Aviators Who Shaped How We Fly

Celebrating its 248th birthday this year, the United States is a spunky, headstrong youngster that punches above its weight class. Its contributions to aviation and aerospace are no exception.

Perhaps most notably, despite its contrarian insistence on using the unwieldy units of the English system of measurement, America was the first country to deliver humans to the moon (while measuring vertical distance to touchdown in feet, not meters). I can’t prove it, but I’d bet a crisp American Franklin that the word “kilometer” appears nowhere in the Apollo comms transcripts. 

Though innovations in aviation and aerospace know no geographic bounds (on Earth, at least [we’re working on it, Mars]), the U.S. can count itself among the nations that have delivered outsized impact in industries that make large tubes of metal and composite materials fly.

What is it about America that affords its sons and daughters the audacity to try the untriable?

There’s no simple answer, but perhaps we can get a feel for it by learning how the exploits of several famous American aviators improved our lives as pilots.

We won’t recount all the well-worn stories of well-known heroes but rather detail the contributions of a few American aviators in a way a pilot can appreciate, including examples of accomplishments you can find on the flight deck today.

Neil Armstrong

When most people think of Neil Armstrong, they think of his famous first steps on the moon. It’s a tough feat to overshadow. 

However, before he ever walked across that big block of cheese in the sky, Neil Armstrong made great contributions to earth-bound aeronautics, even when doing so gave him ample opportunities to auger in and buy the farm. Resolutely, this American aviator kept going back for more.

On September 3, 1951, Armstrong experienced his first brush with death as he nursed his badly damaged F9F Panther to friendly South Korean territory and ejected. Between that incident and his one small step, he also: 

• Nearly lawn-darted a B-29 during a test flight
• Inadvertently skipped off the Earth’s atmosphere in an X-15
• Crashed his F-104 at Nellis AFB
• Overcame an uncontrolled roll in his Gemini capsule
• Ejected from a Lunar Landing Research Vehicle a split second before it became a ball of fire
• Took over manual control of the lunar lander “Eagle” during the final seconds of approach to the moon to avoid spacecraft-crushing boulders, finally landing with less than 30 seconds of fuel remaining.

TLDR: The guy had quite a few brushes with death. 

If Armstrong ever entertained the thought of failure during his aforementioned X-15 flight, he didn’t show it. It’s a good thing, too, because every accident in a flight test program edges it closer to being scrapped before it bears fruit. 

The X-15 program produced a bushel of innovations. If you like your glass cockpit, the determination of Neil Armstrong and his fellow  X-15 pilots deserves your admiration.  

In most glass cockpits, we rely on AHRS to provide drift-free positional information from an inertial reference system with no moving parts to wear out. Garmin, Avidyne, Aspen, and many more owe their product lines to innovations in inertial navigation technology arising from the X-15 project. 

The precision and reliability of AHRS compared to vacuum-dependent, drift-prone gyroscopes have increased situational awareness and reduced task saturation, undoubtedly preventing many bad days for general aviation pilots.

Your glass cockpit has some X-15 DNA, thanks to brave pilots like Neil Armstrong, Scott Crossfield, Joe Engle, Joseph Walker, and Robert Rushworth. They helped enable discoveries that make our little single-engine aircraft safer and more capable today. These pilots put their hides in harm’s way as glamorless test pilots, reaching for the brass ring of progress, not fame.

Jimmy Doolittle

Before the X-15 helped usher in glass cockpits, gyroscopes were all we had to work with.  These vacuum-powered instruments needed to impart accurate, instant, reliable information to ensure pilots could navigate through pea soup while keeping the wings level. Thanks to American war hero Jimmy Doolittle, they could.

Before leading a gallant band of WWII pilots in a risky mission over Japan, Dr. Jimmy Doolittle (Doctor of Science, MIT, 1925) studied, developed, and almost single-handedly invented a safe way to “fly blind.” Today, we call it IFR.

Doolittle was the first pilot/engineer to recognize the limitations of the human senses regarding movement and orientation and affect a solution. More simply, he figured out the “leans” and how to overcome them with new instrumentation and proper training. 

