General James (Jimmy) Doolittle.

He also pioneered blind flying on instruments. If you read his bio, "I Could Never Be So Lucky Again", you really come away that this guy changed aviation history, and that as amazing as the Tokyo thing was, that's just one of many amazing things he did in his life.

 

That's for sure!

 

Flying a Curtiss R6 seaplane...I think that is the right model number off the top of my flat head.

 

And I think he was the first to race the Gee Bee and live to tell about it.

Without question one of the great pilots of early aviation.

 

He was an engineer and had the ability to think about what he was about to do and analyze what he HAD to do and he had the skills to match his level head. Again...ATTITUDE.
Delmar Benjamin had the same attitude in a way. He was analytical in his approach to the Gee Bee and coupled it with a superb flying skill and logged more time in the airplane than anybody in history. Half of it inverted. I saw him fly the Gee Bee many times and he was uncanny.UUbber Good!

 

His autographs are becoming harder to find but still available. In addition to his contribution to the US war effort and aviation, he was simply nice guy.

 

I must read more on him?

 

Well I don't know BlackJag but I did know Jimmy personally and I don't need to read about him to support what I said.

 

I have a book about aerodynamics written in 1932. I keep it not for the value of the author's reputation but for the reports about the effects of wing tip acceleration on spinning different aircraft. The reports are signed by a Lt. James Doolitle who spun various airplanes equipped with accelerometers (some WW1 types) in 1924 to discover the effects. He proceeded to accomplish many other engineering test flights, some of which were potentially deadly. He pioneered instrument flying very early on. He flew the then dangerous Gee Bee racer successfully. He successfully raced the Curtiss R6 seaplane to records. He lead the famous raid on Japan in B-25's during WW2 that was launched from an aircraft carrier. We know all about this man's exploits. Few of us could equal or even come close to what he did as a pilot and engineer. I never met the man but from what I have read, he was as excellent a person as he was an engineer and pilot. A great American.
Switches

 

my dad, who served on both uss hornets, shook his hand before the tokyo raid. another of his shipmates is buried at arlington near doolittle.

 

there is a shot of two bluejackets cheering. it's only a flash but one of the fellows, the one with the mustache is the man who's buried next to doolittle. he wrote a book called "the eight stood alone". we met at the fiftieth reunion of the uss hornet.

 

Sperry Avionics did a hardback book on him that was a freebie handout. I'll check to see if I still have it.

Jeff