Today’s Aviation Events (May 12):

2011 – A Eurocopter X3 (X-Cube), French experimental compound helicopter, flew at a speed of 430 km/h (267 mph).

2011 – An EMBRAER Super Tucano from Brazilian Air Force crashed close to Manibu countryside, near the cities of Ceará-Mirim and Pureza, 50 km north of Natal. The pilot, Danilo Bello Seixas, died during his first solo flight.

2010 – Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771 operated by Airbus A330-202 5A-ONG crashed on approach to Tripoli International Airport, Libya, killing 103 people.
2011 – Judy Wexler becomes the first woman to pilot a human-powered helicopter, remaining airborne for 4 seconds and achieving an altitude of a few inches in the University of Maryland’s Gamera I.

2010 – After taking off from the base at Rimini, an Italian Air Force NH 500 helicopter of 15º Stormo (83º Centro CSAR) flew about fifty feet above the ground when the engine suddenly quit. The helicopter autorotated to impact. Both occupants escaped unhurt.

2009 – A South African Air Force Agusta Westland AW109E, helicopter, 4022, crashes at the Woodstock Dam, near Bergville, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The aircraft from No. 17 Squadron SAAF was travelling from Durban International Airport to a satellite base of the 87 Helicopter Flying School SAAF at Dragon’s Peak, Drakensberg for a week long training exercise. Flying with two another aircraft at low level and at high speed over the surface of the Dam, the helicopter stuck the water and crashed, then sinking into the lake killing the 3 crew.

2004 – The last F-4 Phantom fighters are withdrawn from service with the Israeli Air Force.

2002 – Death of Alfred Vogt, German glider designer.

2002 – The hangar housing Buran OK-1K1 in Kazakhstan collapses, due to poor maintenance. The collapse kills eight workers and destroys the orbiter as well as a mock-up of an Energia carrier rocket.

2001 – Death of Alexei Andreyevich Tupolev, Soviet aircraft designer who led the development of the first supersonic passenger jet, the Tupolev Tu-144. He also helped design the Buran space shuttle and the Tu-2000.

1998 – A Mauritanian Air Force Antonov An-24B, RA-12973, c/n 9346505, crashes near Néma, Mauritania during a sandstorm killing 39 of the 42 people on board.

1987 – Grumman A-6E Intruder, BuNo 155657, of VA-142, misses trap on the USS Lexington, both crew eject as jet leaves deck, lightened airframe climbs away, even on reduced power, to crash in the Gulf of Mexico ~50 miles S of NAS Pensacola, Florida. Footage of this accident: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czvEDNdyFBU&feature=related.

1984 – Entered Service: Airbus A310 with Air France.

1982 – Braniff Airways ceased all operations, thus ending 54 years of service in the American airline industry. Braniff flights at DFW that morning were suddenly grounded, and passengers on the jets were forced to disembark, being told that Braniff now ceased to exist.

1975 – The Mayaguez incident begins. U. S. Air Force and U. S. Navy aircraft begin searching for the American container ship SS Mayaguez, which Cambodian Khmer Rouge forces seized earlier in the day in the Gulf of Thailand.

1972 – SA-7 Grail surface-to-air missiles shoot down five American AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters in five minutes near An Loc, South Vietnam.

1970 – Indian Air Force prototype HAL HF-24 Marut HF 001, BR 461, is lost due to unknown circumstances in the sea off of Goa while on routine ferry flight. Squadron Leader K. L. Narayan is lost with aircraft.

1967 – First flight of the Aermacchi AM.3, Italian single engine high wing observation aircraft, joint venture between Aermacchi and Aeritalia, initially designated the MB-335.

1965 – After loss of control as a result of a gyroscope problem, Luna 5 crashed. It was the second Soviet spacecraft to reach the surface of the Moon.

1965 – The prototype HFB-320 Hansa Jet crashes due to a tail design problem; killed was manufacturer Hamburger Flugzeugbau’s chief test pilot.

1964 – American flyer Joan Merriam Smith lands her Piper Apache to complete the second round-the-world flight by a woman. she took 56 days.

1962 – Birth of Gregory Harold “Box” Johnson, former colonel in the United States Air Force and a NASA astronaut.

1960 – A USAF C-130 Hercules drops a record 35,000 lb (15,876 kg) by parachute.

1959 – Capital Airlines Flight 75, a Vickers Viscount 745D flying from New York City to Atlanta, breaks up in flight over Chase, Maryland, due to loss of control in severe turbulence; all 31 on board are killed.

1958 – First flight of the Morane-Saulnier Epervier MS.1500 (en: Sparrowhawk), French two-seat ground attack and reconnaissance aircraft.

1958 – A formal North American Aerospace Defense Command NORAD agreement is signed between the United States and Canada.

1954 – Operational introduction of the Republic F-84F Thunderstreak, which first flew 3 Jun 1950.

1953 – Bell X-2, 46-675, exploded in belly of Boeing EB-50D Superfortress mothership during captive LOX topping-off test and was dropped into Lake Ontario. Bell test pilot Jean “Skip” Ziegler’s body dropped with airframe and Bell flight engineer Frank Wolko is also apparently carried over the side in the explosion. Neither body recovered. The EB-50D, 48-096, limps into Niagara Falls Airport, New York – never flies again. Death of Jean “Skip” Ziegler, American test pilot, killed in the explosion of the Bell X-2 during a captive-carry flight test.

1952 – Death of Elia Antonio Liut, Italian Aviation pioneer, first pilot to fly over the Andes.

1952 – Squadron Leader P. G. Fisher makes the first non-stop, unrefuelled flight from England to Australia in an English Electric Canberra bomber in a record 23 hours 5 min.

1950 – AAfter the United States Air Force gives Convair a contract to install an Allison J33-A-29 jet engine with afterburner in place of the Allison J33-A-23 in the Convair XF-92A, 46-0682, test pilot Chuck Yeager attempts ferry flight from Edwards AFB, California to the Convair plant at San Diego but engine fails immediately after take off, forcing an emergency landing on the dry lakebed. Airframe is subsequently trucked to San Diego.

1949 – Berlin Blockade by the Soviets is lifted at one minute after midnight.

1945 – A kamikaze hits the battleship USS New Mexico (BB-40) at Hagushi anchorage, Okinawa.

1945 – 12-13 – Aircraft carrier’s of Task Force 58 strike targets on Kyushu and Shikoku. The British Pacific Fleet’s carriers strike the Sakishima Gunto.

1941 – First flight of the Platt-LePage XR-1, also known by the company designation PL-3, early American twin-rotor helicopter.

1940 – First bombing over Germany by the Royal Air Force.

1940 – First operational sortie of the Boulton Paul Defiant. Defiants flew with six Spitfires of 66 Squadron, and a Ju 88 was shot down over the Netherlands.

1938 – The US Navy commissions its sixth aircraft carrier, USS Enterprise.

1938 – Three B-17 Flying Fortresses use dead reckoning navigation to intercept the ocean liner SS Rex more than 600 miles at sea.

1936 – First flight of the Loire 102, French flying boat designed as a mail plane by Loire.

1936 – First flight of the Messerschmitt Bf 110, often called Me 110, twin-engine heavy fighter (Zerstörer – German for “Destroyer”).

1930 – With the Latécoère 28 “Comte-de-la-Vaulx”, Jean Mermoz takes off from Saint-Louis, Senegal, to Natal, Brazil for the first south Transatlantic Postal flight.

1927 – First flight of the Armstrong Whitworth Starling A. W.14, British single-engine biplane fighter.

1927 – First flight of the Yakovlev AIR-1 was a 1920s Soviet two-seat light biplane the first aircraft designed and built by Aleksandr Sergeyevich Yakovlev.

1926 – The Norge (semi-rigid Italian-built airship) reached the North Pole, at which point the Norwegian, American and Italian flags were dropped from the airship onto the ice. The expedition was the brainchild of polar explorer and expedition leader Roald Amundsen, the airship’s designer and pilot Umberto Nobile and American explorer Lincoln Ellsworth, who along with the Aero Club of Norway financed the trip.

1912 – Guido Nardini is the first Italian to cross the English Channel.

1912 – The Central Flying School (CFS), Royal Air Force’s primary institution for the training of military flying instructors is established.

1902 – Brazilian Augusto Severo and French engineer Georges Saché fly the semi-rigid airship Pax, which Severo designed, over Paris for its maiden flight. When they begin to lose control of the airship, it catches fire and explodes 1,200 feet (366 m) above Montparnasse Cemetery, killing both men instantly.

1893 – Birth of Tenente Silvio Scaroni, Italian World War I fighter pilot credited with 26 victories. He was the second ranking Italian ace of the war.

1890 – Birth of Kurt Student, German Luftwaffe general who fought as a fighter pilot during WWI and as the commander of German Fallschirmjäger (Paratroopers) during the Second World War.

