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1983 “Gathering of Eagles” Print Signed by 27 Aviators – Yeager, Sakai, the Haizlips, Vaughn, Hill, Borman, Etc.
Lot 237. 1983 “Gathering of Eagles” Print Signed by 27 Aviators – Yeager, Sakai, the Haizlips, Vaughn, Hill, Borman, Etc. John Ficklen’s “Great Moments in Aviation History” lithograph, matted to 30” x 35”, features a variety of World War I and II aircraft, as well as a space shuttle and capsule. The print is hand-signed in pencil by 27 aviation pioneers, including: “Tex” Hill (died 2007), U.S. World War II ace; Chuck Yeager, the U.S. test pilot who was the first to travel faster than sound; Olli Puhakka, World War II ace from Finland (d. 1989), and Saburo Sakai (d. 2000), the fourth-ranking ace in Japan’s World War II Navy. Also, James G. Haizlip, legendary air racer who learned to fly with the French in World War I and won the second Bendix Trophy race, and his wife, Mary Haizlip, the second woman in the U.S. to receive her commercial pilot’s license. For seven years, she held the world’s speed record for women, and at the 1931 National Air Races, she was the second highest money winner, man or woman. The other autographs are by George Vaughn Jr., World War I ace; Leigh Wade, aviation pioneer who began flying in the 1920s and commanded a U.S. air base in Cuba during WWII; Pete Quesada, (d. 1993), pioneer in developing tactical air power, lieutenant general and one-time owner of the Washington Senators; Witold Urbanowicz, Jack Cram, recipient of the Navy Cross for heroism at Guadalcanal; Clive Caldwell, Australia’s top fighter ace of WWII with 28.5 victories; John W. Oswalt, pilot of the first WWII forward air control aircraft who later helped to develop the U.S. Army’s first armed helicopter; Francis (Gabby) Gabreski (d. 2002), one of the top-scoring U.S. aces of WWII; Günther Rall, Pierre Clostermann, WWII French fighter ace; William Hudson, Carl Fraser, Frank Borman, retired NASA commander of Apollo 8, the first mission to fly around the Moon; Maxie Anderson, pilot and commander of the crew that completed the first trans-Atlantic crossing in a gas balloon in 1978; Punch Dickens, pioneering Canadian aviator, bush pilot and World War I bomber pilot; John Cunningham, Paul W. Tibbets, (d. 2007), commander and pilot of the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima; James Brewer, Cook Cleland, Bernie Fisher, the first living U.S. Air Force recipient of the Medal of Honor and the first USAF member to receive it in Vietnam, and Joe Engle, one of the first astronauts in the Space Shuttle program and commander of the second orbital test flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1981. Kevin Keating authenticated the autographs, which are 9s and 10s. This lithograph was issued in an edition of 1,000. This copy is numbered HC 3/100. HC, or Hors Commerce, prints are seldom offered to the public. They typically are used for commercial purposes such as entering shows or advertising. The Gathering of Eagles is an annual event at the U.S. Air Force’s Air Command and Staff College (ACSC) at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. It focuses on the study of aviation history and the contributions of aviation pioneers.
Winning Bid $198.
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