Learning Center Our Enshrinees

Harry Benjamin Combs

• Built and flight-tested a sport biplane named Vamp Bat in 1929 at the age of 16.
• Formed Mountain States Aviation with a partner in 1938, a fixed base operation and flying school that later became Combs Aircraft.
• In 1939, he designed, built and tested the Combscraft.
• During World War II, Combs Aircraft Company trained 9,000 military pilots.
• Joined the Army Air Forces during World War II, flying C-54 transports across the North Atlantic, Africa and India.
• President Kennedy appointed Combs to “Project Beacon” the project that helped form our present air traffic control system.
• NASA consultant during the formative days of the manned space program.
• In 1974, Combs received America’s General Aviation Man of the Year award.
• Wrote Kill Devil Hills: Discovering the Secret of the Wright Brothers which won the Aviation/Space Writer’s Association’s James J. Streiberg Award, America’s highest honor for excellence in aviation writing.
• Recipient of the Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy in 1985.