#onthisday Content automatically derived from Wikipedia.org

Today’s Aviation Events (May 11):

2013 – After an Israeli Air Force Heron-1 unmanned aerial vehicle flying over the Mediterranean Sea malfunctions, the Israeli Army shoots it down to prevent it from crashing in a populated area.[1] The following day Israel grounds its fleet of Heron-1 unmanned aerial vehicles.[1]

2011 – Libyan rebel forces capture Misrata Airport, which also serves as a Libyan Air Force base.[2]
2010 – Death of Walker Melville “Bud” Mahurin, American WWII and Korean war fighter ace, (only USAF pilot to score in both the European and Pacific Theaters and the Korean War).

2010 – A Dassault Mirage 2000 of the French Air Force crashed in a forest of Bougue close to Villeneuve-de-Marsan (Landes, Aquitaine), 6 km east of Mont de Marsan AB (LFBM), after technical problems. The pilot ejected safely and only received minor injuries.

2009 – Launch: Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-125 at 18:01:56 UTC. Mission highlights: Last Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission (HST SM-04). Final Non-ISS flight.

2007 – After 50 years of service, the English Electric Canberra was finally retired.

2007 – A Republic of China Air Force Northrop F-5 crashes onto a building at an army base in Hukou, Taiwan. The two crew members are killed, as well as two soldiers of the Singapore Army undergoing training at the base. Another nine Singapore Army soldiers are injured, one dies of his injuries 17 days later.

1997 – Continental Airlines Flight 1760, a Boeing 737-524 with 54 people on board attempting to land through low clouds at Corpus Christi International Airport in Nueces County, Texas, mistakenly lands safely at Cabaniss Field, a part of Naval Air Station Corpus Christi in Corpus Christi, Texas, 5.8 miles (9.3 km) away.

1996 – ValuJet Flight 592, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9, crashes in the Everglades near Miami, because of a fire in its cargo hold. All 110 people on board are killed.

1995 – Death of John Geoffrey Sadler Candy, British WWI flying ace who served during WWII.

1990 – Philippine Airlines Flight 143, a Boeing 737, explodes and burns on the ground at Ninoy Aquino International Airport, killing 8 of 120 on board, marking the first loss of a Boeing 737-300.

1987 – First flight of the Learjet 31, American ten seat (two crew and eight passengers) twin-engined, high speed business jet. Manufactured by Learjet (a subsidiary of Bombardier Inc.).

1973 – First flight of the Dassault Falcon 30 F-WAMD.

1970 – Death of William Howard “Hank” Stovall, American WWI flying ace, Businessman and High Ranking officer in WWII.

1970 – A category F5 tornado strikes Lubbock, Texas destroying about one quarter of the city. Nineteen of 23 U.S. Air Force trainers (probably Cessna T-41 Mescaleros) at Lubbock International Airport are destroyed, amongst 100 aircraft damaged.

1969 – A Royal Navy F-4 Phantom of 892 Naval Air Squadron set a new world air speed record between New York and London in 4 hours and 46 min, winning the Daily Mail Trans-Atlantic Air Race. It flew from the Floyd Bennet Naval Air Station to Wisley Aerodrome and was refuelled by a Handley Page Victor aerial tanker over the Atlantic.

1964 – A Bell 533 modified with 2 small sweptback fixed wings to convert the aircraft into a compound helicopter, flew at 357 km/h.

1964 – Jackie Cochran sets a new women’s airspeed record of 1,429 mph (2,300 km/h) in a F-104 Starfighter.

1964 – A USAF Boeing C-135B-BN Stratolifter, 61-0332, c/n 18239, crashed on landing at Clark Air Force Base, Philippines, hitting a taxi. 84 on board, 5 survivors, passengers in taxi also killed. Date of 11 August 1964 cited by Joe Baugher. The crash occurred while attempting to land during a rainstorm at approximately 1920 hrs.

1960 – A United States Army Signals Corps balloon ascends to an altitude of 43,890 m (144,000 feet) before bursting setting a record breaking night time altitude ascent.

1957 – Death of Victor Herbert Strahm, American WWI flying ace, who served in WWII and was chief test pilot for the USAAF.

1957 – Nimble Bat 3 – CF-100s of 440 Squadron flown from Bagotville to Zweibrucken.

1953 – INS Garuda becomes the first Indian Navy aircraft carrier, serving as the base for the Indian Naval Air Arm.

1953 – First prototype of the Tupolev Tu-95 Bear, Tu-95/1, first flown 12 November 1952, crashes this date NE of Noginsk, Russia, during its 17th flight and burns due to an engine fire in the starboard inner turboprop. Engine falls off of wing, nine of twelve crew parachute to safety but three are killed, including test pilot Alexey Perelet.

1949 – No. 28 Squadron RAF flies from Malaya to Hong Kong to help reinforce the island against Communist forces on mainland China.

1948 – Maj. Simon H. Johnson, deputy commanding officer of the Eglin AFB, Florida, fighter section, is killed when his Republic F-84 Thunderjet disintegrates during an air demonstration on the Eglin reservation, in front of some 600 witnesses. The public information officer at Eglin stated that the pilot was “engaged in operational tests on the plane” when the accident occurred. Maj. Johnson, a resident of Shalimar, Florida, was originally from Houston, Texas. He had served a year in Italy flying 50 missions in North American P-51 Mustangs with the 31st Fighter Group, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross and the air medal with five clusters. He had attended the University of Texas and graduated from the U.S. Army flying school in 1940.

1945 – World War II: Off the coast of Okinawa, the aircraft carrier USS Bunker Hill (CV-17), is hit by two kamikazes, killing 346 of her crew. Although badly damaged, the ship is able to return to the U. S. under her own power.

1944 – Death of Walter “Gulle” Oesau, German World War II fighter ace who served in the Luftwaffe from 1934 until his death in 1944. He rose to command Jagdgeschwader 1 (World War II), which was named in his honor after his death.

1943 – In Operation Landcrab, American forces invade Attu. With an all-F4 F Wildcat airwing consisting of 26 F4 F-4 fighters and three F4 F-3P photographic reconnaissance aircraft, the escort aircraft carrier USS Nassau (CVE-16) supports operations on Attu until May 20; it is the first time that the U. S. Navy employs carrier-based photographic reconnaissance aircraft and the first time in the Pacific Ocean theatre of World War II of Operations that an escort carrier engages in combat. The U.S. Navy concludes that bombers should be included in future escort carrier air wings to make them more effective in supporting amphibious operations.

1940 – (Overnight) British bombers interdict German Army troop movement near the Belgium and Netherlands border, as 37 Handley Page Hampdens and Armstrong Whitworth Whitleys bomb road and rail junctions near Mönchengladbach. Three British bombers are lost.

1936 – First flight of The Bristol Type 138 High Altitude Monoplane, British high-altitude research aircraft, single-engine, low-wing monoplane with a fixed, tailwheel undercarriage.

1934 – Sole prototype of U.S. Navy Douglas XO2D-1, BuNo 9412, noses over on water landing near NAS Anacostia, Washington, D.C., after starboard landing gear would not retract, nor support runway landing. Pilot survives. Aircraft salvaged, rebuilt, but no production contract let.

1934 – First flight of the Douglas DC-2.

1932 – The USS Akron, arriving at Camp Kearny, San Diego, California, after a cross-continent transit attempts to moor, but proves too buoyant. The mooring cable is cut to avert a catastrophic nose-stand by the airship and the Akron heads up. Most men of the mooring crew, predominantly “boot” seamen from the Naval Training Station San Diego, let go of their lines but three do not. One man was carried 15 feet (4.6 m) into the air before he let go and suffered a broken arm in the process while three others were carried up even farther. Two of these men — Aviation Carpenter’s Mate 3d Class Robert H. Edsall and Apprentice Seaman Nigel M. Henton — lost their grips and fell to their deaths. The third, Apprentice Seaman C. M. “Bud” Cowart, clung desperately to his line and made himself fast to it before he was hoisted aboard the Akron one hour later. Akron managed to moor at Camp Kearny later that day. The stranded crewman provides the template for the very first rescue by George Reeves’ portrayal of Superman in the first television episode of “Adventures of Superman”, “Superman on Earth”, first aired 19 September 1952.

1928 – Death of Ulrich Neckel, German WWI fighter ace

1927 – Charles Lindbergh lands his new Ryan airplane, the Spirit of St. Louis, in St. Louis after a record non-stop overnight flight from San Diego of 14 hours, 25 min.

1926 – 11-14 – Roald Amundsen makes the first airship flight over the North Pole. The Norge leaves Spitsbergen and arrives in Teller, Alaska three days later.

1919 – French Aviator Joseph Sadi Lacointe sets a new altitude record with a Spad Herbemont (8 155 m).[citation needed]

1918 – Death of Kurt Nachod, Austro Hungarian WWI flying ace, from injuries after the crash of his Hansa-Brandenburg C. I 2 days before

1917 – Death of Edmund Nathanael, German WWI fighter ace, killed in action in his Albatros D.III by a SPAD VII.

1911 – Édouard Nieuport, a racing cyclist before he went into aircraft construction (co-founder with his brother Charles of the eponymous Nieuport aircraft manufacturing company), sets a new speed record of 74.4 mph (119.7 km/h) flying his “Nieuport 11-N, ” monoplane powered by a 28-hp engine.

