I feel its only proper to honor the individuals that tested themselves and thier craft in order to teach us about aircraft design, procedures, and human limits in the air. .

             The first person to die in an airplane crash was Lt. Thomas E. Selfridge. He was flying with Orville in 1908. No wonder Orville was the 4th person in history to get a pilot certificate: the 3rd was Lousis Paulhan, 2nd was Frank Lham, and the first was Glen Curtiss. The first pilot to be killed was Eugene Lefebvre in France, on Sept 7, 1909. .

             Calbreth Perry Rodgers bought the first Wright airplane. Rodgers recieved 90 minutes of flight instruction from Wilber. After his ample flight school, Rodgers accepted the challeng of flying across the United States for a prize of $50,000 (if he could do it in thirty days) offered by a publisher. He got a soft drink maker to sponser him, and thus the flight of Vin Fiz(name of the soda) got off the ground. He started in New York, and soon ran into a lot of trouble. He crashed somewhere between 20 and 36 times. His sponsor fixed him up though. It took the persistant and constantly bandaged Rodgers 49 days to get to Pasadena; funny only 82 hours and 4 minutes were spent in the air. Luckly Rodger's 51mph crashes didn't kill him. .

             Amelia Aerhart is another notable person that sacrificed herself for the furtherance of air transportation. She was the first woman to cross the Atlantic-from Newfoundland to North Ireland, 2,026 miles. She did it in 1932. But this wasn't enough. In 1937 she wanted to circle the globe at the equator. Unfortunately she missed the tiny Howeland Island in the pacific and was never seen again.

             Other essential people in aviation include Glen Curtiss, Charles Lindbergh, and Ilray Jeppeson. Glen Curtiss flew from Albany to New York in 1910, which crushed the previous distance record of 24 miles. His flight amounted to 143 total miles. Curtiss was also a pioneer in early engines.