The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. (AIAA) established the Octave Chanute Award named after Octave Chanute. Pilot(s) or test personnel that contributed to the advancement of the art, science, or technology of aeronautics received the Octave Chanute Award. The Octave Chanute Award was renamed the Chanute Flight Award in 1978 and discontinued by the AIAA in 2005. Starting in 2017, the Chanute Flight Award was re-established as the Chanute Flight Test Award. The Chanute Flight Test Award presentation occurs biennially (odd-numbered years) at the AIAA Aviation and Aeronautics Forum.The Chanute Flight Test Award is presented to recognize significant lifetime achievements in the advancement of the art, science, and technology of flight test engineering. Self taught Octave Chanute, 1832–1910, was born in France and became a naturalized American. He was a self-taught engineer. He designed the first railroad bridge over the Missouri River and the Union Stock Yards in Chicago (IL) as well as those in Kansas City (MO). Octave Chanute was a pioneer aeronautical engineer and experimenter, and was a friend and adviser to the Wright Brothers. Aeronautical pioneer Chanute waged a long campaign to encourage the invention of the airplane. He collected information from every possible source and gave it to anyone who asked. He published a compendium of aviation information in 1894. In 1896 he commissioned several aircraft to be built. The Katydid had multiple wings that could be attached variously about the fuselage for ease of experimentation. Chanute's biplane glider (1896) with "two arched wings held rigidly together by vertical struts and diagonal wire bracing" (the principle of the Pratt truss used in the railroad bridges which Chanute constructed) served as a prototype design for subsequent airplanes. Chanute Flight Test Award recipients 1939 Edmund T. Allen, Boeing engineer and test pilot 1940 Howard Hughes, engineer and test pilot 1941 Melvin N. Gough, NACA engineer, test pilot 1942 A. L. MacClain, Pratt & Whitney test pilot 1943 William H. McAvoy, NACA engineer, test pilot 1944 Benjamin S. Kelsey, U.S. Army Air Force engineer, test pilot 1945 Robert T. Lamson, Boeing test pilot 1945 Albert "Elliot" Merrill, Boeing test pilot 1946 Captain Ernest A Cutrell, American Airlines test pilot 1947 Lawrence A. Clousing, NACA engineer and test pilot 1948 Herbert H. Hoover, NACA test pilot 1949 Vice Admiral Frederick M. Trapnell, United States Navy pioneering naval aviator and test pilot 1950 Captain Donald B. MacDiarmid, United States