1906 – Birth of Jacqueline Cochran, pioneer American aviator, considered to be one of the most gifted racing pilots of her generation. She was an important contributor to the formation of the wartime Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) and Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP)

1903 – Richard Pearse is claimed to have made a flight of around 1,000 yards (900 m), landing in the semi-dry bed of the Opihi River.

1897 – Birth of Robert Ellsworth Gross, American businessman involved in the field of aviation.

1896 – Birth of Heinrich Henkel, German WWI flying ace

1896 – Birth of Paul Wilhelm Bäumer, German WWI fighter ace.

1892] – Birth of Walter Ewers, German WWI flying ace

1881 – Birth of Theodore von Kármán, Hungarian-American aerospace engineer and physicist who was active primarily in the fields of aeronautics and astronautics. He is responsible for many key advances in aerodynamics, notably his work on supersonic and hypersonic airflow characterization.

1875 – Birth of Harriet Quimby, early American aviator and movie screenwriter, first woman to gain a pilot’s license in the US and first woman to fly across the English Channel.

#onthisday Content automatically derived from Wikipedia.org

Today’s Aviation Events (May 10):

2012 – First flight of the AgustaWestland AW169 I-EASF.

2012 – The women’s international record-holder for number of flight hours logged as a pilot in a lifetime, Evelyn Bryan Johnson, dies at the age of 102. Between her first solo flight on 8 November 1944 and her retirement from flying in the mid-1990s, she had logged 57,635 hours (about 6½ years) in the air, flying about 5,500,000 miles (8,856,683 km). Only one person, Ed Long (1915-1999), had logged more hours (over 65,000, or about 7 years) in the air during a lifetime.[1]

2010 – A Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II from 23rd Wing 75th Fighter Squadron s/n 79-0141 of the US Air Force crashed during take off at Moody Air Force Base, Georgia. Pilot ejected safely.

2010 – A Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter of the United States Army made a controlled landing after being hit by enemy fire in Helmand Province . All crewmembers were safely returned to base. Helicopter was intentionally destroyed by international forces.

2009 – YV-1467, a BAe 3201 Jetstream 31, crashes near Útila Airport, 2009 Honduras during an illegal drug smuggling flight carrying almost 1,700 kilograms (3,700 lb) of cocaine. One of the three occupants are killed.

1995 – A Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk, 85-0822, callsign Spear 26, from the 49th Fighter Wing, Holloman AFB, New Mexico, crashes 7 miles S of Zuni, New Mexico, while on a training mission. The pilot, Capt. Kenneth W. Levens, 35, of the 9th Fighter Squadron, was killed in the crash. The autopilot apparently disengaged, aircraft enters inverted near-vertical dive, impacts on the Zuni Indian Pueblo in a 70 degree dive with 120 degrees starboard bank at more than 600 mph at 2225 hrs, creating a 30-foot crater. A Kirtland AFB H-60 Blackhawk finds the impact site shortly after 0000 hrs.

1991 – First flight of Bombardier CRJ100, regional airliner.

1990 – Flight Lieutenants Julie Ann Gibson and Sally Cox become the first female pilots to fly solo in Royal Air Force (RAF) jet aircraft. Both officers flew Jet Provosts as part of their flying training at No.1 Flying Training School, RAF Linton-on-Ouse.

1986 – The U. S. Navy selects the F/A-18 Hornet as the official airplane of the Blue Angels.

1979 – The US Air Force sends E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft (a military variant of the Boeing 707) to perform surveillance over Yemen, which is in the midst of a civil war.

1978 – First flight of the Dassault Mirage 2000.

1977 – The first woman navigator candidates report to Mather AFB, California, to begin undergraduate navigator training.

1974 – “Turbo” Tarling flew his 5,000th T-33 hour.

1972 – First flight of the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II is an American single-seat, twin-engine, straight-wing jet aircraft designed for close air support.

1972 – Lts Randy Cunningham and J G William become the first US Navy aces of the Vietnam War, adding three Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17s to their tally on this day alone.

1972 – Vietnam People’s Air Force Shenyang J-6 of the 925th Fighter Regiment, piloted by Nguyen Manh Tung, runs out of fuel after CAP mission, deadsticks from altitude of 1,400 meters, descends too rapidly, and overruns runway at Yen Bai airfield, North Vietnam, overturning and exploding, killing pilot instantly.

1970 – Lockheed SR-71A, 61-7969, Article 2020, crashed near Korat RTAFB, Thailand, after a refuelling resulted in a subsonic high-speed stall. Pilot Lawson and RSO Martinez eject safely.

1969 – The U. S. Army’s 10 first Airborne Division (Airmobile), the U. S. 9th Marine Regiment, and the South Vietnamese Army’s 3rd Regiment begin Operation Apache Snow in South Vietnam’s A Shau Valley with a helicopter assault on North Vietnamese forces. It will lead to the Battle of Hamburger Hill.

1967 – Northrop M2-F2, NASA 803, during the 16th glide flight, crashes on landing at Edwards Air Force Base, California, due to a pilot-induced oscillation coupled with misjudged height and drift. Airframe rolls over six times, footage used for television program “The Six Million Dollar Man”. Pilot Bruce Peterson survives. Project is cancelled.

1967 – First (of five) LTV XC-142As, 62-5921, crashes on 149th flight during simulated downed-pilot recovery mission test. Rapid descent from 8,000 feet to avoid ground-fire ends badly when aircraft pitches over violently at low altitude, impacting in heavily wooded, marshy area at Mountain Creek Lake, near Dallas, Texas, killing three crew. Airframe destroyed by impact and post-crash fire. KWF are contract pilot Stuart Madison, co-pilot Charles Jester, and hoist operator John Omvig. Investigation finds cause to be failure of tail propeller control system, causing overspeed condition which generated unexpected and uncontrollable nose-down pitch.

1963 – Birth of Lisa Marie Nowak, United States naval officer and a former NASA astronaut.

1961 – Air France Flight 406, a Lockheed Starliner, crashes into the Sahara Desert near the Edjele oilfield in Algeria after a bomb goes off on board. All 78 passengers and crew were killed in the crash.

1961 – A Convair B-58 cruises at a speed of 1,302 miles per hour (2,095 km/h) and wins the Blériot trophy, created 30 years ago for the first airplane to maintain a speed of more than 2,000 kilometres per hour (1,200 mph) for more than 30 min in a closed circuit.

1958 – Birth of Ellen Lauri Ochoa, former astronaut and engineer.

1956 – First of two F-101 A Voodoo| service-test reconnaissance Voodoos flew.

1953 – Death of Georges Pelletier d’Oisy, French WWI flying ace.

1950 – First flight of the de Havilland DH.114 Heron was a small, propeller-driven British airliner.

1946 – First successful launch of an American V-2 rocket at White Sands Proving Ground.

1945 – Naval Auxiliary Air Facility Lewiston-based Howard GH-2 Nightingale ambulance, overloaded for runway length, crashes on takeoff from Rangeley, Maine airstrip, killing Lt. Eugene B. Slocum, AMM3C Louis F. Ceurvorst, Pfc. James V. Haney of the USMC and one more unidentified.

1945 – Sighting a Japanese Kawasaki Ki-45 (Allied reporting name “Nick” fighter flying high over Okinawa, U. S. Marine Corps First Lieutenant Robert R, Klingman in a Vought F4U Corsair gives chase for over 185 miles and intercepts the Ki-45 at 38,000 feet (12,000 m). Finding his guns frozen, he climbs well above the Corsair’s service ceiling of 41,600 feet (12,700 m) and cuts off the Kawasaki Ki-45′s tail with his propeller in several passes, causing it to crash. He then belly lands safely at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa. He receives the Navy Cross for the action.

1945 – 10 – 11 – The sixth Japanese Kamikaze attack off Okinawa includes 150 kamikazes. They damage two destroyers and the aircraft carrier USS Bunker Hill (CV-17), which suffers 353 killed, 43 missing, and 264 wounded. One of the most heavily damaged aircraft carriers to survive the war, Bunker Hill is out of service for the rest of World War II.

1942 – The commander of Luftflotte 2, Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, reports to Berlin that “the neutralization of Malta is complete, ” marking the end of the heavy German air campaign against the island that had begun the previous December. The same day, the newly arrived Spitfires confront Axis aircraft with a superior force over the island for the first time in months, shooting down 12 German aircraft for the loss of three Spitfires.

1943 – First Curtiss YC-76 Caravan constructed at the Louisville, Kentucky plant, 42-86918, loses tail unit at 1729 hrs. due to lack of “forgotten” securing bolts during test flight, crashes at Okolona, Kentucky, killing three Curtiss test crew, pilot Ed Schubinger, co-pilot John L. “Duke” Trowbridge, and engineer Robert G. Scudder. Miserable attempt at building all-wood cargo design is cancelled by the USAAF on 3 August with only nineteen completed, all grounded by 12 September 1944. Four C-76s at the St. Louis, Missouri plant are granted one-time flight clearance and flown directly to Air Training Command bases for use as instructional airframes.

