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The most prestigious of its kind in the world

Since 1963, the International Air & Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air & Space Museum in Balboa Park has honored the world’s most significant Legends of Flight, including pilots, astronauts, crew members, visionaries, inventors, aerospace engineers, business leaders, preservationists, designers and space explorers.

Famous aviators such as the Wright Brothers, Charles Lindbergh, Neil Armstrong and Amelia Earhart are honored in the hall, as well as NASA Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts and luminaries who changed the world forever through their adventurous spirit.

Other notable inductees include Buzz Aldrin, Chuck Yeager, Igor Sikorsky, Wernher von Braun, Jack Northrop, Jackie Cochran, William Boeing, Sr., Reuben H. Fleet, Glenn Curtiss, Walter Zable Sr., Fran Bera, Wally Schirra, Bill Anders, Jim Lovell, T. Claude Ryan, Harrison Ford, Jimmy Doolittle, Bob Hoover, Ellen Ochoa, Peggy Whitson, Linden Blue, Patty Wagstaff, Hudson Drake, and many, many more.

During an evening to remember at the San Diego Air & Space Museum in November 2021, the International Air & Space Hall of welcomed both the Class of 2020 and the Class of 2021.

The Class of 2020 included two truly remarkable female aviators, Barbara Barrett and Tammie Jo Shults. In addition to being the former United States Secretary of the Air Force, businesswoman, attorney, and diplomat, Barrett is an instrument-rated pilot.

Shults is a retired pilot for Southwest Airlines and one of the first female fighter pilots in the U.S. Navy. She has been praised for her quick thinking under pressure during an emergency landing that saved 149 passengers at Philadelphia International Airport.

The Class of 2021 is equally as impressive, and included: Ed Bolen, President and CEO of the National Business Aviation Association; the Commemorative Air Force, which has the world’s definitive and largest collection of Warbirds; Eileen Collins, the amazing first female commander of the Space Shuttle and the first person to fly the Shuttle to two different space stations; Charlie Duke, Apollo 16 Moonwalker – the youngest and tenth man to walk on the Moon – and CAPCOM for the historic Apollo 11 Moon landing; Federal Express, whose FedEx Express operates the world’s largest full-service, all-cargo airline; Bryan Moss, President Emeritus of Gulfstream Aerospace, and former President and Executive Vice President of the Aerospace Group General Dynamics Corporation; and Dee O’Hara, the official nurse to the Mercury Seven astronauts and an astronaut nurse during America’s groundbreaking Gemini, Apollo and Skylab programs.

“We are exceptionally pleased to honor both the Class of 2020 and Class of 2021,” Jim Kidrick, President & CEO of the San Diego Air & Space Museum shared with GB Magazine. “Achievements in aviation and space, as embodied by the honorees directly represents the human pioneering and exploring spirit.”

To learn more about the world’s greatest air and space adventurers in the International Air & Space Hall of Fame, visit the San Diego Air and Space Museum in Balboa Park, or online at www.sandiegoairandspace.org.

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