I understand the desire to name the NASM Annes at Dulles after a "true" aviation hero/pioneer ... but, think for a moment about how you would possibly narrow it down to just one. The Wright Brothers? Charles Lindbergh? Amelia Earhart? Jack Northrop? Juan Trippe? Jimmy Doolittle? Chuck Yeager? Neil Armstrong? You could make a case for each and every one of them (and many more besides) as admirable and worthy of recognition. What traits would you use to rank one above the other and which of them could encompass the full scope of the ongoing history of air and space design, innovation, exploration, warfare, commerce, etc, etc, etc... ?
Steven F. Udvar-Hazy, didn't just "give a lot of money." He made a staggerinly generous and unprecedented donation ($60 million) -- the largest single gift in the entire (up to then) 153 year existence of the Smithsonian Institution -- equal to more than twice the combined amount of what had been raised in the previous three years of focused fundraising ($25 million) and nearly half the total target set for the capital campaign ($130 million).
http://www.nasm.edu/events/pressroom/releaseDetail.cfm?releaseID=94More importantly, this donation is what turned the dream into a reality -- finally providing the means to create a facility large enough to assemble and house a host of highly significant historic aircraft that were otherwise languishing in storage, inacessable and unseen to most of the public. I would think that alone (especially in the eyes of a group such as this) should be enough to rate Steven F. Udvar-Hazy as a "real aviation hero."
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