1943 – First Consolidated XB-32 Dominator, 41-141, crashes on take-off at Lindbergh Field, San Diego, probably from flap failure. Although bomber does not burn when it piles up at end of runway, Consolidated’s senior test pilot Dick McMakin is killed. Six others on board injured. This was one of only two twin-finned B-32s (41-142 was the other) – all subsequent had a PB4Y-style single tail.

1941 – At 2305 hrs. Messerschmitt Bf 110D, Werknr 3868, ‘VJ+OQ’, appears over Eaglesham, Renfrewshire. Pilot bails out and when challenged by David McLean, Head Ploughman of a local farm, as to whether he is German, the man replies in good English; “Yes, I am Hauptmann Alfred Horn. I have an important message for the Duke of Hamilton”. Horn is taken to McLean’s cottage where McLean’s wife makes a pot of tea, but the German requests only a glass of water. Horn has hurt his back and help is summoned. Local Home Guard soldiers arrive and Horn is taken to their headquarters at the Drill Hall, Busby, near Glasgow. Upon questioning by a visiting Royal Observer Corps officer, Major Graham Donald, Horn repeats his request to see the Duke. Donald recognises “Hauptmann Horn” to be none other than Rudolf Hess. The remains of Hess’ Messerschmitt Bf 110 are now in the Imperial War Museum.

1941 – RCAF No. 406 (Night Fighter) Squadron was formed in England at Acklington. The Squadron was initially equipped with the Bristol Blenheim Mk I and IV aircraft.

1941 – Flying via Vichy French-controlled Syria, aircraft of the German Luftwaffe begin to arrive at Mosul, Iraq, to support Iraqi forces against the British under the command of Fliegerführer Irak.

1941 – Rudolf Hess parachutes into Scotland to try to negotiate an alliance with Britain against the Soviet Union.

1941 – 550 German bombers drop more than 635,036 kilograms (1,400,015 lb) of bombs on London, killing 1,500 people and seriously injuring 1,800.

1940 – World War II: The first German bombs of the war fall on England at Chilham and Petham, in Kent.

1940 – Germany invades the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. Paratroops again play a key role.

1937 – First of two prototypes of the Caudron C.690 is destroyed in a crash that killed René Paulhan, Caudron’s chief test pilot.

1936 – Cautious taxiing and hops by A. P. Charnyavskii of the TsAGI A-12, transport autogyro.

1933 – Death of Robert Heibert, German WWI flying ace.

1932 – Sole Lockheed Y1C-12 Vega, 31-405, c/n 158, of the 59th Service Squadron, a Lockheed DL-1 Vega acquired by the Army Air Corps for service tests and evaluation, is moderately damaged at Langley Field, Virginia, while piloted by Thomas D. Ferguson. Aircraft eventually scrapped at Langley Field on 16 May 1935.

1926 – Maj. Harold C. Geiger is slightly injured in a collision between two planes at Langley Field, near Hampton, Virginia. While attending the Air Corps Tactical School at Langley Field, his Eberhart S.E.5e, 22-317, collides in mid-air during a flight formation with fellow student, Horace Meek Hickam’s Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5a, SO-8044. Hickam parachutes to safety, and narrowly escapes death. Hickam is initiated into the famed Caterpillar Club, a fraternal order with membership based on surviving an emergency parachute jump. Geiger was also a member of the Caterpillar Club.

1925 – First flight of the prototype Armstrong Whitworth Atlas, British single-engine biplane.

1919 – The recently formed Avro Transport Company in Manchester opens Britain’s first scheduled air service. A fare of four guineas (£4.20) is being charged for the journey of 50 miles (80 km). The company is using four of Avro 504K aircraft, modified to carry two passengers.

1918 – Birth of George Welch (pilot), World War II flying ace, a Medal of Honor nominee, and an experimental aircraft pilot after the war. Welch is best known both for being one of over 17 United States Army Air Forces fighter pilots able to get airborne to engage Japanese forces in the attack on Pearl Harbor.

1915 – Curtiss Aviation School commenced operation from Toronto Island using Curtiss F flying boats.

1915 – Death of Denys Corbett Wilson, pioneering Irish aviator, Killed with his observer during a reconnaissance mission in a Morane Parasol when their aircraft was struck by an enemy shell.

1913 in aviation|1913 – First flight of the Sikorsky Russky Vityaz, or Russian Knight, also called Le Grand, first four-engine aircraft in the world piloted by Igor Sikorsky, first man to fly a four engine powered aircraft.

1913 – First bombing attack against a surface ship: Didier Masson and Captain Joaquín Bauche Alcalde, flying for Mexican Revolutionist Venustiano Carranza, dropped dynamite bombs on Federalist gunboats at Guaymas, Mexico.

1913 – First air drop of propaganda leaflets from the air: Didier Masson, flying for the Mexican Revolutionist Venustiano Carranza.

1911 – First U.S. Army pilot casualty, 2nd Lt. George Edward Maurice Kelly (1878–1911), London-born, and a naturalized United States citizen in 1902, is killed when he banks his Curtiss Type IV (or Curtiss Model D), Army Signal Corps serial number 2, sharply to avoid plowing into an infantry encampment near the present site of Fort Sam Houston, Texas. The Aviation Camp (aka Remount Station) at Fort Sam Houston is renamed Camp Kelly, 11 June 1917, then Kelly Field on 30 July 1917, and finally Kelly AFB on 29 January 1948. Airframe rebuilt, finally grounded in February 1914, refurbished, and placed on display in the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum, Washington, D.C. Due to this crash, the commanding officer of Fort Sam Houston bans further training flights at the base, the flying facilities being moved to College Park Airport, College Park, Maryland in June–July 1911. A replica of this airframe is preserved at the National Museum of the United States Air Force.

1910 – What is recognized as of today as being the starting point of the aviation in Switzerland, occurred when Ernest Failloubaz piloted the first aircraft built and flown by Swiss citizen (Bleriot XI)).

1909 – Birth of Valentina Stepanovna Grizodubova, one of the first female pilots in the Soviet Union and WWII pilot.

1899 – Birth of Zeus Soucek, US Navy aviator and record setter.

1898 – Birth of Adrian James Boswell Tonks, British WWI flying ace

1897 – Birth of Wilfred Beaver, British born Canadian WWI fighter ace, who became an American citizen and served in the USAF in WWII.

1896 – Birth of Sydney Philip Smith, British WWI flying ace.

1893 – Birth of Thomas Percy Middleton, British WWI fighter ace

1890 – Birth of Fernand Bonneton, French WWI flying ace and balloon buster.

#onthisday Content automatically derived from Wikipedia.org

Today’s Aviation Events (May 09):

2012 – A Sukhoi Superjet 100 airliner crashes on Mount Salak on Java in Indonesia during a demonstration flight for airline representatives and journalists, killing all 45 people on board. Its wreckage is discovered on 10 May.

2008 – Death of Ronald Anthony Parise, Italian American scientist who flew aboard two NASA Space Shuttle missions as a payload specialist.

2004 – Southwest Airlines begins service to Philadelphia International Airport in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

2004 – American Eagle Flight 5401 is damaged by high winds during landing in San Juan, Puerto Rico, injuring 13 people.

2003 – Launch of Hayabusa, Japanese uncrewed spacecraft developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency to return a sample of material from a small near-Earth asteroid named 25143 Itokawa to Earth for further analysis.

2003 – UH-60A Black Hawk 86-24507 of 571st Medical Company (AA) crashes into Tigris River, the vicinity of Samarrah, Iraq killing two pilots and crew chief. One more soldier was injured.[1]

1991 – Death of Aviard Gavrilovich Fastovets, Soviet test pilot.

1987 – LOT Flight 5055, an Ilyushin Il-62M, crashes near Warsaw during landing because of engine failure. All 183 passengers and crew members perish in the worst ever accident involving the Ilyushin Il-62.

1983 – The first all-woman flight crew to fly a round trip across the Atlantic is the Air France C-141 crew form the 18th Military Airlift Squadron, McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey.

1981 – Second prototype of Dornier 228 200 (E-2 extended version, twin-turboprop STOL utility aircraft), makes its first flight.

1981 – After modifications, the British aircraft carrier HMS Hermes reenters service with the Royal Navy as the world’s first carrier with a ski-jump ramp. Royal Navy Lieutenant Commander D. R. Taylor had developed the ramp.

1981 – Thunderbird 6 a United States Air Force Northrop T-38A Talon of the Thunderbirds demonstration team crashed during a display at Hill AFB, Utah, United States, pilot killed.

1978 – David Cook makes the first crossing of the English Channel in a powered hang-glider.

1977 – Death of Ian Patrick Robert “Old Naps” Napier, Scottish WWI flying ace.

1976 – Imperial Iranian Air Force, flight ULF48, a 747 freighter crashed near Madrid, due to the structural failure of its left wing in flight, killing the 17 people on board. The accident investigation determined that a lightning strike had caused an explosion in a fuel tank in the wing, leading to flutter and the separation of the wing.

1972 – In Operation Pocket Money, U.S. Navy A-6 Intruder and A-7 Corsair II bombers from three aircraft carriers lay naval mines in the harbors at Haiphong and six other North Vietnamese ports.

