Jimmy Doolittle
Essay by 24 • November 5, 2010 • 588 Words (3 Pages) • 1,459 Views
Jimmy Doolittle excelled at every aspect of aviation. A daredevil pilot, aeronautical engineer, combat leader, and record-holder, Doolittle was a multi-talented pioneer. He, Eddie Rickenbacker, and Charles Lindbergh were the three best-known aviators of the interwar period. World War II only served to increase Doolittle's fame.
Doolittle was an amateur boxer studying mining in college when he quit to join the Air Service during World War I. He was taught to fly and spent the war as an instructor. When the war ended and Doolittle was faced with deciding whether to return to college or stay in the military, he made what he considered the easy choice and decided to continue flying. And his career quickly took off. He taught himself aerobatics--performing the first outside loop--and became a regular on the air service air show circuit. In 1921, he flew with the First Provisional Air Brigade when, under the direction of General Billy Mitchell, they performed bombing demonstrations to show the effectiveness of air power against battleships.
The next year, Doolittle made the first cross-country flight in less than 24 hours. He received the Distinguished Flying Cross for this feat, and the citation credited Doolittle with demonstrating "the possibility of moving Air Corps units to any portion of the United States in less than 24 hours." In 1925, he won the Schneider Marine Trophy while flying a Curtiss seaplane. The next day he set a world speed record of 245 miles per hour (394 kilometers per hour) with the same plane. In 1929, he received the Mackay Trophy for his achievements during 1925.
Doolittle still found time to study. In 1922, he received a degree in engineering and, in 1925, he received one of the first doctorates in aeronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, writing his dissertation on the effect of the wind velocity gradient on flying. Because of his education, Doolittle spent the 1920s serving as an engineering test pilot at McCook Field in Dayton, the army's aviation test facility, and at the navy's facility
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