First Flight Shrine - The First Flight Society

In 1966, the Kill Devil Hills Memorial Association was rekindled as the newly-incorporated First Flight Society. A keystone of the Society’s work today is the close support it offers the National Park Service at the Wright Brothers National Memorial. The Society established the Paul E. Garber First Flight Shrine, a portrait gallery that surrounds the Wright Flyer reproduction displayed in the Park’s visitor center at the Memorial. (The Shrine is named for Paul E. Garber, the first director of the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum.) The Shrine honors those individuals and groups that have achieved significant "firsts" in aviation’s development. A new member of the First Flight Shrine has been inducted during December 17 ceremonies every year since 1966, and is honored with the unveiling of their portrait.

Click on the links below for details on each enshrinee.

Inducted in:	Name:	Accomplishment:
1966	Wilbur and Orville Wright	First to achieve successful powered flight in a heavier-than-air machine, 1903
1967	Charles Lindbergh	First non-stop solo flight from New York to Paris, 1927
1968	Richard Byrd	First to fly over the North Pole, 1926 First to fly over the South Pole, 1929
1968	Jacqueline Cochran	First woman to pilot an aircraft supersonically, 1953
1968	Amelia Earhart	First woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, 1932 First pilot to fly solo Hawaii to California, 1935
1968	Charles E. Yeager	First person to pilot an aircraft at supersonic speed, 1947
1969	Glenn Curtiss	Pioneer aviator, designer and manufacturer
1969	Jimmy Doolittle	First to make an all-blind instrument flight from take-off to landing, 1929
1969	Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin, Michael Collins	First lunar landing aboard Apollo 11, 1969
1970	Wiley Post	First to fly solo around the world, 1933
1970	Igor Sikorsky	First to design, produce and fly a helicopter in the western hemisphere, 1940
1971	Thomas Selfridge	First military officer to pilot an airplane, 1908 First fatality in powered aviation, 1908
1971	Robert White	First astronaut designee in a winged aircraft, 1962
1972	Grover Loening	First civilian aeronautical engineer in the US Army, 1914
1972	William Mitchell	First to successfully demonstrate the capabilities of air power, 1921
1973	Louis Blériot	First to pilot a plane across the English Channel, 1909
1974	Edward Rickenbacker	America's top World War I ace
1975	Cal Rodgers	First United States transcontinental flight, 1911
1976	Henry T. Merrill	First pilot to make a commercial round-trip plane flight over the Atlantic, 1937
1976	Alford Williams	Navy's first chief test pilot; father of dive bombing
1977	Lowell Smith, Leslie Arnold, Leigh Wade, Henry Ogden, Erik Nelson, John Harding, Jr.	First around-the-world flight, 1924
1978	John Glenn	First American to orbit the earth, 1962
1979	Albert Read, James Breese, Herbert Rodd, Elmer Stone, Walter Hinton, Eugene Rhoads	First transatlantic flight, 1919
1980	Benjamin Foulois	First United States military aviator
1981	Alberto Santos-Dumont	First to fly a heavier-than-air machine in Europe, 1906
1982	Albert Scott Crossfield	First to fly three times the speed of sound, 1960
1983	Charlie Taylor	World's first airplane mechanic
1984	Theodore Ellyson	First United States naval aviator, 1911
1985	Bruce McCandless	First man to walk in space untethered, 1984
1986	Walter R. Brookins	First civilian pilot, 1910
1987	Burt Rutan, Dick Rutan, Jeana Yeager	First to circumnavigate the globe non-stop without refueling, 1986
1988	Blanche Noyes, Louise Thaden	First women to win Bendix Trophy, 1936
1989	Bessie Coleman	First black woman licensed pilot
1989	Albert Hegenberger	Developer of all-blind flight control system
1990	Yuri Gagarin	First person in space, 1961
1991	Hans Von Ohain	Developed the engine powering the world’s first jet plane
1991	Sir Frank J. Whittle	Pioneer developer of turbo-jet aircraft engines
1992	Robert M. Stanley, Lawrence C. Craigie	First Americans to pilot jet aircraft, 1942
1993	Alan Shepard	First American in space, 1961 Fifth man to walk on the moon, 1971
1994	George H. Bush	First military flyer to become President of the US, 1988
1994	Eugene Ely	First aviator to take off from and land on a ship, 1910 & 1911
1995	Francis and Gertrude Rogallo	Developers of the first successful flexible wing
1996	Paul Poberezny, Tom Poberezny	Founder and president, Experimental Aircraft Association
1996	Lawrence Sperry	Inventor of the autopilot, turn and bank indicator, and parachute pack
1997	Henry Arnold	Father of the US Air Force and first five-star general
1997	Tom Davis	Pioneer in commercial aviation
1998	Joe Kittinger	First to solo the Atlantic in a helium balloon, 1984
1998	John Paul Stapp, M.D.	Pioneer in aerospace medicine
1999	Anne Baumgartner Carl, Jean Hixson	First women to fly American military aircraft; Women Air Service Pilots
1999	Harriet Quimby	First licensed woman pilot in the US, 1911, and First woman to solo the English Channel, 1912
2000	Donald W. Douglas	Pioneer aircraft designer and manufacturer
2001	Clyde Cessna	General aviation pioneer
2002	Jack Northrop	Pioneer in the aerospace industry
2003	Wilbur and Orville Wright	First to achieve successful powered flight in a heavier-than-air machine, 1903
2004	Tuskegee Airmen	Legends of Aviation
2005	Tiny Broadwick, Captain Albert Berry	First Lady of Parachuting; Tethered jump from a Benoist Headless airplane
2006	Tony Jannus	American Flyer
2007	Dr. Richard T. Whitcomb	"Area Rule" & "Winglets" Impact us Today
2008	Herbert D. Kelleher	Co-Founder, Southwest Airlines

P.O. Box 1903 | Kitty Hawk, NC | 27949 | 252.441.1903 | dec17@firstflight.org