1970 – U.S. Navy attack helicopters are the first American aircraft to reach Phnom Penh during the American and South Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia.

1967 – First flight of the Fokker F28 Fellowship, Dutch short range jet airliner.

1965 – Launch of Luna 5 (E-6 series), uncrewed space mission of the Luna program, also called Lunik 5.

1964 – de Havilland’s Chief Test Pilot Bob Fowler took the first flight of the Cariboo.

1964 – A Republic F-105B-15-RE Thunderchief, 57-5801, Thunderbird 2, one of nine delivered to the Thunderbirds demonstration team in mid-April 1964, suffers structural failure and disintegrates during 6G tactical pitch up for landing at airshow at Hamilton AFB, California, killing pilot Capt. Eugene J. Devlin. The failure of the fuselage’s upper spine causes the USAF to ground all F-105s and retrofit the fleet with a structural brace, but the air demonstration team reverts to the North American F-100 Super Sabre and never flies another show in F-105s.

1962 – First flight of the Sikorsky CH-54 Tarhe, twin-engine heavy-lift helicopter designed by Sikorsky Aircraft for the US Army. It is named after Tarhe (whose nickname was “The Crane”), an eighteenth-century chief of the Wyandot Native American tribe.The civil version is the S-64 Skycrane.

1960 – First flight of the Auster D.6 G-25-10.

1958 – A USAF North American F-100F-10-NA Super Sabre, serial number 56-3810, crashed 8 miles (13 km) NNE of Kadena AB,Japan. Instructor/test Pilot:Capt Theodore Christos and rear seat pilot Capt James Looney ejected but were killed. Crash Investigation Board report indicated cause of crash was undetermined.

1957 – Boeing KC-97F-55-BO Stratotanker, 51-0258, c/n 16325, en route from Sidi Slimane Air Base, Morocco, to Terceira-Lajes AFB, Azores, ditches at 0616 hrs. in the Atlantic 550 km (343.8 mls) SE of the Azores Islands following a double engine failure, no fatalities amongst the seven crew. The airplane floated for ten days and was sunk by USS Wisconsin.

1957 – 1st Lt. David Steeves departs Hamilton AFB, California for Craig AFB, Alabama, in T-33A-1-LO Shooting Star, 52-9232, and disappears without a trace. Declared dead by the Air Force, he emerges from the Kings Canyon National Park in the Sierra Nevada mountains 54 days later, having ejected from the jet after an in-flight emergency. He stumbled on a ranger cabin during his ordeal where he found fish hooks, a canned ham and a can of beans. Unable to locate the downed trainer, officials eye him with suspicion and rumors that he traded to jet to the Russians, or flew it to Mexico, dog the pilot and ruin his military career. He returns to civilian life and eventually dies in an aircraft accident in 1965. Finally, in 1977, Boy Scouts hiking in the national park discover the canopy of his T-33, too late to vindicate the pilot’s story and reputation.

1954 – First flight of the Goodyear GA-400R Gizmo, an American one man helicopter for liaison and observation.

1952 – Death of Elia Antonio Liut, Italian Aviation pioneer.

1952 – French Leduc 0.16 research ramjet again suffers landing gear collapse on touchdown and is damaged. After several more flights in 1954, it will be retired to the Musée de l’Air.

1952 – Maj. Neil H. Lathrop attempts low-level aileron roll in second prototype Martin XB-51-MA, 46-686, crashes at end of runway at Edwards AFB, California with fatal result.

1949 – Birth of Oleg Yur’yevich At’kov, Soviet Medical Doctor and Cosmonaut.

1949 – First flight of the Republic XF-91 Thunderceptor, an American mixed-propulsion interceptor using a jet engine for most flight, and a cluster of four small rocket engines for added thrust during climb and interception.

1948 – First flight of the Aeronova A. E. R.1, Italian road-able monoplane.

1947 – First flight of the Percival Merganser, British light civil transport twin-engine, high-wing monoplane of all-metal, stressed skin construction with retractable tricycle undercarriage.

1945 – British Pacific Fleet carrier aircraft strike the Sakishima Gunto. Kamikazes hit the aircraft carriers HMS Formidable and HMS Victorious.

1943 – A German night fighter crew defects to the United Kingdom, flying a Junkers Ju 88R-1 there. The defection gives British scientists and tacticians access to a Lichtenstein airborne interception radar for the first time.

1942 – Operation Bowery, 64 Supermarine Spitfires are flown to Malta from the US aircraft carrier USS Wasp and the Royal Navy carrier HMS Eagle.

1942 – Chief of Staff of the United States Army General George C. Marshall proposes the creation of an organization within the U.S. Army Air Forces similar to the Royal Air Force’s Coastal Command. His proposal eventually will lead to the establishment of the Army Air Forces Antisubmarine Command.

1941 – Death of Sydney “Timbertoes” Carlin, British WWI flying ace and air gunner during WWII, dying from wounds after an enemy bombing raid at RAF Wittering.

1940 – First flight of the second prototype of the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-1, Soviet fighter aircraft.

1937 – First flight of the Lockheed XC-35, American twin-engine, experimental pressurized airplane, first American aircraft to feature cabin pressurization. It was initially described as a ‘supercharged cabin’ by the Army, development of the Lockheed Model 10 Electra.

1937 – Death of Walter Mittelholzer, Swiss aviation pioneer, pilot, photographer, travel writer, and also as one of the first aviation entrepreneurs.

1936 – The German airship Hindenburg lands at Lakehurst, New Jersey after its first scheduled transatlantic flight.

1934 – First flight of the de Havilland Hornet Moth, a single-engined cabin biplane designed by the de Havilland Aircraft Company as a potential replacement for its highly successful de Havilland Tiger Moth trainer.

1934 – An Air France Wibault 282 T-12 airliner crashes into the English Channel off Dungeness, Kent, England, killing all six people on board.

1933 – First flight of the Vought XF3U-1, an American two-seat, all-metal biplane fighter prototype.

1932 – Captain Albert Hegenberger makes the first completely blind solo flight entirely on instruments, in a Consolidated NY-2.

1931 – Hawker Hart light bomber prototype, J9052, modified as a naval fleet spotter-cum-fighter Hawker Osprey to Specification O.22/26, returned to Hawker after trials, is wrecked this date in take off accident with crossed aileron controls. Orders for 133 are placed, in four Marks, serving in operational units until May 1939, as well as small orders for Portugal, Spain and Sweden.

1931 – Birth of Vance DeVoe Brand, American engineer and former test pilot and NASA astronaut.

1926 – Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett make the first flight over the North Pole in a Fokker F.VIIa-3 m. Their total distance from Spitzbergen, Norway is 1,600 miles (2,575 km).

1923 – First flight of the: Blériot 115, a French 4 engine 8 passengers biplane airliner.

1918 – U.S. Army Maj. Harold Melville Clark accomplishes first three-island flight in the Hawaiian Islands when he and mechanic Sgt. Robert Gray depart from Fort Kamehameha in a Curtiss N-9 of the 6th Aero Squadron, make a stop in Maui, and then continue to the island of Hawaii. Clark encounters fog and darkness over the island, causing him to crash in the jungle near Hilo. Two days after the crash, Clark and Gray emerge from the Hawaiian jungle unhurt. According to Harold Richards in “The History of Army Aviation in Hawaii”, Clark accomplished another “first” on this flight as he had agreed to deliver two letters from Oahu residents to their relatives on Hawaii. After emerging from the jungle, Clark delivers the letters to their intended recipients. Thus, Clark carried the first letters by airmail in the Hawaiian Islands.

1918 – Death of Charles Roger Lupton, British WWI flying ace, killed in a midair collision with a French Aircraft.

1917 – William E. Boeing’s Pacific Aero Products Company is renamed the “Boeing Airplane Company. ”

1917 – Death of Victor Carlstrom, early Swedish-American aviation pioneer, killed with a student when the wing of the aircraft he was piloting failed in flight.

1917 – French WWI fighter ace René Fonck shoots down 6 German aircraft that day.

1917 – Death of Wilhelm Cymera, German WWI flying ace, killed in action.

1917 – French ace René Fonck shoots down six German aircraft in a day.

1916 – Using a bombsight developed by Bourdillon and Tizard, a British Short 184 seaplane hits a target in with a 500 pound bomb from a height of 4,000 feet.

1916 – Birth of Franco Cappa, WWII Italian pilot.

1914 – First parachute descent from an aircraft in Great Britain is made by William Newell from a Grahame-White Type X Charabanc (or Aerobus) at Hendon.

1912 – Lieutenant Commander Charles Samson becomes the first person to fly an aircraft off the deck of a moving ship. He takes off in a Short S.38 from the deck of HMS Hibernia in Weymouth Bay.

1904 – 9 – 11 – The Imperial Russian Navy armored cruiser Rossia carries a balloon on a raiding cruise against Japanese ships into the Sea of Japan in the first use by a warship of a balloon on the high seas in wartime. The balloon makes 13 successful ascents before it breaks its mooring lines and is damaged after landing on the sea.

1888 – Birth of Francesco Baracca, Italy’s top fighter ace of WWI, credited with 34 aerial victories.

