Long Island Air & Space Hall of Fame adds Giuseppe Bellanca, Dom and Mary Spinosa, and Lawrence Sperry

Aerospace company founders, an aviation pioneer and a flight school owner are the four people with ties to Long Island inducted Tuesday into the Long Island Air & Space Hall of Fame.

The ceremony for Giuseppe Bellanca, Dom and Mary Spinosa and Lawrence Sperry — the Class of 2025 — was held during a luncheon at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Uniondale.

Bellanca, an Italian immigrant who moved to the United States in 1911, settled in Brooklyn before opening a flight school in Mineola. In 1922, he introduced the first enclosed cabin monoplane in the United States.

The Spinosas founded the Long Island-based aerospace company East/West Industries in 1968, which focuses on designing, manufacturing and promoting products that advance aircrew safety.

Sperry was an aviation pioneer and inventor who was born in Brooklyn, but later resided in Garden City. He is credited with inventing consequential technology, including the autopilot and retractable landing gear.

Cradle of Aviation curator Joshua Stoff and president Andrew Parton explained that they honor people who played a significant role in aviation, and have a connection to Long Island.

"It’s somewhat inspirational for future generations to show the people who have come from Long Island and really changed the world, developed aviation, made it safer, made really significant contributions," said Parton.

"And who knows what kids walking around Long Island today might do — something great and someday, they’ll be recognized, too," he said.

Aristaeus Bellanca, 12, great-grandson of Giuseppe Bellanca, echoed that sentiment.

"I think kids my age really care about this stuff," Bellanca told the dozens gathered for the ceremony.

"Giuseppe, he came here from nothing. I think people call it the American dream, but I think that’s really the world’s dream," he said, adding that it can inspire youth to "dream bigger."

August Bellanca, grandson of Giuseppe Bellanca, said that although he never met his grandfather, he still had an influence on his life.

"We grew up with stories about Giuseppe and his virtues and what he believed in, and it was more than just designing planes. He was a humanitarian [who] treated people really well," August Bellanca said. His grandfather would give everyone, regardless of race and gender, opportunities to fly his planes, he said.

Teresa Ferraro, CEO and president of East/West Industries and daughter of Dom and Mary Spinosa, says the company’s product line, which includes survival kits and emergency oxygen systems, is what’s used on those serving in the military's "worst day."

She said the company felt like a family business.

"One of the things that our parents instilled on is that our team is called the East/West Family, and every person in that company feels a sense of that," the Hauppauge resident said.

"We have 85 employees, more than half of them worked closely with my parents, and they felt that team membership that we were a family together," she said.

Although the Sperry family members at the luncheon never met Lawrence Sperry, who died in 1923, the event brought together members of the family who had not met before.

Lawrence Sperry Mannix, great-nephew of Sperry, said family members grew up with stories that called him a daredevil.

"He did a lot of crazy things that his father, the great inventor Elmer Sperry Sr., didn’t approve of," said the Wilton, Connecticut, resident.

"He was a wild child, basically, but they said he had a great mechanical mind and he was a great inventor and tinkerer," Mannix said.

The inductees joined other famous aviation figures in the hall of fame, including Charles Lindbergh and Elinor Smith.