Doolittle initiated a study of the relationships between the psychological effects of visual cues and motion senses. His research resulted in programs that trained pilots to use and trust their instruments instead of their senses, which can be unreliable.

With the guts of an early aviator and the confidence of a true genius, Jimmy Doolittle was also the first to test in flight the veracity of his research and the serviceability of two new gyroscopic instruments he developed with Lawrence Sperry. He became the first pilot to take off, fly, and land an airplane using instruments alone, without a view outside the cockpit. 

The two instruments he created are called the attitude indicator and heading indicator. Perhaps you’ve heard of them.

Burt Rutan

Hardware innovation isn’t reserved just for early 20th Century aviation pioneers. A man near and dear to the hearts of homebuilders everywhere was the first to popularize the application of composite materials for GA airplanes.

Burt Rutan, an American aerospace designer and aviator, had (and still has) the great trait of questioning the status quo and galloping ahead with better ideas. 

Using moldless glass cloth composite construction, Rutan constructed the VariEze single-seat airplane. Upon flying it to EAA AirVenture in 1975, it garnered so much interest from the general aviation community that he redesigned the aircraft to enable selling the plans to homebuilders.

In addition to its composite construction, the unique appearance of the VariEze displayed Burt Rutan’s obsession with safety and efficiency. Designed with a forward canard that also acted as the elevator, the VariEze, and later the two-seat LongEze, were characteristically difficult to stall, reducing stall-related accidents. 

His unique rear wing design and push prop lent themselves to the airplane’s legendary efficiency and speed compared to typical GA airplanes, as evidenced by its first flight to Oshkosh. Burt’s brother Dick flew the VariEze to Wittman Field, 1,638 miles away from his home base, on 40 gallons of fuel.

The success of the VariEze inspired further innovation in GA, leading to increased diversity in aircraft design within the homebuilt and experimental aircraft communities. But Rutan's design successes didn’t end with GA aircraft. He designed dozens of concept and production airplanes for civilian and military applications, including the first private spaceship in history, SpaceShipOne.

Rutan famously thanked President Ronald Reagan for the bureaucracy-free certification process for his around-the-world airplane, “Voyager.” Regardless of your views on former President Reagan, the comparatively streamlined process Rutan enjoyed when pursuing innovation allowed him to make plane after plane, developing new ideas and safety-oriented designs, the elements of which have made their way into aircraft and spacecraft of all kinds.

Wolfgang Langewiesche

When we think of innovation, many of us ponder areas such as powerplants, materials, design, and procedures. Wolfgang Langewiesche’s innovation was different: He taught pilots how to think and how to feel the airplane. 

In 1944, he put pen to paper to make clear what pilots really need to know to command an airplane through the air. 

In his book, “Stick & Rudder,” Langewiesche pulls no punches, makes no apologies, and informs the reader exactly how to think about flying an airplane using unambiguous language. “Maybe” doesn’t appear often in his text.  

The best example of his confident (and arguably correct) assertions is that truly understanding what angle of attack is, and isn’t, will give a pilot 90% of the information s/he needs. How the wing meets the air is everything, and all else is important only to engineers. 

Langewiesche implored pilots to think of the wing pushing the air down and not go beyond that (know a few airspeeds, feel what the aircraft is doing, and know how to make it do what you want it to do). Of course, Langewiesche understood well that Bernoulli and Newton are at work in flight, but he also knew they’re not flying the plane, and the pilot doesn’t need to calculate lift equations on short final.

Like many great American innovators throughout history, Langewiesche was a naturalized citizen, immigrating to the United States from his native Germany in 1935. By the way, it’s pronounced long-gah-vee-sheh. Now you can sound smart to your pilot friends.

R.A. “Bob” Hoover

Bob Hoover may have just been the greatest pilot who ever lived.

There are a few fantastic documentary films about Hoover and thousands of pages written about his remarkable life. I could write a book about Bob Hoover longer than the one he wrote himself, “Forever Flying,” but instead, I’ll just run down the highlights of his life.

As a young man, Hoover worked at a grocery store to earn enough for occasional flying lessons, during which he fought constant nausea (a bit of motivation for all the students out there).   

