Gallery: A Retrospective On Aviation Week Network's Laureate Award Winners (1950s - 2020s)

For rolling out and flying its first production line version of the 707 jet transport.

For combining to bring the world speed record back to the U.S. with the F-101A and its 1,207 mph performance at Edwards AFB, California.

For his persistent, articulate and courageous exposition of a military space program.

Belated recognition for his superb job of designing the special purpose, high altitude U-2 reconnaissance plane that was able to photograph the Soviet Union for four years without interference. 

For his success in providing the U.S. space program with national priority and at last expressing the nation’s determination to compete against all comers in space technology.

For their successful orbital flights in McDonnell Mercury capsules, which confirmed the growing U.S. capability in manned space flight and laid the basic foundation for the Apollo moon mission.

For having the zest to abandon one fabulously successful career to launch another that developed the latest executive jet aircraft.

To fight a fierce shooting war against the spearhead of communism.

For piloting Gemini 6 to achieve the first sustained rendezvous in manned space flight.

For developing the casting process that allows a turbine blade to be made as a single crystal and marks a major advance in high-temperature jet metallurgy.

For fighting the bloody and bitter air war over Southeast Asia in which the rules and restrictions imposed by their Commander-in-Chief forced them to take more risks than necessary.

Whose skills and dogged efforts at major airports keep an obsolete and overloaded air traffic control system working in relative safety.

For a program that culminated with manned landings on the moon, the greatest technological feat in aerospace history.

For pushing the Concorde supersonic transport as a valid commercial aircraft by actual performance in dramatic flights to Africa, South America and the Azores.

*There were no Laureate Awards in 1970

For his work on the lunar surface during Apollo 17 as the first astronaut-geologist in space.

For operating around malfunctions to keep the Space Station functioning through three scientifically productive missions that otherwise would have been abandoned.

For more than 40 years of pioneering design of high-performance fighters and reconnaissance aircraft, including the P-38, P-80, F-104, U-2 and SR-71.

For outstanding test piloting and unusually rigorous spin testing of the U.S. Air Force/McDonnell Douglas F-15 advanced air superiority fighter.

For direction of the Viking double Mars landing program, one of the most imaginative and successful programs in the history of the space age.

For his lifetime of contributions to Russian aviation, from the World War II-era Il-2 Stormovik to the Il-62 jet transport that opened Moscow-New York airline service. 

For his role in the conception and development of the S-76 commercial helicopter to initial deliveries to customers in 1978.

For convincing U.S. President Jimmy Carter to inject $1 billion into NASA’s underfunded space shuttle program.

For forging the system that raised production rates for the A300 within a European labor system that prohibited layoffs to deal with short-term fluctuations in demand.

For flying the space shuttle orbiter Columbia into orbit to make the historic first airplane-type landing of a spacecraft.

For transforming the laser gyro from a laboratory curiosity into a reliable inertial navigation sensor for the new Boeing 767.

For tight management of the USAF/Rockwell International B-1B bomber development, keeping the highly visible procurement within budget and ahead of schedule.

For high performance testing of the low-altitude, high angle-of-attack, asymmetric thrust program for the U.S. Navy/Grumman F-14 Tomcat fighter.

For his key role in establishing France’s program for the CNES Spot Earth resources satellite and implementing a commercially oriented international distribution network.

Who died because elements of their support team grew complacent about the unforgiving realities of space flight. They remind us that progress can still extract a heavy toll.

For unwavering support of the Strategic Defense Initiative despite intense U.S. political and Soviet pressure to abandon the ballistic missile defense system.

For rapidly developing exotic aircraft with a small team of engineers, keeping corporate and Defense Department officials at arm’s length to turn new ideas into hardware. 

For transforming a nearly bankrupt government entity into a top-ranked, globally competitive private airline and posting record profits.

For building the world’s largest express transportation company, achieving high customer and employee satisfaction, and participation in Operation Desert Shield.

For making air power the decisive element in the allied campaign to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi invaders.

