totm Nominate the Most "Kerbal" Aerospace Pioneer

[NFUN]

On Friday, September 16, 2016 at 4:04 PM, Leafbaron said:

Chuck Yeager for being the first human to travel faster than the speed of sound in the Bell X-1 in 1947, paving the way for all super-sonic aerospace. He's also still alive at the ripe ol' age of 93.

 

http://www.chuckyeager.com/

 

-leafy

 

[Jonfliesgoats]

Wrong Way Corrigan was a good suggestion too.

WRT Chuck Yeager, he was really good at self-promotion.  Some of his antics with guys at Muroch Dry Lake make him a little less Kerbal-y.  For example he deliberately had Neil Armstrong land a P-80 on a soft spot out in the boonies and get stuck.  Neil, following Chuck's guidance followed left and right commands and landed at a specific spot on the flat dictated by Yeager.  Once they were in that soft spot and stuck, Yeager berated Neil that, with all of his education he couldn't tell that the field was soft.

There's also a little matter regarding how some civilian test pilots were treated.

Decades later, Yeager puts his name on a flight simulator and has little cut always of him talking like a sage of the skies.  

Yeager was good, but he doesn't strike me as a Kerbal.

Other guys, like Doolittle, or Steve Wittman fit the bill.

Doolittle made his own equipment and test flew it.  He engineered solutions and put hispink butt in the seat to execute those solutions.  In his autobiography, Doolittle makes little mention of his achievement but writes for a nnumber of pages about how he regretted yelling at his wife after she distracted him during takeoff.  Since I haven't seen a Kerbal gyrating his hips or thumping his chest yet, I think his behavior may be a bit more Kerbalish.

Wittman, from a family as poor as church mice, made his own planes and started winning air races.  He died in an airplane of his own design from his own grass airstrip while flying well into his 90s.  

In aviation and aerospace there are a lot of personalities.  The nature of the industry, especially on the fringes of the industry tends to accentuate people's personalities.  Yeager is definitely great, but I think, like Amelia Earhardt, he benefits from good publicity.

Also, I am open to reprimand regarding Yeager.  While I would like to think that my opinion is somewhat informed by my experience and education, this is probably an artifact of my own, ten ton ego.

Edited October 1, 2016 by Jonfliesgoats
Typos

[TheKosanianMethod]

On 9/16/2016 at 7:59 PM, Jonfliesgoats said:

Douglas Badder, who was able to keep flying despite the loss of both of his legs.  He has the physical resilience of a Kerbal

Where did you hear of him?

[Pappystein]

9 minutes ago, TheKosanianMethod said:

Where did you hear of him?

he is a famous RAF WWII Ace pilot who was (IIRC) shot down, Captured, Escaped and was allowed to fly again after proving he could do it despite missing most of his legs.  I have several pictures of him wearing his prosthetics  climbing into or out of a Spitfire

 

Edited October 2, 2016 by Pappystein

[TheKosanianMethod]

2 minutes ago, Pappystein said:

he is a famous RAF WWII Ace pilot who was (IIRC) shot down, Captured, Escaped and was allowed to fly again after proving he could do it despite missing most of his legs.  I have several pictures of him wearing his prognostics climbing into or out of a Spitfire

 

Didn't he smoke while flying his plane or something, and people thought he would explode?

My nomination:

The guy in WW2 in the Aleutians who was flying as a waist gunner in an early B-17 without a tail turret when a Zero got onto his tail. He had the most Kerbal solution: Rotate his Browning into the fuselage, and shoot the plane through the back of his bomber. He killed the pilot of the Zero, and when he got back to base, he asked if his pay would be docked for shooting his own plane. His CO told him, "No. You're promoted because you saved your plane and everyone on board."

Edited October 2, 2016 by TheKosanianMethod

[Pappystein]

I would nominate The late Great Ed Heinemann.  Sure, he was an engineer more than a pilot but come on.  After all, unlike many of the Aerospace Engineeres and Rocket Scientists today, Ed Heinemann did not even graduate High School.   Yet he, as an engineer, is single handedly responsible for all the most important Douglas combat Aircraft from World War II until the early 1980s (SBD Dauntless, A-20 Havoc, A-26/B-26 Invader,  AD/A-1 Skyraider, A3D/A-3 Skywarrior, A4D/A-4 Skyhawk, F4D/F-6 Skyray, F-5D/F-6 Skylancer and the F3D/F-10 Skyknight.)   .  

Who else could design a tiny plane to do the role of massive aircraft that all his competitors did.  The weight of 5 of this aircraft was less than any ONE SINGLE competitor for it's mission (A-4 Skyhawk.) 

Who else produced a Dive Bomber or attack plane that not only was impressed into use as an emergency Fighter preforming that roll well, but was responsible for the sinking of 4 aircraft carriers in one 24 hour period? (SBD/A-24 Dauntless/Banshee)

 

Kerbals learn by doing more than going to class (we don't have a Kerbal School do we?)   Ed Heinemann learned by doing, not by going to an organized school.   Without Ed the United States would have likely lost the war in the Pacific, Neil Armstrong would not have looked so good (he came to prominence flying Douglas F5D Skylancers for the USAF's Dyna-Soar program.)  Coincidentally, Alan Sheppard was the Chief test pilot for the F5D.

 

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Pappystein said:

he is a famous RAF WWII Ace pilot who was (IIRC) shot down, Captured, Escaped and was allowed to fly again after proving he could do it despite missing most of his legs.  I have several pictures of him wearing his prosthetics  climbing into or out of a Spitfire

 

Wing Commander Bader   Please note the origional post as well as mine had his last name misspelled.

 

[Jimmidii]

I have another nomination.

Dr Robert Brownlee.

What could be more Kerbal than trying to figure out if you accidentally launched something into a suborbital trajectory with a massive explosion?

[Jonfliesgoats]

Good suggestions, all!  I apologize for my spelling.

I am surprised nobody has mentioned Goddard yet.  

[WinkAllKerb'']

@NovaSilisko

+

@HarvesteR &. ..

Edited October 5, 2016 by WinkAllKerb''

[CaelumEtAstra]

I nominate Alvin "Tex" Johnson, a Boeing test pilot that did a barrel roll in a 367-80, a prototype of the 707 airliner. When asked "What the hell were you doing?" by a Boeing executive, Tex simply replied "I was selling airplanes."

He also did a lot of test flying of various aircraft such as the Bell X-1, and also set a speed record in a modified Airacobra.

Most kerbal and certainly most badass.

Edited October 11, 2016 by Mrsupersonic8

[KAL 9000]

Elon Musk. His ideas are just so Kerbal! Also, at one point I believe he said, "You know what? I don't care if it explodes. We'll try again until it works."

[SSgt Baloo]

This guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wan_Hu

[Jonfliesgoats]

Tex Johnson!  How did I not suggest him.  Wan Hu was great too.  Elon Musk is a great suggestion.  You guys are chock full of great ideas!

Alexeyev (sic) and Seversky are less famous but also very Kerbal.  

What do you think of Zeppelin who bout giant, complicated dirigibles full of hydrogen and painted with thermite? That seems rather Kerbal.

American dirigibles like Akron and Mackn were capable of launching Curtis fighter planes which had no landing gear and were recovered with a trapeze system.  They evolved from Zeppelin's work.  Airships as nuts as that are pretty retro-Kerbal.

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

On September 16, 2016 at 3:35 PM, Jimmidii said:

The Wright Brothers...

"You want to do what with these parts!?!?"

#Bicycles4lyfe