To Toyota, which announced the end of its program to develop a general aviation powerplant and then announced development of an all-new GA airplane only weeks later. To Trimble, who rolled out a new suite of GA avionics at Oshkosh and then in October announced they were getting out of the general aviation market. A short and hardly-complete list of notables that left us in 1998. We are poorer for their passing, but much richer for having known them and for continuing to benefit from their contributions to aviation. Alan Shepard , America's first man in space and one of the last to walk on the moon.
True pioneers are hard to find, and even more difficult to qualify.
Barry Goldwater , former U.S. Senator, USAF Maj. Tragically, Carl was shot to death during a robbery in his Roseburg, Ore. home at the age of 82. Perhaps his greatest accomplishment, though, was helping to decide the site of an airstrip for the then-fledgling Chicago Flying Club. Perhaps Johnston is best known as the pilot who barrel-rolled a Boeing 707 in 1955. He was supposed to do a flyover for a group watching from the shore of Seattle's Lake Washington but instead rolled the big bird right on around without causing so much as a wrinkle or working rivet.