Albert Francis Hegenberger

Albert Francis Hegenberger was a Major General in the United States Air Force and a pioneering aviator who set a flight distance record with Lester J. Maitland, completing the first transpacific flight to Hawaii in 1927 as navigator of the Bird of Paradise. Hegenberger was an aeronautical engineer of note, earning both the Mackay Trophy and Collier Trophy for achievement.

Hegenberger was born at Boston, Massachusetts, in 1895. He entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1913 to undertake the course in civil engineering. When the United States entered World War I, Hegenberger enlisted in the Aviation Section, Signal Enlisted Reserve Corps as a private first class on September 14, 1917. He completed ground school training at the school of military aeronautics at M.I.T. in December 1917, and proceeded to Ellington Field, Texas, where he earned a rating of Reserve Military Aviator. He was appointed a second lieutenant in the Signal Officer Reserve Corps on April 6, 1918. He was sent to the pilot pool at the Aviation Concentration Center at Camp John Dick, Dallas, Texas then assigned successively to the School of Aerial Observers, Post Field, Fort Sill, Oklahoma the School of Aerial Gunnery, Taliaferro Field, Texas, graduating as a gunnery pilot of July 5, 1918 and in October, 1918 back to M.I.T. for a fourmonth course in aeronautical engineerin

Source: Wikipedia