Ride, Fossett to join Aviation Hall

AP on Yahoo ^ | 7/21/07 | AP

[NormsRevenge]

DAYTON, Ohio - A record-setting daredevil and the first American woman in space are among five people slated for induction Saturday to the National Aviation Hall of Fame.

Steve Fossett, 63, of Beaver Creek, Colo., holds world records in ballooning and with powered aircraft.

In 2002, he became the first person to fly around the world alone in a balloon. Three years later, he became the first person to fly a plane solo around the world without refueling. He and a co-pilot also claim to have set a world glider altitude record of 50,671 feet during a flight in August over the Andes mountains.

Sally Ride, 56, a California native, became the first U.S. woman in space when she flew aboard the space shuttle Challenger in 1983. Ride returned to space aboard the Challenger in 1984 and served on the board that investigated the 1986 Challenger accident.

Also among the inductees is 97-year-old Evelyn Bryan Johnson, who took up flying in 1944 while running her husband's laundry business during his World War II military service.

Johnson, of Morristown, Tenn., began giving flying lessons in 1947. Known as Mama Bird to her students, she is recognized for logging more flight hours — 60,000-plus — training more pilots, and giving more Federal Aviation Administration exams than any other living pilot.

The others to be inducted are Frederick Smith, a former Marine pilot and founder of air freight giant FedEx; and Walter Boyne, historian, author and former director of the Smithsonian Institution's Air and Space Museum.

Smith, 62, of Memphis, Tenn., flew crop dusters at age 15 and during the Vietnam War flew more than 200 missions with the Marines. In 1971, he founded Federal Express, which today is a $32 billion, 250,000-employee business with service in more than 220 countries.

Boyne, 77, joined the Air Force in 1951, flew bombers and was a nuclear test pilot. He retired after serving in Vietnam and in 1974 joined the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., as an assistant curator, eventually becoming director. Since then he has written more than 500 articles, 28 nonfiction books and four novels, all aviation-related.

The hall was founded in 1962 in Dayton, the hometown of the Wright brothers, and later established by Congress. Wilbur and Orville Wright were the first to be enshrined.

[NormsRevenge]

National Aviation Hall of Fame
http://www.nationalaviation.org

[SunTzuWu]

Johnson, of Morristown, Tenn., began giving flying lessons in 1947. Known as Mama Bird to her students, she is recognized for logging more flight hours — 60,000-plus — training more pilots, and giving more Federal Aviation Administration exams than any other living pilot.

WOW!

[coloradan]

Sally Ride, 56, a California native, became the first U.S. woman in space when she flew aboard the space shuttle Challenger in 1983.

I just love awards that are based on people's genitalia. It shows how advanced a civilization we are.

[coloradan]

(There are similar awards based on skin pigmentation. They too demonstrate our superiority and advancement.)