Famous pilots you have met.......I'll start out...

Nobody famous, but one notable. Cole Palin of old Rhinebeck and one who fathered a famous pilot, Mike Goulian's father.
 
I bought Pappy Boyington's book from him (2 copies) at an air show back in the early 1980s. I can't remember the gentleman's name, but I met the MoH winner who landed his Skyraider to pick up another Skyraider pilot who had been shot down and then took off with both aboard during the Viet Nam war. We met at a Dining In at Fairchild AFB when I was in AFROTC at WSU.
 
Ghery said:
I bought Pappy Boyington's book from him (2 copies) at an air show back in the early 1980s. I can't remember the gentleman's name, but I met the MoH winner who landed his Skyraider to pick up another Skyraider pilot who had been shot down and then took off with both aboard during the Viet Nam war. We met at a Dining In at Fairchild AFB when I was in AFROTC at WSU.
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I was reading Pappy's book when I attended the Abbotsford airshow in Canada. There was a Japanese guy selling a book about shooting him down. I chatted with him for a bit, met his family and had him sign my sister-in-law's book next to Pappy's signature. Pappy was her Grandpa and he wouldn't stop apologizing and telling me he was only doing his job..
 
I forgot about Michael Goulian. I've never "met" him in person, but he called me on the phone once in his capacity as IAC chair. Extremely nice guy.

Another interesting pilot I met was Herb Hope. Herb was John McCain's wingman while they were on the Forestal. When the fire broke out on deck, McCain went below to drink coffee while Herb led a squad of sailors on a hose line to try to fight the fire. Years later, I'm watching some cable chow on the incident and they interviewed him, "Hey, that's Herb Hope!" I say.

Amusingly, the way we met was his wife taught with Margy. When I showed up at the staff Christmas party she dragged me over to meet him because "I was a pilot." Mind you, my wife was also a pilot at the time (she had a Cessna cockpit poster in her classroom). Amusingly, there was a nice little group of pilot husbands there. Then one of them points out this older Philipino gentlemen and says, he flew P-51's in WWII and Viet Nam. I told him, I knew that. I had flown with him. He had moved from the military to Phillipine Airlines and then retired and was working in my wife's classroom as an aide. He hadn't flown in years, so we took him out in the Navion. It took him about 30 seconds to get back into the swing of things and then flew for the next two hours.
 
Airshow famous: I worked ground crew for Greg Koontz at OSH (18?).

Instafamous: Jodi Ruger was on the same crew. She might become a legit famous airshow pilot.

YouTube famous: Couple of meals with Martin P. Unlike the ones above, he actually knows me.

Honored but unknown: My father was awarded a DFC for action in Korea.

Plus the usual OSH handshakes and book signings. Getting to my twenty-somethingth OSH, I find I appreciate the book signings more and more.
 
red4golf said:
I was reading Pappy's book when I attended the Abbotsford airshow in Canada. There was a Japanese guy selling a book about shooting him down. I chatted with him for a bit, met his family and had him sign my sister-in-law's book next to Pappy's signature. Pappy was her Grandpa and he wouldn't stop apologizing and telling me he was only doing his job..
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I’m having a visual of him and Pappy sitting next to each other at one of those signing things. Betcha that would have been a hoot.
 
One pilot that I would like to meet is Mathias Rust. He was a low time pilot when he flew a skyhawk into Russia and landed in Red Square. He lived to tell about it.
 
luvflyin said:
Speaking of the infamous, how about weather balloon lawn chair guy. Didn’t someone land gyrocopter or something on the White House lawn. I think the guy I’d like to meet is the Enlisted Marine who stole an A4.
https://www.military.com/off-duty/2...mechanic-took-joyride-stolen-a4m-skyhawk.html
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Not a gyrocopter. It was a UH-1B. One that was parked on the flight line at Tipton AAF, Fort Mead. The offending "pilot" was a flight school washout that was retrained as helo repairman. The Secret Service brought him down with the heaviest weapons in the 1970 inventory: Shotguns. I think I spotted him being frog marched across a Ft Mead parking lot.
 
