Baron Manfred Von Richthofen was a German military aviator, born in Breslau. Richthofen was in the cavalry and the infantry before joining the German air service during World War I. He led a unique group of of fighter pilots who became known as Richthofen's circus. Richthofen painted his plane red to flaunt his prowess in the air and thus earned the nickname of the Red Knight of Germany or the Red Baron. He was credited with the destruction of 80 Allied planes before being shot down behind British lines in April 1918.

Charles (Chuck) Elwood Yeager was the first person to fly an aircraft faster than the speed of sound. He was born in Myra, West Virginia in 1923. Yeager started military service during World War II as a fighter pilot and retired in 1975 with the rank of brigadier general. He accomplished this on October 14, 1947, in a Bell X-1 rocket plane, he called "Glamorous Glennis" after his wife. He set another speed record on December 12, 1953, by flying a Bell X-1A rocket plane at 2 1/2 times the speed of sound. To learn about Chuck Yeager's most famous flight go to this site.

The Quest for Speed

Charles Augustus Lindbergh was an American aviator, engineer, Pulitzer Prize winner, and the first person to make a solo Trans-Atlantic flight. Lindbergh was born February 4, 1902, in Detroit. He attended the University of Wisconsin for two years but withdrew to attend a flying school in Lincoln, Nebraska. He began flying in 1922, and four years later he piloted a mail plane between Saint Louis, Missouri, and Chicago, Illinois. He decided to compete for a prize of $25,000 offered in 1919 by the Franco-American philanthropist Raymond B. Orteig of New York City for the first nonstop transatlantic solo flight between New York City and Paris. In his single-engine monoplane, Spirit of St. Louis, Lindbergh left Roosevelt Field at 7:52 AM on May 20, 1927. After a flight of 33 hours 32 minutes he landed at Le Bourget Airport near Paris, France. In 1932 the kidnapping and murder of Lindbergh's first child, 19-month-old Charles A. Lindbergh Jr., attracted nationwide attention. A German-born carpenter, Bruno Hauptmann, was later found guilty of the crime and executed. To avoid further publicity, the Lindberghs moved to Europe in 1935. He died on August 26, 1974, in Maui, Hawaii.

Amelia Earhart is known for her flights across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and for her attempt to fly around the world. She was born in Atchison, Kansas, and educated at Columbia University and Harvard Summer School. In 1928 she accepted the invitation of the American pilots Wilmer Stultz and Louis Gordon to join them as a passenger on a transatlantic flight, becoming the first woman to make the crossing by air. In 1932 she became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean alone, establishing a new record for the crossing: 13 hours 30 minutes. Her plane was red a Lockheed Vega. For this feat she was awarded honors by the American and French governments. In 1935 she became the first woman to fly the Pacific Ocean, crossing from Hawaii to California. Later the same year she set a speed record by flying nonstop from Mexico City to New York in 14 hours 19 minutes. In June 1937 she began a flight around the world, flying eastward from Miami, Florida, accompanied by Frederick J. Noonan, a navigator. Their plane disappeared on July 2, while en route from Lae, New Guinea, to Howland Island. An extensive search by planes and ships of the United States Navy failed to discover any trace of the lost flyers, and their fate remains a mystery.

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