I'm going to toss another Bush pilot into the mix
Punch Dickins who also was a WW1 flying ace flying a DH9 bomber with 7 kills
Punch Dickins became a legend in the Arctic; flying more than 1,000,000 miles across the uncharted north, often in treacherous weather conditions, with few landing strips, unreliable weather reporting and navigation aids nearly useless as flying so close to the magnetic north pole made compass navigation unreliable. Punch, like many other pioneering bush pilots, used dead reckoning and hand-drawn maps to plot his way across the north of Canada.
Dickins was responsible for a number of landmark flights. He flew one of the first aerial surveys of Canada in 1928 in a Fokker Super Universal (G-CASK). On 23 January 1929, Dickins delivered the first airmail to the Northwest Territories. He was the first pilot to fly along the Arctic coastline, the first to fly over the Barren Lands in the Northwest Territories, and the first to fly the full length of the Mackenzie River, a distance of 2,000 miles, which he covered in two days. In 1930, he flew the first prospectors into Great Bear Lake where they discovered uranium, later required for the Manhattan Project. In 1936, Punch conducted a 10,000 mile air survey of northern Canada.
In 1946, de Havilland (Canada) company surveyed 80 veteran Canadian bush pilots to advise on specifications of a future utility transport for use in northern and arctic conditions. Punch provided input ranging from specifying an all metal airframe, and the location of the battery removal hatch to providing doors on both sides of the fuselage for ease of docking. After consultation with company executives, Punch Dickins enthusiastically joined the de Havilland Aircraft Company as a consultant. His expertise in the aviation world was called upon as the postwar design of the Chipmunk trainer came into fruition as a production aircraft. In 1947, as Director of Sales of de Havilland Canada, Punch was instrumental in launching the Beaver bushplane
Perhaps his greatest legacy to bush flying was his contribution to the remarkable family of de Havilland Canada STOL (Short Takeoff and Landing) aircraft that have become the world leaders in this field. The DHC series of light transport aircraft for use in the north were heavily influenced by Punch Dickin's experience as a bush pilot. The rugged little Beaver and its offspring: the Otter, Twin Otter, Caribou, Buffalo and Dash 7 aircraft have been employed world-wide in conditions as harsh and varied as tropical jungles and Antarctic expeditions.
