One of my heroes, someone who could run his fingertips across a wing surface of a wind-tunnel model and pronounce it a thousandth of an inch too proud or too thin - and be proved right.
There is a story that once he sent a colleague to fetch something from his car and his friend found the passenger footwell knee-deep in similar-looking papers. When he picked them up to examine them, they were all Whitcomb's monthly NASA salary cheques (that should probably read checks) - uncashed. The man had other priorities and interests.