Joseph Kittinger - Legacy

Legacy

In September 1992, Colonel Joe Kittinger Park in Orlando, Florida was completed by the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority (GOAA) for the city of Orlando. It was located on the southwest corner of the Orlando Executive Airport (KORL). The aviation-themed park was named in Kittinger's honor, but was temporarily demolished to permit a highway expansion project of the Florida State Road 408 East-West Expressway.

In 1997, Kittinger was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio.

On January 23, 2007, the Civil Air Patrol (CAP), the United States Air Force Auxiliary, honored Kittinger by renaming the Texas CAP wing's TX-352 Squadron for him. Texas Governor Rick Perry cited Kittinger's work, as did the Texas state senate with a special resolution presented during the dedication ceremony attended by Kittinger and his wife Sherry. The Colonel Joseph W. Kittinger Phantom Senior Squadron of CAP's Texas Wing is based at the former Bergstrom AFB, which is now the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.

The Project Manhigh and Excelsior balloon capsules and the suit from his highest jump are on display at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio. An additional exhibit depicting his highest balloon jump opened at the National Air and Space Museum on 6 April 2008.

In March 2011 the park was reopened, relocated to the corner of Crystal Lake Drive and South Street at Orlando Executive Airport. City officials are also considering inclusion in the park of a restored USAF F-4 Phantom II aircraft, to be placed on pylon static display and painted with the colors of an F-4D formerly flown by Colonel Kittinger. Kittinger has also been honored at a ceremony in Caribou, Maine, where he served as the guest of honor at a sesquicentennial celebration.

From 2008 to 2012 Kittinger was an advisor to The Red Bull Stratos Mission to get Felix Baumgartner to beat his Project Excelsior record.