The reason we got ignition keys in Army Helicopters...then again same key started all of them for a while and a jumper wire you could bypass it anyway...it was a switch in the igniter circuit.
 
Warlock said:
The reason we got ignition keys in Army Helicopters...then again same key started all of them for a while and a jumper wire you could bypass it anyway...it was a switch in the igniter circuit.
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Ha ha! My first day of Huey Contact (UH-1H transition course), my instructor had never seen the key before and since we forgot to turn it on, we drained the battery to the point where it would not start.

Ya think he was happy? Nope.

On the Chinook, the back of the key switch was visible through the "accidentally" omitted panel cover and you could simply put a paperclip on the terminals.
Forget the key? We all had a paperclip in our pocket...
 
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luvflyin said:
Speaking of the infamous, how about weather balloon lawn chair guy.
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“Lawnchair Larry”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawnchair_Larry_flight#Preparation_and_flight

Can’t locate them now, but there were several excellent articles done on Larry. I recall him in a Timex ad in Playboy magazine. Mr. Walters earned his place in aviation lore.

Flying a jet, flying a helicopter, flying a lawn chair— easy peasy. Who needs ratings?

And let’s not leave out the “Barefoot Bandit.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colton_Harris_Moore
 
Maxnr said:
Not a gyrocopter. It was a UH-1B. One that was parked on the flight line at Tipton AAF, Fort Mead. The offending "pilot" was a flight school washout that was retrained as helo repairman. The Secret Service brought him down with the heaviest weapons in the 1970 inventory: Shotguns. I think I spotted him being frog marched across a Ft Mead parking lot.
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Hadn’t heard of that one. Wonder if him and the A4 marine ever got in touch with each other. Oh yeah, I did barrel rolls. Pfft, anyone can do that, it takes big ones to land at the White House.
 
Omalley1537 said:
......

I walked past Bob Hoover at least twice while he was there for a book signing, thinking “I need to swing by there”...unfortunately I never did, and he flew west before I had another opportunity.
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I've been guilty of that sort of thing too.
Sometimes I wonder who the noteworthy folks were that I probably have met over the years but I never knew because I didn't take the time to get to know them. I wouldn't be surprised if some folks I've known had some good stories to tell....my old high school teachers, things like that.....some might have even been noteworthy pilots...who knows!

My wife's aunt is retired AF LtCol and her husband was a retired AF General....lived in Air force Village out in TX, a retirement facility that used to be exclusively air force. I regret not talking to their neighbors more while I was visiting. I wouldn't be surprised if some had some very interesting stories to tell.
 
In the UK many years ago, Douglas Bader and Johny Kent.
 
Maxnr said:
One pilot that I would like to meet is Mathias Rust. He was a low time pilot when he flew a skyhawk into Russia and landed in Red Square. He lived to tell about it.
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My other half "babyset" Victor Belenko after Victor was moved to the U.S. My dude's second assignment :)
 
I’ve been trying to remember his name with no luck, but there was a German WWII pilot who flew either the 262 or 163 who became fairly well-known in the U.S. glider community.
 
MauleSkinner said:
I’ve been trying to remember his name with no luck, but there was a German WWII pilot who flew either the 262 or 163 who became fairly well-known in the U.S. glider community
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You may be thinking of Rudy Opiz. He was quite active in soaring here in the northeast, CFI and an examiner in gliders. Super knowledgeable, great pilot and wonderful to talk with. He was the chief military Me-163 test pilot. According to the inter web he passed away in 2010 at the age of 99.
https://www.soaringmuseum.org/hof_more.php?id=78
 
Hank195 said:
You may be thinking of Rudy Opiz. He was quite active in soaring here in the northeast, CFI and an examiner in gliders. Super knowledgeable, great pilot and wonderful to talk with. He was the chief military Me-163 test pilot. According to the inter web he passed away in 2010 at the age of 99.
https://www.soaringmuseum.org/hof_more.php?id=78
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Might’ve been...it’s been over 30 years.
 
