Having stepped down from the world’s most exclusive club in 2020, on Friday evening Prince Harry will be inducted into another, nearly as prestigious institution. The Duke of Sussex will become, officially, finally, a “Living Legend of Aviation”.
The news, announced last week, came as something of a surprise to the British public. Prince Harry is up for the award because he served as an Apache helicopter pilot in Afghanistan from 2012 to 2013, and ran training missions in the US and Australia during his decade in the British Army. A man who can fly, certainly. A “legend of aviation”? It is up for debate. Fierce debate.
“He is not a living legend of aviation,” former First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Lord West, told MailOnline. “To suggest he is, is pathetic.”
One petition on change.org has called for the award to be reconsidered: more than 12,000 people agree. Columns have been penned about what Harry’s grandfather, Prince Philip, who flew more than 60 types of plane for more than 6,000 hours over 44 years, and who served in the RAF, might have made of the whole thing. For what it’s worth, Prince Harry has been quiet about the award, and it isn’t known whether he will even be in attendance.
Regardless of whether he shows or not, the outrage is misplaced. When you delve into the proud 20-year history of the “Oscars for Flying”, the Duke’s inclusion makes perfect sense.
“The living legends of aviation are admirable people of remarkable accomplishment in aviation including: entrepreneurs, innovators, industry leaders, record breakers, astronauts, pilots who have become celebrities and celebrities who have become pilots,” say the organisers of the Living Legends of Aviation Awards, whose web branding whiffs of an end-of-the-world prom organised by Top Gun.
The legends meet yearly to top up the numbers in their very exclusive group (“living” is a criteria, after all). It’s quite the roll call. Astronauts, pilots, Harrison Ford. To give you a flavour, in the first five names on the list you have a Chuck, a Buzz and a Bud. There are 118 legends listed on the website: 112 are men, six are women. Curly-haired smooth saxophonist Kenny G is a member. No judgement, just a flavour.
Particularly striking is that, of the 330,000 registered pilots in the world and the many hundreds of astronauts, so many well-known celebrities pepper the list. In 2022, William Shatner won the Aviation Inspiration and Patriotism Award (eh?), which has previously been handed to Angelina Jolie in 2014, Morgan Freeman in 2011 and Tom Cruise in 2009. Kurt Russell has been decorated as an “aviation mentor”, while Harrison Ford and John Travolta were the first celebrities to be handed awards (the latter will host tonight’s awards). All, in fairness, do at the very least have a pilot’s licence, although Freeman only got his aged 65, and Ford once crashed into a California golf course. Clint Eastwood’s invite, we can only assume, must have gone missing in the post.
There are other familiar names on the list. In 2018, Jeff Bezos won a lifetime aviation entrepreneur award (incidentally his wife, television presenter-turned helicopter pilot, Lauren Sanchez, will get a gong tonight). Elon Musk won the same trophy in 2009, and Richard Branson took it home in 2008. All, of course, have visions of reaching Pluto by 2080, or something.
It’s not only celebrities and CEOs who populate the Living Legends of Aviation’s hall of fame. Some are actual, bona fide legends. In 2012, Neil Armstrong was handed an award for being the first man to walk on the moon, a triumph second-only to walking on the moon. Buzz Aldrin is listed. As is Chesley Sullenberger, who successfully landed a plane on the Hudson River after both engines were disabled by a bird strike, as depicted by Tom Hanks in the 2016 film Sully – an accolade which would, presumably, get Hanks into the honours list if he agreed to turn up to the ceremony and have a photo taken with Kenny G.
There is, of course, a good cause behind the project. The Living Legends of Aviation Awards are produced by the Kiddie Hawk Air Academy, a nonprofit which aims to “to educate children about and spark their interest in aviation”. Or, perhaps, to spark their interest in becoming a Hollywood actor who can afford to become a pilot. Doesn’t matter, really. Either will get you into the Beverly Hilton’s International Ballroom.
So how will it all pan out, at tonight’s awards? Cocktails commence at 6pm – let’s hope none of the legends have an early-morning flight – then it’s dinner at 7pm and awards at 8pm. Alas, the event is sold out. Although even if it wasn’t, you would have had to have coughed up $1,600 (£1,260) for an economy ticket, or $40,000 (£30,000) for a VIP table.
Mercifully, after party tickets, still on sale when we last checked, are a more reasonable £480. The cost of a return flight from London to New York City, and a small price to pay to rub shoulders with the greatest living pilots on the planet. Plus Harrison Ford. And, maybe, but probably not, LLA Prince Harry himself.
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