The National Aviation Hall of Fame has announced its class of 2022. The new inductees were announced Monday by Board of Nominations Chair Tom Lodge and NAHF President and CEO Amy Spowart in front of 200 guests at the Fall Awards Dinner of the National Aeronautic Association (NAA) in Washington, D.C.
The Class of 2022 will officially join the National Aviation Hall of Fame on September 24, 2022.
The Inductees
Willa Brown
Brown became the first African-American woman to earn a pilot’s certificate in the U.S. in 1938. In 1941, she joined the Chicago squadron of the Civil Air Patrol (CAP), becoming the first African-American officer in the CAP.
Brown was also the first African-American woman to run for Congress (1946). She lost that race, but she continued to be an active voice in the fight for civil rights until her death in 1992. Brown also trained more than 200 Tuskegee Airmen.
Joe Clark
Clark was the founder of the blended winglet, which enhances the performance of airplanes and has a positive impact on sustainability, resulting in less fuel consumption, longer aircraft range, and reduced carbon emissions.
In the 1980s, he co-founded regional airline Horizon Air and in the 90s., he founded Aviation Partners, where he would design and sell the winglets.
Margaret Hamilton
Hamilton led the NASA software team that built the program that landed astronauts on the moon in 1969.
She coined the term “software engineer” to describe her role in developing the in-flight systems software and priority displays for the Apollo command module, lunar lander, and Skylab.
Geraldine ‘Jerrie’ Mock
Mock took her first flight at the age of 7 and was hooked from then on. Also known as “The Flying Housewife,” Mock became the first woman to fly solo around the world when she completed her 29-day journey on April 17, 1964. The journey also made her the first woman to fly across two oceans, and first to fly across the Pacific in a single-engine airplane, a 1953 Cessna 180 named “Charlie.”
“We believe that this is an excellent class and we are already looking forward to their induction in our home, the birthplace of aviation, Dayton, Ohio,” Lodge said. “From pioneers Brown and Mock to visionaries Clark and Hamilton, and to aerospace hero Musgrave, the NAHF’s Class of 2022 represents the best in aviation. We applaud the Board of Nominations for their challenging and thorough work.”
Story Musgrave
Musgrave is one of only two astronauts to make six flights into space, and he’s the only one to have flown aboard all five space shuttles. A former U.S. Marine, he also has degrees in mathematics, operations analysis, chemistry, literature, and physiology, as well as a medical degree from Columbia University.
How The Class is Created
The NAHF Board of Nominations consists of more than 130 aviation professionals nationwide. Through a thorough vetting process, the board selects a prestigious group of air and space pioneers to be considered for the induction in the NAHF every year. Since being founded in 1962, the NAHF has enshrined 254 persons into the only congressionally chartered aviation hall of fame in the U.S.
