Donald Taylor (aviator)
Donald P. Taylor (October 1, 1918 – December 2, 2015) was an American aviator, notable for being in the late summer and early fall of 1976 the first person in history to successfully fly a homebuilt aircraft around the world. From an early age, he'd resolved "I will build an airplane, and I will fly it round-the-world." His plane, "Victoria '76" (named for the only one of Ferdinand Magellan's ships to complete her mission), a Lycoming-powered Thorp T-18 (N455DT) was fitted with improved communications and navigational equipment as well as a new fuel system after his initial 1973 round-the-world attempt had to be aborted due to bad weather between Japan and the Aleutian Islands. Taylor, who lived at the time in California, returned to his starting point of Oshkosh, Wisconsin a hero two months to the day after the 1976-08-01 start of his eastbound journey. The planning of this circumnavigation was especially complicated considering that both the People's Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics were closed to U.S. general aviators at the time.
Charles A. Levine
Levine entered the competition for an Orteig prize for the first person to complete a nonstop flight from New York to Paris. His Bellanca designed prototype aircraft, named "Columbia", was ready for weeks, The co-pilot for the effort, Lloyd W. Bertaud, was displaced to accommodate Levine and went to court to be reinstated. Levine got the order lifted, but it was hours after Charles Lindbergh, in the Spirit of St. Louis, had left Roosevelt Field on Long Island. Levine's plane was still in its hangar at the same airport. Lindbergh won the prize on May 20, 1927. The following day Levine announced that his airplane would fly farther on a $15,000 transatlantic flight challenge from America to Germany and carry a passenger. The pilot was Clarence Chamberlin, and Levine would be the passenger. In an oft-repeated situation, Levine told his wife he was just going up for a test flight. His lawyer notified her by a letter of his intentions after they took off and kept going. On June 4, 1927 The Columbia took off on its transatlantic flight from America to Berlin, Germany with Levine, as the first passenger to cross the Atlantic in an airplane. The Columbia did not reach Berlin, but landed 100 miles short in a field at Eisleben, Germany. The trip was 315 miles (507 km) and 9 hours and 6 minutes longer than Lindbergh's transatlantic crossing.