High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Albert Francis Hegenberger (September 30, 1895 – August 31, 1983) was a Major General in the United States Air Force and a pioneering aviator who set a flight distance record with Lester J. Maitland, completing the first transpacific flight to Hawaii in 1927 as navigator of the Bird of Paradise. Hegenberger was an aeronautical engineer of note, earning both the Mackay Trophy (1927) and Collier Trophy (1934) for achievement.