Aviation Hall inducts Jimmy Stewart

DAYTON, Ohio – Astronaut Edward White, who gave his life as part of man’s race to the moon, was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame on Saturday along with the first female shuttle pilot and the late Hollywood actor Jimmy Stewart.

White, who in 1965 made America’s first spacewalk but was killed in a spacecraft fire two years later, was presented for enshrinement by the man who first set foot on the lunar surface.

“Ed had an acute dedication to his work,” Neil Armstrong said. “And he was committed to superiority in the conquest of space.”

Joining White as enshrinees in Saturday night’s ceremony, which hundreds of people attended, were Eileen Collins, the first woman to command an American space mission; Russell Meyer Jr., former head of the Cessna Aircraft Co.; and Stewart, who was a bomber pilot during World War II before starring in such classic movies as “It’s a Wonderful Life” and Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window.”

On Friday night, the hall presented its Spirit of Flight Award to the Apollo astronaut crews for their roles in the moon missions.