Florene Miller Watson, one of only 25 women to qualify for the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS), later known as the Women’s Air Force Service Pilots (WASPs), became fascinated with planes at the age of 8. By age 19, she had completed flight...
Sean D. Tucker was the first person ever to win the two most prestigious airshow industry honors in the same year, the Art Scholl Memorial Showmanship Award and the Bill Barber Award for Airshow Showmanship. Born in Riverside, California, in 1952, Tucker graduated...
Bernard Adolph Schriever, the father of the Air Force Space and Missile Program, was born in Germany in 1910. At the age of six, Schriever came to the US and settled with his family in New Braunfels, Texas before becoming a naturalized citizen in 1923. He graduated...
Brigadier General “Steve” Ritchie is the U.S. Air Force’s only pilot ace of the Vietnam War. Born in North Carolina in 1942, he graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1964. He then attended undergraduate pilot training in Texas where he...
In 1973, Americans welcomed home their returning Vietnam prisoners of war (POWs). Among those released heroes walked then-Colonel James Robinson “Robbie” Risner. During 33 years of service, he fought in three wars and twice received the Air Force’s...
Hank Potter was Jimmy Doolittle’s navigator in the first plane to launch for their famous Tokyo Raid. Born in Pierre, South Dakota, 1918, Henry “Hank” Potter entered the Army Air Corps as an Aviation Cadet in July of 1940, and graduated as a...
Don Parker, a true Army Aviation pioneer, provided the vision, the masterful leadership, and the commitment necessary to consolidate and modernize Army Aviation during its formative years. Born in Sadlersville, Tennessee in 1932, Parker dreamed of flying since his...
It took less than three months of World War II action for Robert J. “Bob” Goebel to become a Double Ace flying the North American P-51 Mustang. Goebel, the youngest of seven children, was born and raised in Racine, Wisconsin. At age 19, he entered the U.S....
Captain Joe H. Engle was first selected by Air Command and Staff College’s Gathering of Eagles in 1983 and subsequently honored in 1987, 1989, 1995, 1997, and 2001, respectively. Engle became America’s youngest astronaut on 29 June 1965, at age 32, after...
Prayer and covert communication were the biggest weapons we had,” declared Jeremiah A. Denton, Jr., former prisoner of war. Born in Mobile, Alabama in 1924, Denton attended McGill Institute and Spring Hill College. In 1946, Denton received his commission from...
Brigadier General George E. “Bud” Day was first selected as an Eagle by Air Command and Staff College’s Gathering of Eagles in 1992 and subsequently honored in 2001, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2013 respectively. He was born in Iowa in...
Navy Lieutenant Randy Cunningham was Americas first pilot ace of the Vietnam War. Born on 8 December 1941, he was commissioned in the US Navy in 1967. Receiving his gold wings the following year, he soon joined VF-96 flying F-4J Phantoms. Assigned to the...
Herbert “Gene” Carter is a veteran World War II fighter pilot and a member of the original cadre of the Tuskegee Airman. Carter and his fellow Tuskegee Airmen shattered the widely held myth that blacks were not capable of serving their country in the arena...
Frederick “Boots” Blesse, a double ace with two combat tours each in Korea and Vietnam, is the sixth-ranking US jet ace and one of the world’s premier jet tacticians. Born in the Panama Canal Zone in 1921, he graduated from West Point in 1945 and...
Pilot, CEO, public servant, Winton M. “Red” Blount was born in Union Springs, Alabama in 1921. At the age of 13, he worked for the family business for ten cents an hour, a wage he thought was “pretty good.” He graduated from Union Springs High...