#onthisday Content automatically derived from Wikipedia.org

Today’s Aviation Events (May 08):

2011 – China Southern Airlines Flight 3456 (CZ3456) was a flight from Chongqing to Shenzhen Huangtian Airport (now Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport), Guangdong Province, People’s Republic of China crashed while attempting to land in a thunderstorm. The aircraft crashed on its third landing attempt in severe weather with a high vertical speed. The first landing attempt caused damage to the plane’s hydraulic systems, landing gear, and flaps. The main warning, hydraulic system, and gear warnings all sounded. The crew decided on a go-around and warned the passengers to prepare for a crash landing. The aircraft skidded off the runway, broke into three pieces and caught fire, killing 33 passengers and 2 crew members.

2010 – After being recovered and completely rebuilt over an eight-year period and an estimated 18,000 man hours by Pemberton and Sons Aviation in Spokane, Washington, a Boeing Model 40 (mail plane and first aircraft built by the Boeing company to carry passengers) had an aerial rendezvous with Boeing’s newest passenger aircraft, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

2009 – Saudi Arabian Airlines Flight 9061, a McDonnell Douglas MD-90-30, registration HZ-APW, departs the runway at King Khalid International Airport, Saudi Arabia, while taxiing and suffers a main gear collapse and engine fire. The damage is described as “substantial”.

2004 – Death of William J. “Pete” Knight, U. S. politician, combat pilot, test pilot, and astronaut. Knight holds the world’s speed record for flight in a winged, powered aircraft.

2004 – First (glide) Flight of Hopper (phoenix), proposed European Space Agency orbital and reusable launch vehicle. Dropped from 2.4 km (8,000 ft) by a helicopter, it landed precisely and without incident after a GPS-guided 90 sond glide.

1997 – China Southern Airlines Flight 3456, a Boeing 737, makes a hard landing in Shenzhen, China during poor weather and crashes, killing 35 of the 74 people on board.

1992 – Excavations begin at Devonport Naval Base, near Auckland, in search of two Boeing seaplanes supposedly buried there in 1919 – The first two aircraft built by that company. The search proves fruitless.

1987 – Death of Hugh William Lumsden “Dingbat” Saunders, South African WWI fighter ace, High-ranking officer during and post WWII.

1987 – American Eagle Flight 5452, a CASA C-212, crashed while landing at Mayagüez, Puerto Rico due to maintenance issues and pilot error. All four passengers survived, both crew were killed.

1983 – Death of James Andrew Healy, American WWI flying ace, WWII officer. He has been technical advisor for the movie ‘Wings’.

1980 – (8-12) Maxie Anderson and his son, Kristian Anderson, make the first nonstop balloon crossing of North America, flying from Fort Baker in California to Sainte-Félicité, Quebec, Canada.

1978 – National Airlines Flight 193, a Boeing 727, lands short on approach to Pensacola, Florida, United States in Escambia Bay, as a result of pilot error; three passengers out of fifty-eight people on board drown.

1975 – Second prototype General Dynamics YF-16A Fighting Falcon, 72-01568, on practice flight prior to deployment for the Paris Air Show, suffers failure of main undercarriage leg to extend. General Dynamics test pilot Neil Anderson flies aircraft until fuel is nearly exhausted then makes expert grass belly-landing at Carswell Air Force Base, Texas. Aircraft is not heavily damaged and pilot is uninjured. Airframe is then sent to Rome Air Development Center Newport Site for use in radar tests. This was the first F-16 mishap.

1973 – The Airbus A300 B prototype makes the type’s first fully automatic landing in Toulouse, France.

1972 – Four members of Black September hijack Sabena Flight 571, a Boeing 707 with 86 other people on board flying from Vienna, Austria, to Tel Aviv, Israel. After the plane arrives as scheduled at Lod Airport in Lod, Israel, the hijackers threaten to blow up the plane if Israel does not release 315 Palestinians from prison. The next day, 16 Israeli Sayeret Matkal commandos led by Ehud Barak and including Benjamin Netanyahu, storm the plane in Operation Isotope, killing two hijackers and capturing the other two; Netanyahu and three passengers are wounded and one of the wounded passengers later dies of her wounds.

1958 – An Indian Air Force de Havilland Vampire crashed into the Delhi Flying Club hangar at Safdar Jung Airport, Delhi while attempting an emergency landing following an in-flight fire. Both Vampire crew died and four engineers working in the hangar and 11 aircraft were destroyed.

1956 – A USAF Martin B-57C-MA Canberra, 53-3858, crashes on the Ship Shole island bombing range near Langley AFB, Virginia, killing both crew. From the accident report: “Cause of accident – Undetermined: The aircraft was observed to be flying in a northeasterly direction at an estimated 500 feet altitude and traveling at a high rate of speed. It was probable that the speed was 425 knots indicated, because this was the prebriefed airspeed since the aircraft was on the run-in route on the LABS bombing range. Witnesses observing the aircraft reported that everything appeared to be normal. The aircraft was then seen to abruptly dive and disappear; this was followed by an immediate explosion. The instructor pilot and the pilot of this dual control B-57C received fatal injuries.”

1953 – First flight of the SNCASO Farfadet, gyrodyne type aircraft featuring a tip-jet driven, three-bladed rotor, a fixed wing and a turboprop engine driving a nose-mounted propeller

1952 – Birth of Charles Joseph “Charlie” Camarda, American engineer and a NASA astronaut who flew his first mission into space on board the Space Shuttle mission STS-114.

1947 – A North American P-51D-30-NA Mustang, 44-74652, of the 77th Fighter Squadron, 20th Fighter Group, based at Shaw Field, South Carolina, crashes at ~noon near Cassatt, South Carolina in Kershaw County. Col. W. M. Turner, executive officer at Shaw Field, said that ambulances and firefighting equipment went to the scene but that his information was that the pilot, Max J. Christensen, was not injured. He said that he was awaiting a full report on the crash.

1945 – Flying a Messerschmitt Bf 109, Luftwaffe fighter pilot Erich Hartmann scores his final aerial victory, shooting down a Soviet Yakovlev Yak-9 fighter over Brno, Slovakia. He is the highest-scoring ace in history, with 352 kills. He surrenders to Allied forces soon afterward.

1945 – First flight of the Yokosuka R2Y, a reconnaissance aircraft built in Japan late in WWII.

1945 – VE Day – Germany surrenders, ending the War in Europe

1945 – First prototype (of three) Curtiss XF15C-1, BuNo 01213, crashes on a landing approach to Buffalo, New York due to fuel starvation, killing test pilot Charles Cox. Two other prototypes modified with a T-tail to correct problems, but this last Curtiss design for the U.S. Navy never enters production. Second prototype was scrapped but the third and final airframe is preserved at the New England Air Museum in Connecticut.

1944 – Vought OS2U-2 Kingfisher, BuNo 3092, suffers midair collision with OS2U-3 Kingfisher, BuNo 5422, 1/2 mile S of NAS Pensacola, Florida.

1944 – Introduction: Boeing B-29 Superfortress

1943 – A USAAF Douglas C-33, 36-85, c/n 1518, of the 482d Air Base Squadron, is written off at Hill Field, Ogden, Utah, when the undercarriage retracts on take off.[59][198] Pilot was William B. Cline.

1943 – First flight of the Savoia-Marchetti SM.95, an Italian four-engine, mid-range transport aircraft.

1943 – A 60-plane U. S. strike from Henderson Field, Guadalcanal, sinks two Japanese destroyers and badly damages a third off Kolombangara.

1943 – Allied aircraft begin a bombing campaign against Pantelleria, the first of 5,285 sorties they will fly against the island before it is invaded on June 11.

1942 – WWII German Fighter ace Adolf Dickfeld scores 11 on that single day.

1942 – On the morning of the second and final day of the Battle of the Coral Sea, the two sides launch airstrikes at almost the same time. The strike by 84 aircraft from Lexington and Yorktown badly damages Shōkaku. Shortly afterwards, the 70-plane strike from Shōkaku and Zuikaku sinks Lexington – The first American aircraft carrier ever sunk – And badly damages Yorktown, after which both sides retire with the Japanese abandoning their plans for an amphibious invasion of Port Moresby. Shōkaku’s damage and Zuikaku’s aircraft losses will keep them out of combat for two months, forcing them to miss the Battle of Midway in June. The Battle of the Coral Sea ends as the first naval battle in which ships of the opposing sides never sight one another.

1941 – Death of Armando Boetto and Franco Cappa, Italian WWII pilots, killed in acton in their S. M.79 s while attacking a British convoy near Malta.

1941 – No. 407 (Coastal) Squadron was formed in England.

1937 – Lieutenant Colonel Mario Pezzi of Italy sets a world altitude record of 15,655 m (51,362 feet) in a Caproni Ca.161.

1935 – First flight of the Handley Page H.P.51, monoplane conversion of the earlier, unsuccessful biplane bomber-transport aircraft, the Handley Page H.P.43.

1935 – The U. S. Commerce Department announces in Washington, D. C. that blind-landing radio equipment developed by a U. S. Army Air Corps team under Captain Hegenberger is to be installed at all major airports between New York and Los Angeles.