For standing alone in 1992 as the profit-making major airline among the battered, debt-ridden U.S. airlines by maintaining its go-it-alone policy and short-haul philosophy.

The hundreds of men and women who designed and built hardware and planned and executed the first servicing mission of the Hubble Space Telescope.

For returning the U.S. to the moon after more than two decades with a low-cost, 1,000 lb. probe that mapped virtually the entire lunar surface with high resolution in ultraviolet, visible and infrared spectra.

For making aviation safety issues the chief focus on her tenure and launching a campaign to track down and prosecute providers of “bogus” airplane parts.

For the Boeing 777, the world’s largest commercial twinjet, which achieved a dispatch reliability rate of 98.4% in less than two years after entering service.

Lifetime achievement award for helping design the USAF/NASA X-15 hypersonic research aircraft and for perfecting it in flight.

For leading a fiercely independent aircraft manufacturer and achieving good financial health amidst declining post-Cold War military budgets.

For his drive in growing the upstart trans-Atlantic carrier into an airline with 29 aircraft flying to 18 destinations around the globe.

For correctly gauging the commuter airline industry’s shift from turboprops to jets, transforming Embraer into the world’s fourth largest commercial aircraft builder.

For deploying the high-altitude, endurance unmanned aircraft to support the war in Afghanistan following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

For flying around the world solo in a balloon, a feat that took six tries and nearly 10 years to achieve. 

For the first flight of a Chinese manned space mission in October 2003, making China the third nation with a human spaceflight capability.

For Scaled Composites’ SpaceShipOne, the first privately funded, manned space flight and winner of the Ansari X Prize.

For its technical achievement in bringing the mega-transport to its first flight in April 2005.

For being the driving force behind the Pentagon’s commitment to furthering hypersonic flight through the X-51A demonstrator project.

For stimulating the marketplace by expanding the offerings of the world’s most extensive line of business and general aviation aircraft.

For his work in the dawn of commercial space transportation, investing millions in Falcon 1, the first privately financed liquid-fueled launch vehicle to orbit a payload.

For making the transition from the largest space construction project in history to the first laboratory for long-duration experiments in microgravity.

For extraordinary professionalism and courage executing a dead-stick landing of an Airbus A320 on New York’s Hudson River after a bird strike disabled the aircraft’s engines.

For their pivotal roles in bringing about a revolution in unmanned air vehicles.

For incorporating cutting-edge technical advances in development of the G650, Gulfstream’s largest and fastest business aircraft to date.

For his lifelong dedication to air safety and inventions that saved thousands of lives.

For proving that a stealthy, unmanned aircraft can operate on and around an aircraft carrier deck.

For his role over three decades in transforming Airbus from a niche player to an aviation powerhouse, amassing $800 billion in sales along the way

For returning “better than Hubble” views of the strange little world that lies at the edge of the Solar System and demonstrating “keep-it-simple” engineering in ambitious space projects.

For his vision of using ever larger reusable rockets to send an entire economy into Earth orbit and beyond and for bankrolling development of a rocket engine to launch U.S. national security payloads.

For setting a new record for cumulative time in space (665 days) and being the first woman to head NASA’s Astronaut Office and command the International Space Station.

For leading a remaking of the company by reducing government interference, pursuing investor-based strategies and launching the A350 and A320neo families.

The most sophisticated aircraft yet developed by Embraer and the most ambitious defense development program in South American history. 

For her role as one of the most accomplished U.S. chief executives, presiding over the challenging ramp-up of the global F-35 program and achieving robust earnings and record backlogs.

For his role as the founding father of the leasing sector that now owns more than half of the global commercial aircraft fleet, and as the driving force behind a new U.S. National Air and Space Museum annex outside Washington.

For achieving its first flight eight years after contract and less than a year after its public rollout, opening the door for low-rate production of the first U.S. bomber in three decades.

*There were no Laureates in 2023 due to schedule changes during the COVID-19 crisis.