National Aviation Hall of Fame Class of 2006

Article by Steen Staff

Steen Aero Lab congratulates our friend Cliff Robertson for his induction into the U.S. National Aviation Hall of Fame on Saturday. The ceremony was held in Dayton, OH. Cliff grew up in La Jolla, CA, and fell in love with aviation at the age of five, after seeing a yellow plane doing aerobatics over his home. By 14, he was riding his bike to Speer Airport and washing airplanes in order to earn occasional 15-minute rides with the chief pilot, who let him fly as soon as they had taken off. “I thought I was the ace of aces. It was a magic time,” he recalls. He was never paid money for the work, yet he always felt he was overpaid.
Cliff tried to join the New Zealand air force in WW2, since they had looser vision requirements than the U.S. military for pilots, but wasn’t allowed to join and returned to attend college in Ohio. He then served in the US Navy ended up serving in the Navy in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Mediterranean theaters.

In 1969, he organized humanitarian relief flights of food and medicine into Biafra after it declared independence from Nigeria, and organized a similar effort in Ethiopia during a 1978 famine. Cliff owns several vintage aircraft including a French Stampe SV4, a Messerschmitt Me-108, and a Beech Baron, and has previously owned two DH Tiger Moths and a Spitfire Mark IX. Cliff is also well-known as an active sailplane pilot in his Grob Twin Astir sailplane, and he holds a distance record for soaring in the state of Nevada and has his SSA Diamond badge for altitude for a soaring flight to 26,000 feet.

Cliff is a fixture at EAA AirVenture each year, where his talks have become “must-attend” events for those lucky enough to get tickets, and he served as the very first honorary chairman of the Young Eagles program as well as helped to create the Vision of Eagles program. Cliff also has an active and leading role in the EAA’s Cliff Robertson Work Experience program, which allows two 16- or 17-year olds to workk for ground and flight instruction through the EAA Air Academy in Oshkosh.

Cliff is a great advocate for General and military aviation, and often speaks at aviation events… he has given more non-compensated speeches on behalf of aviation than any other celebrity. He has received the Sharples Award from AOPA, the Freedom of Flight award from EAA, and the Veteran of the Year award from the American Veteran’s Association.

When he’s not flying, Cliff Robertson has another ‘hobby’ as an Oscar- and Emmy-winning actor. He’s starred in a few movies you might have heard of, many with aviation themes… Spiderman (1, 2 and the upcoming 3rd installment which will be his 77th major motion picture), 633 Squadron, PT-109, Battle of the Coral Sea, Gidget, Midway, Charly (for which he won an Oscar), Wind, Escape from L.A., Renaissance Man, Up from the Beach, Sunday in New York, My Six Loves, Masquerade, Three Days of the Condor, Mach 2, The Devil’s Brigade, J.W. Coop, The Naked and the Dead, and The Pilot, as well as many others.

He’s also been in numerous made-for-TV movies and TV shows including — but not at all limited to — The Outer Limits (original and new), Ford: The Man and the Machine, Falcon Crest, Overboard, The Twilight Zone, Return to Earth, The Yanks Are Coming, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Man Without A Country, Batman, Ben Casey, Outlaws, Riverboat, The Untouchables, Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, Password, and Wagon Train. He also narrated the documentary Running On Empty about the presitigious Barron Hilton Cup soaring competition.

“Flying is freedom — the essence of the good life.” – Cliff Robertson

Cliff Robertson enjoys a flight in a Grob 102 over the Sierra Mountains near Minden, NV(Tom Stowers photo, from cover of Soaring magazine, Mar. 1992)