After earning his pilot certificate, he joined the Tennessee National Guard and was placed into a flight training program. His abilities became quickly apparent, and he was ordered to give checkrides and lessons to all the instructors.

During World War II, Hoover chomped at the bit to get into the fight but was assigned to test new airplanes as they came off the line. He complied but complained until he finally received orders sending him into combat.

As a combat pilot, Hoover once landed on the very narrow, flat peak of a mountain to rescue his downed buddy. The two of them squeezed into his single-seat cockpit and flew two hours back to base. Hoover could barely see ahead of him with his face pressed against the iron gunsight above the instrument panel.

He was highly effective as a combat pilot—until an FW-190 shot him out of the sky. By his own admission, he saw the Nazi fighter on an intercept course, but at a 90-degree angle of deflection, so he decided to ignore it. 

After spending more than a year in a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp, Hoover managed to escape, steal a German FW-190, and fly it into Allied territory. During the flight, the circumstances occurred to him: He was flying a German FW-190 into Allied territory. 

When he eventually landed in a Dutch field, Hoover was surrounded by pitchfork-wielding farmers who didn’t speak English and assumed he flew for the Luftwaffe. Fortunately, a British supply truck stopped by, allowing Hoover to explain the situation sufficiently enough to get the angry farmers to stand down.

Hoover became a test pilot in America’s first operational fighter jet, the P-80 Shooting Star. Jet technology was still so new and dangerous that engines had to be replaced in the P-80 airframe after five hours of use. Hoover flew one of those P-80s as a chase plane when Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in 1947.

He was a civilian test pilot for North American Rockwell, testing such aircraft as the F-86 Sabre. Beyond testing it, he went to Korea during wartime to teach pilots how to dive-bomb in the Sabre. He even flew bombing missions—as a civilian.

In the 1960s, Hoover flew souped-up P-51s at the Reno Air Races. During and after those years, he set transcontinental, time-to-climb, and speed records.

And, as nearly everyone in our aviation community knows, he loved a good glass of tea, especially when he poured it while inverted during a 1g barrel roll.  

In his Shrike Commander, Hoover flew every airshow you can name. He would perform aerobatics of all kinds to the delight of the crowd, then shut his engines off while in flight, perform a few more maneuvers, land on one main landing gear, roll to switch to the other, and then taxi all the way to his parking spot. 

That’s quite a list of accomplishments, and I listed them all for a reason. With such flying prowess, it’s unsurprising that Hoover was a hero to many pilots, including some who were remarkable in their own right. 

Among others, the following list of pilots held Hoover in such high regard that they stated, on the record, that he was the best pilot in the world.

• Orville Wright
• Charles Lindbergh
• Chuck Yeager
• Yuri Gagarin
• John Glenn
• Neil Armstrong
• Jimmy Doolittle

Perhaps Hoover’s greatest achievement was the inspiration and education he offered — not only to other famous pilots but to the aviation community at large. Hoover’s heart was in general aviation, and he shared it with all of us.

Hoover is one of the founding fathers of modern aerobatics in GA, bringing excitement and awareness of general aviation to the masses. He worked tirelessly with organizations like EAA and AOPA to promote aviation, inspire pilots, attract new pilots, improve safety, inform the public about the importance of general aviation, and share the joy and beauty of flight.

Given the value Bob Hoover placed on his citizenship and general aviation, it’s safe to say that the vibrancy and growth of the American GA community guided his activities later in life. He famously loved talking to GA pilots about flying and would share advice and swap stories with anyone who loved aviation. Our wonderful lives as general aviation pilots stand on the shoulders of Bob Hoover.

I’ll leave you with this thought as we celebrate American Independence Day. The next time you think about famous pilots and their exploits in cutting-edge aircraft, look at your own plane, and you’ll see shadows of greatness.

Armstrong is in your PFD, or perhaps Doolittle is spinning up a couple of your instruments. Rutan’s creativity could be slowing your fuel burn, and it’s likely Langewiesche’s advice keeping you on a perfect glideslope to clear a 50-foot obstacle.

Then, think about who’s in the left seat of your GA airplane. To Bob Hoover, you are the greatest pilot in the world.