I came sort of close to meeting the Commander of the Luftwaffe Nato, Mackie Steinhoff. I was living in Bath, ME at the time and the shipyard there was building three warships for Germany. They were named the Admiral Leutjens (Bismark), the Werner Molders (WW2 ace) and some guy named Rommel. I was invited to launch aboard the Molders. My family has a long history with the shipyard. Steinhoff and Molders served together. Steinhoff arrived with with a big group of USN brass went ahead of us invitees in the entrance line. He brushed past close enough to see the burns he suffered in the crash of a 262. Lost his eyelids. Unable to get his autograph.
 
John Travolta autographed my logbook at KIPL. I was on a cross country working on PPL.
John and Martha while fueling their jet. I think it was a citation 500. The one they flew before the Falcon.
 

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Warlock said:
The reason we got ignition keys in Army Helicopters...then again same key started all of them for a while and a jumper wire you could bypass it anyway...it was a switch in the igniter circuit.
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I was at Sikorsky when those switches were first installed - big rush job, the key switch always looked very out of place just plopped in an open area of the panel with a simple on - off placard.
I’m sure these switches have lead to number of “interesting” events over the years. I remember one which involved a coworker who at the time was a junior avionics engineer. We were having a problem with a new AHARS installation. A flight test was needed to collect high rate AHARS output and vibration data. This was the engineers first test flight and it had gone well, all the test cards were completed and data successfully recorded. During conversation on the was back to base one pilot asked the other what that key switch on the panel was for. The pilot flying said he no idea what it did. So they asked the new avionics engineer but of course he didn’t know. Then the first pilot says I think we should turn it off to see what it does. The flying pilot says that’s a stupid idea, leave it alone if we don’t know what it for. They debate this for a bit when suddenly the first pilot says that it, I’m switching it off (turning off the ignition on a running jet engine makes no difference). As the first pilot turns the key switch off, the flying pilot dramatically lowers the collective. Everything gets light in the aircraft and this makes a big difference in the sound and vibrations. The flying pilot is now yelling to turn the XXXX switch back on. But the first pilot says he’s lost the key, it must have fallen to the back into the cabin - the engineer has to find it or it’s going to be bad! As the engineer scrambles looking for the key, the pilots can no longer continue the prank and break into laughter as they recover the aircraft.
So an unauthorized Army aircraft landing at the White House results in a couple of entertained pilots and a memorable flight for a new test engineer.
 
Ken Brock, Ken Rand, Steve Hinton and Pappy Boyington. I guess "famous" would only apply to Pappy, but the others are notable aviators and contributors to aviation that are worth mentioning.
 
eman1200 said:
Mister Ed? (Mr. Red...)
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Lt Col Ventucky R. Red (USAF Retired).. Flew in Dubya Dubya Eye Eye, Berlin Airlift and Korea - nothing sexy mostly transports and such... as he was eulogized: " a man of very few words, but the words he spoke hit you like a silver bullet.."
 
Snort Snodgrass, Patty Wagstaff and Phil Knight (went up with him in his Extra300). I also have a personalized note to Mark and I with a really cute cartoon drawn by Rod Machado but don’t think I met him, maybe Mark did, can’t recall how we got that, my memory sucks these days.
 
Group of six of us at Oshkosh on Sun before the show opened - had spent most of the day wandering the grounds and we were hot and tired, so stopped by one of the A&Ws for a root beer float. Sat down at a table occupied by a lone gentleman. Struck up a conversation and come to realize we were sitting with Dick Rutan.
 
MtPJimB said:
Struck up a conversation and come to realize we were sitting with Dick Rutan.
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Based on an informal poll and personal experience, typical time from engagement to ID is on the order of seconds ;)

Nauga,
and extremely cooperative target recognition
 
I used to be the starter for the San Diego Veteran's Parade and I got to meet Chuck Yeager a few years back.
 
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