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Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:
Dr. Alan Biermann

David Jonathan Biermann was a pioneer in aviation and, with the help of his brother, Arnold, built and flew an experimental airplane of his own design in the early 1930s. He worked for many years at the NACA/NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia and became an expert on airplane propellers. He developed propeller designs that were used widely in the 1940s and continue to be used to the present day. As a government researcher, he met many of the greats of aviation history including Orville Wright and Charles Lindbergh. After the Second World War, he moved with his family to Piqua, Ohio where he was chief engineer and later President of Hartzell Propeller Company. There he designed a family of propellers that have been extremely popular in the light plane industry over several decades. One of his designs powered the Voyager aircraft which in 1986 was the first plane to circumnavigate the globe nonstop, without refueling. In 1980, Mr. Biermann received the Award of Outstanding Professional Achievement from the Affiliate Societies of the Engineering and Science Foundation of Dayton, Ohio.