As some of you know from my previous complaining, I spent New Year’s Day putting together your Jan. 2 paper (don’t mention it).

Part of the day for yours truly (Oregon State, class of 1985) involved looking at the photographs our own Mark Ylen (University of Oregon, 1991) sent from the Rose Bowl, where, in case you hadn’t heard, his Ducks suffered a surprising 26-17 loss to Ohio State.

(I have a lot of good friends who are UO fans, including Mark, but I have to say, turning on the Rose Bowl and seeing the Buckeyes win was like opening up the toilet and finding a $100 bill floating in the bowl.)

Anyway, one of the photos Mark transmitted was of Tournament of Roses Parade Grand Marshal Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the heroic pilot who a year ago landed a US Airways jet on the Hudson River, saving everyone onboard.

Talking about the photo, the three of us in the newsroom at the time — Sunday editor Mike Henneke, sports editor Les Gehrett and myself — began a brief discussion about Sully’s place in pilot history. Let’s just say we agreed it’s secure.

And that got me thinking about what would become this week’s Top 7: Aviation’s most notable figures (note: your list-maker favors both baseball and the state of Oregon, if not the University of Oregon).

Here we go:

1) Chuck Yeager. The decorated combat pilot and legendary test pilot was the first person to break the sound barrier, in 1941. Gen. Yeager will celebrate his 87th birthday on Feb. 13.

2) Marion Carl. The Hubbard native was a World War II ace in the Marine Corps and also a record-setting test pilot. The recipient of both the Navy Cross and the Distinguished Flying Cross, Gen. Carl was shot to death at age 82 in 1998 while defending his wife from a robber at their Roseburg-area home.

3) The Wright brothers. To those who say Orville and Wilbur should’ve been No. 1, well, I see your point. But I’m sticking with Yeager and Carl.

4) Charles Lindbergh. The New York-to-Paris hero remains an American icon 83 years later. Seeing the Spirit of St. Louis at the National Air and Space Museum was a highlight of my recent trip to Washington, D.C.

5) Amelia Earhart: The first woman to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross (for a solo flight across the Atlantic), she disappeared in 1937 at age 39 while trying to circumnavigate the globe.

6) Jimmy Doolittle: His 1942 raid on Japan earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor and was the subject of the 1944 film “Thirty Seconds over Tokyo.” The Air Force general, who died at age 96 in 1993, lived in Salem during the latter part of his life.

7) Ted Williams: The last man to top .400 — Williams batted .406 in 1941 — he lost five years of a Hall of Fame career due to his work as a Marine combat pilot in World War II and the Korean War.