1935 – Amelia Earhart makes a non-stop flight from Mexico City to Newark in New Jersey, in 14 hours 19 min.

1934 – 8-23 – Jean Batten sets a new women’s speed record between England and Australia. She flies a de Havilland DH.60 and makes the trip in 14 days 22 hours.

1929 – Flying the Wright Apache, Lt Apollo Soucek set the world altitude record for landplanes by flying to the height of 39,140 feet (11,930 m).

1927 – 8-9 – Charles Nungesser and François Coli attempted to cross the Atlantic from Paris to New York City in Levasseur PL-8 The White Bird (L’Oiseau Blanc) biplane, but disappeared.

1926 – The first federal legislation regulating civil aeronautics is passed by the U. S. Congress. The Air Commerce Act authorizes the Weather Bureau to provide meteorological service over routes designated by the Secretary of Commerce.

1919 – A US Navy flying boat, NC-4 begins an Atlantic crossing, flying by short stages from Long Island, New York to Lisbon, Portugal. It arrives 19 days later on May 28.

1919 – Death of Bernard Paul Gascoigne Beanlands, Canadian WWI flying ace, killed in a flying accident at RAF Northolt

1918 – Death of Roderick McDonald, Canadian WWI flying ace, Killed in action in his Sopwith Camel.

1915 – Lieutenant (jg) Melvin L. Stolz, student aviator, is killed in a crash of the AH-9 hydroaeroplane at Pensacola, Florida

1914 – A civilian pilot, René Caudron, makes the first French shipboard takeoff in an airplane from a ramp constructed over the foredeck of the seaplane carrier Foudre, using a Caudron G.3 amphibian floatplane.

1913 – John Henry Towers flew a long-distance flight of 169 miles in a Curtiss flying boat from the Washington Navy Yard down the Potomac River and then up the Chesapeake Bay to the U. S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland in 3hrs 5 min.

1911 – US Naval Aviation Service created and the Navy’s first airplane, a Curtiss Model D, is ordered.

1896 – Birth of Viktor von Pressentin von Rautter, German WWI fighter ace

1895 – Birth of James H. “Dutch” Kindelberger, American pioneer of aviation. He was also a leader of North American Aviation for a number of years.

1895 – Birth of Percy Henry Olieff, British WWI flying ace

1891 – Birth of James Robert Smith, Canadian WWI flying ace

1888 – Birth of Maurice Jean-Paul Boyau, French rugby union player, WWI flying ace and one of the most successful balloon busters.

1885 – Birth of Phillip von Doepp, German Engineer and aircraft designer, specialized in inverted wings, expert in guided missile aero design during WWII.

#onthisday Content automatically derived from Wikipedia.org

Today’s Aviation Events (May 07):

2011 – A U.S. Air Force MQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicle suffers an electrical failure and crashes in the Gulf of Aden one mile (1.6 km) off Djibouti, Djibouti.[1]

2011 – Swiss “Jetman” Yves Rossy completed an eight-minute flight along the Grand Canyon, Flying his jet-propelled wing attached to his back, and steering only by moving his body.

2011 – Launch of GEO-1, first Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) satellite, designed to provide key capabilities the areas of missile warning, missile defense and battlespace characterization.

2011 – Merpati Nusantara Airlines Flight 8968, a Xian MA60, crashes off West Papua, Indonesia while on approach to Kaimana Airport in heavy rain, killing all 27 passengers and crew on board.

2005 – Lockhart River air disaster: Aero Tropics Air Services Flight 675 crashes into the side of a mountain while on approach to Lockhart River Airport in Australia, killing all 15 occupants. The Swearingen SA.227DC Metro 23 (VH-TFU) strikes the ridge at a height of 1,200ft, well below the minimum safe altitude of 2,060ft, and is blamed on the crew not noticing their AGL (above ground level) and increased descent rate.

2002 – China Northern Airlines Flight 6136, a McDonnell Douglas MD-82, crashes near Dalian, China, after a passenger sets fire to the cabin with gasoline; all 103 passengers and 9 crew are killed.

2002 – EgyptAir Flight 843, a Boeing 737-566, crashes near Tunis, Tunisia, while landing in rough weather; of the 62 people on board, 14 perish.

1999 – Express Airlines, later to become Pinnacle Airlines, announces that they will be the launch operator of the Bombardier Regional Jet (CRJ) for Northwest Airlines.

1992 – Launch: Space Shuttle Endeavour STS-49 at 7:40 pm EDT. Mission highlights: Intelsat VI repair; first flight of Endeavour. First 3 person EVA. ASEM space station truss experiment EVA, record four EVAs total for mission.

1991 – The brand new Space Shuttle Endeavour, built to replace the destroyed Challenger, arrives at Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop a NASA 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.

1990 – Air India Flight 132 catches fire on landing at Delhi-Indira Gandhi International Airport in India. An improperly installed fuse pin on the #1 engine on the Boeing 747 causes a fuel line to rupture after the reverse thrust is activated on landing. All 215 people on the aircraft remain unhurt, although the aircraft is completely destroyed.

1986 – Aircraft designer Al Mooney dies, aged 80.

1986 – Capt. Håkan Lundqvist is forced to eject from Saab Draken, 131, of F10 Wing of the Svenska Flygvapnet during an air defence sortie at low level in J2 sector outside the west coast of Sweden when he inadvertently flies through his wingman’s vortices and goes into a superstall. Time from ejection until the fighter strikes the water is only 3 to 5 seconds. Pilot, suffering from spinal compression due to the ejection, is rescued by a ferry and then transferred to an F10 Wing helicopter.

1984 – First flight of the first Pilatus PC-9

1982 – 2 Sea Harriers from HMS Invincible are lost, they are believed to have collided while descending through cloud.

1981 – Austral Lineas Aereas Flight 901, a BAC-111 (LV-VOX) crashes 9 miles out on approach to Buenos Aires-Jorge Newbery Airport in Argentina. While in a holding pattern over the Río de la Plata, the aircraft succumbs to a violent thunderstorm, killing all 31 onboard after crashing into the river.

1979 – Air France is the first airline to operate the Lockheed L-1011-500, a long-range version of the TriStar with shorter fuselage, more powerful engines, and improved aerodynamics.

1975 – Launch of Satellite ANIK A3 (first generation of a series of synchronous orbit communications satellites developed by Hughes Aircraft Company for individual nations to use within their territorial boundaries)

1975 – Second prototype General Dynamics YF-16A Fighting Falcon, 72-01568, on practice flight prior to deployment for the Paris Air Show, suffers failure of main undercarriage leg to extend. General Dynamics test pilot Neil Anderson flies aircraft until fuel is nearly exhausted then makes expert grass belly-landing at Carswell Air Force Base, Texas. Aircraft is not heavily damaged and pilot is uninjured. Airframe is then sent to Rome Air Development Center Newport Site for use in radar tests. This was the first F-16 mishap.

1965 – First flight of the Canadair CL-84 Dynavert

1964 – Pacific Air Lines Flight 773, a Fairchild F27, crashes near San Ramon, California, killing all 44 aboard, after a passenger shoots both the captain and first officer before turning the gun on himself.

1963 – Death of Theodore von Kármán, Hungarian-American aerospace engineer and physicist who was active primarily in the fields of aeronautics and astronautics. He is responsible for many key advances in aerodynamics, notably his work on supersonic and hypersonic airflow characterization.

1963 – Telstar 2 (communications satellite) is launched.

1960 – The Soviet Union exposes an American cover-up about the status of a USAF Lockheed U-2 spy plane that was shot down over Russia six days prior. Assuming the aircraft was destroyed and the pilot killed, the US said a weather recon aircraft was lost, added NASA titles to a different airframe for media photos, and said the aircraft reported problems with oxygen before disappearing. Russia then came forward, adding information previously held back, that the pilot had survived and much of the spy aircraft was intact, proving the American scheme. Pilot Francis Gary Powers would be returned to the United States in February of 1962.

1959 – Birth of Tamara Elizabeth “Tammy” Jernigan, American scientist and former NASA astronaut and a veteran of 5 shuttle missions

1959 – First flight of the Procaer Picchio

1958 – U. S. Air Force Major Howard C. Johnson of the 83rd Fighter Interceptor Squadron set a new world record for altitude, flying a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter to 27,813 m (91,249 feet).

1958 – An Indian Air Force de Havilland Vampire crashed into the Delhi Flying Club hangar at Safdar Jung Airport, Delhi while attempting an emergency landing following an in-flight fire. Both Vampire crew died and four engineers working in the hangar and 11 aircraft were destroyed.

1946 – The Central Flying School is reformed at RAF Little Rissington.

1946 – The Empire Central Flying School is renamed the Empire Flying School.

1946 – First flight of the Handley Page Hastings

1945 – All German forces surrendered unconditionally. The instrument of surrender was signed at Berlin, Germany on 8 May, V. E. Day.

1945 – The Royal Air Force sinks its last German submarine

1944 – Flight test program of the Mikoyan/Gurevich I-222, high-altitude Soviet fighter aircraft, Evolution of the MIG-3, begins. All proposals for series production were discarded at the end of war.

