Ah, the view from the other side of the pond is out.
Whittle? Well, he took marine turbines and turned them into airborne turbines. I would trump that with the ground breaking work of R Goddard and the liquid fuel rocket. (after all , the fastest plane is still the X15 with a liquid fuel rocket!)
It is interesting to see what people think. I laughed at some of the views like, "EXCEPT FOR THE WRIGHT BROTHERS..."
And the bit about german technology and research was interesting, but they seemed to borrow heavily from Goddard's work on rockets. Oh well.
Indeed most of the names mentioned are just sorts of footnotes and not the kind of transforming personalities of aviation. Even the montgolfiers didn't invent hot air!
I stand by my original 4 for an ALL encompassing aviation Mt. Rushmore.