Major Elliot Summer, US Army Air Corps, a Providence native and WWII ace with ten kills to his credit, flew P-38s in the Pacific with the 432nd Fighter Squadron – which he ended up commanding by the end of the war. His many awards included the Silver Star, 2 Distinguished Flying Crosses, and 9 Air […]
A long-time Warwick resident, Albert Tavani is credited with bringing the state airport system from its infancy in the 1940s to the full-service network that now exists. When he retired at the end of 1977, Green Airport was greatly expanded, numerous airlines were serving Rhode Island, and there were five state airports in addition to […]
WWI pursuit pilot and escaped POW Theose Tillinghast was one of the few Allied flying officers to escape from enemy hands during World War I. A Providence native, he attended Providence Technical High School before graduating from RI State College with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. Tillinghast joined Pratt and Whitney Aircraft when he resigned from […]
Richmond Viall (1896-1973) was born in Providence on June 26, 1896; his father was second-in-command at Brown & Sharpe Manufacturing Company when it was a global force in the machine tools business. He attended Williams College, but left in 1917 to join the British forces in Canada. He joined the Royal Canadian Flying Corps as […]
The Rhode Island Aviation Hall of Fame honored the four Rhode Island women who flew as WASP during World War II. These women are Phyllis Marsden Johnson Paradis, Bea St. Claire Smith Thurston, Ann Kenyon Morse, and Eunice Oates. The WASP program grew out of efforts led by noted aviatrix Jacqueline Cochran to integrate women […]
Charlestown resident Lawrence Webster is an award-winning mechanical engineer known in aviation history circles as the “aluminum undertaker” because of his extensive work excavating air crash sites.
Hugh Willoughby (1856-1939) Newport resident Hugh Willoughby was was an avid inventor, traveler, aviator, and sportsman. He built his first serious aircraft model in 1894, the same year he organized the Naval Reserve in Rhode Island (he graduated from the Naval War College in 1896). By 1900 he was a noted aerial photographer, taking pictures […]
In September 1943, Jean Teresino Yarnall (1923-2013) was living in Hartford, CT and working for an insurance company. She decided to join the new Navy unit called “Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service”, or WAVES.
Captain (Retired) Peter Young USA (1937-2021) A Navy, Army and commercial pilot, Young joined the Army as a mechanic and switched to the Navy to go to flight school. After a tour as a Navy helo pilot, he resigned in 1946 to fly commercially with TWA. He rose to the rank of Captain, flying wide […]
Retired Air Force Colonel Joseph Zinno designed, built and flew America’s first human-powered aircraft, and is a flying veteran of three wars (WWII, Korea and Vietnam).