1944 – First flight of the Beechcraft XA-38 Grizzly.

1943 – The first developmental prototype Finnish Valtion Lentokonetehdas VL Myrsky (State Aircraft Factory Storm), a low-wing single-seat cantilever monoplane fighter, completed on 30 April 1943, crashes “a week later.”

1943 – Colonel Frank Gregory made the first helicopter landing aboard ship with a Sikorsky R-4, in Long Island Sound, USA.

1942 – Death of Jean Assollant (Bernache-Assollant), French aviation pioneer, WWII pilot, well known for having flown the ‘Oiseau canari’ on a north atlantic crossing. Killed in his MS 406 by British fighters during the Battle of Madagascar.

1942 – The Battle of the Coral Sea, the first battle ever fought between aircraft carriers, begins between a U. S. force centered around the aircraft carriers USS Lexington (CV-2) and USS Yorktown (CV-5) and a Japanese force with the aircraft carriers Shōhō, Shōkaku, and Zuikaku. Early in the morning, a 56-plane strike from Shōkaku and Zuikaku sinks a destroyer and fatally damages an oiler. Later in the morning, a 93-plane strike from Lexington and Yorktown sinks Shōhō – The first Japanese carrier ever sunk – prompting an American dive bomber pilot to send one of World War II’s most famous radio messages, “SCRATCH ONE FLATTOP. ” In the evening, confused Japanese carrier pilots mistake Yorktown for their own carrier and begin to fly a landing pattern before realizing their mistake.

1942 – On Madagascar, Diego Suarez falls to invading British forces. Since the invasion began on May 5, aircraft from the British aircraft carriers HMS Indomitable and HMS Illustrious have suppressed Vichy French aircraft, supported British ground forces ashore, attacked coastal artillery, a wrecked a French sloop, and sunk a French armed merchant cruiser and two French submarines.

1941 – The second prototype MiG I-200, fitted with a prototype of the temperamental Mikulin AM-37 engine and first flown on 6 January 1941, experiences severe vibration problems and, despite efforts to cure the problems, it fails during a flight this date, and the airframe is destroyed in the ensuing crash.

1941 – 40 RAF aircraft attack Iraqi reinforcements headed for Habbaniya, inflicting about 1,000 casualties and paralyzing the Iraqi column. Over the next few days, British aircraft destroy the remainder of the Royal Iraqi Air Force.

1940 – A Bristol Beaufort torpedo bomber of RAF Coastal Command drops the first 2,000 pound bomb to be delivered by the Royal Air Force (RAF) during WWII. The target is an enemy cruiser near Nordeney, but the weapon missed the warship.

1938 – First flight of the Arpin A-1, a two seat low-wing monoplane which was powered by a single radial engine in pusher configuration.

1937 – Birth of Aviard Gavrilovich Fastovets, Soviet test pilot.

1936 – Amy Mollison lands at Wingfield Aerodrome, Cape Town, South Africa, to set a new record of 3 days, 6 hours, 26 min for a flight from England.

1936 – 7-8 – Stanislaw Skarzynski flies the South Atlantic from Senegal to Brazil in a small single-seater tourist airplane RWD-5bis, in 20 hours 30 min, over a distance of 3,582 km (2,238 miles). The RWD-5bis was the smallest plane to have ever flown the Atlantic – Empty weight below 450 kg (990 lb), loaded 1100 kg. It is a part of 17,885 km Warsaw – Rio de Janeiro flight from April 27 to June 24.

1932 – First flight of the Dornier Do 11

1931 – Death of Richard Dick Waghorn AFC, English aviator, a pilot with the Royal Air Force who flew the winning aircraft in the 1929 Schneider Trophy seaplane race. Died from injuries after his crash 2 days before.

1930 – Curtiss B-2 Condor, 29-30, is wrecked at Rockwell Field, San Diego, California, but is repaired and serves until it is surveyed in December 1933. This was third and final accident involving the 13 total B-2 Condors acquired by the Air Corps.

1927 – Varig is founded as the first Brazilian airline.

1926 – First flight of the Blériot 127

1920 – Mitchel Field, New York held the first Intercollegiate Air Meet.

1918 – First flight of the Curtiss 18, unofficially known as the Wasp and by the United States Navy as the Kirkham, early American triplane fighter aircraft designed by Curtiss Engineering for the US Navy

1917 – First night bombing raid on London by an aeroplane takes place.

1917 – British ace Major Edward Mannock claims his first kill.

1917 – British ace Captain Albert Ball (44 victories) is killed in a crash following a dogfight with Lothar von Richthofen, who also crashes but survives.

1916 – Birth of Fred Hargesheimer, USAAF WWII pilot. Shot down over Papua New Guinea in June 1943. He became a philanthropist who helped out the village which had hidden him from the Japanese for many months.

1916 – Birth of Siegfried F. Erdmann, German Engineer specialized in supersonic Aerodynamics.

1916 – Birth of Johannes Wiese, German WWII fighter ace.

1913 – HMS Hermes, formerly a protected cruiser, recommissions as the Royal Navy’s first experimental seaplane carrier.

1912 – An American Wright biplane, flown by Lieutenant Thomas De Witt Milling at College Park in Maryland, becomes the first aeroplane to be armed with a machine gun

1910 – First airplane flight in Cuba. For a few minutes, Frenchman André Bellot rose into space in a 60HP Voisin biplane. He took off from the Almendares Hippodrome and fell almost immediately but he was not hurt.

1910 – The Antoinette Company builds a simulator at Mourmelon air school for pilots to practice the controls of an Antoinette monoplane.

1909 – The Royal Navy awards a contract to build its first rigid airship to Vickers.

1894 – Birth of Wendel Archibald Robertson, American WWI flying ace

1893 – Birth of Karl Paul Schlegel, German WWI fighter ace and balloon-buster.

1878 – Birth of Karl Gustav Vollmöller, German playwright, screenwriter and early aircraft designer.

#onthisday Content automatically derived from Wikipedia.org

Today’s Aviation Events (May 06):

2012 – An American unmanned aerial vehicle strike in eastern Yemen kills Fahd al-Quso, the al-Qaeda leader in Yemen, wanted in connection with the 12 October 2000 bomb attack on the U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Cole (DDG-67). [1]

2010 – A PZL-104 (Polish designed and built short-takeoff-and-landing (STOL) Civil Aviation utility aircraft) carrying The former UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage crashed at Hinton-in-the-Hedges Airfield, Northamptonshire.

2009 – World Airways Flight 8535, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30, registration N139WA, makes a hard landing at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, United States, causing overhead panels to detach. A go-around is initiated and the aircraft subsequently lands safely. The damage to the aircraft was described as substantial.

2007 – A French Air Force de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter transporting Multinational Force and Observers crashes into a truck while making an emergency landing near El-Thamad, Egypt killing all nine people on board.

2006 – SkyValue USA and their fleet of one Boeing 737 (leased from Xtra Airways) ceases operations, citing poor demand and even blaming hot weather forcing them to fuel-stop on flights from Las Vegas, NY to Mesa and Phoenix, AZ

2006 – The U. S. Air Force retired the last Lockheed Martin C-141 Starlifter The Hanoi Taxi landed for the last time and was received in a formal retirement ceremony at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, located at WPAFB in Riverside, Ohio near Dayton.

2006 – A Westland Lynx AH.7 (Royal Navy) from 847 Squadron is shot down with a SA-14 over Basra, killing five crewmen and crashing into a house.[2][3]

2004 – An Air Cush Let 410UVP (9XR-EF) stalls on takeoff in Jiech, Sudan, due to an imbalance after a shift in its cargo load. The plane is sent crashing into the ground, killing 6 of the 10 occupants.

2003 – OH-58D Kiowa 94-0163 of N Troop, 4th Squadron, 3d ACR crashes near Al Asad and burns out. One crewmember injured.[4]

2001 – Soyuz TM-31 is back on Earth.

1993 – STS 55, 55th overall flight of the US Space Shuttle and the 14th flight of Columbia lands at Edwards AFB.

1988 – Widerøe Flight 710, a Dash 7, crashes in Torghatten, Norway in thick fog, killing all 36 passengers in the worst-ever Dash 7 accident.

1988 – Royal Air Force Boeing Chinook HC.1 ZA672 hit a pier at Hanover Airport while taxiing and was destroyed, 3 crew killed.

1988 – Sikorsky CH-53D Stallion from Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 46 crashed into South China Sea killing all 17 on board.

1983 – Death of Harris George “Clem” Clements, British WWI flying ace

1983 – Death of Sergei Petrovich Izotov, Russian aircraft turbine engine designer

1982 – second prototype (SP-PSB) of the Helicopter PZL Swidnik W-3 “Sokol” makes his first flight.

1982 – Royal Navy Sea Harrier FRS.1s, XZ452, ‘007’, and XZ453, ‘009’, of 801 Naval Air Squadron on combat air patrol from HMS Hermes of the Falklands task force, collide in poor visibility, killing pilots Lt. Cmdr. John Eyton-Jones in 452 and Lt. Alan Curtis in 453. Another source states that they were from the HMS Invincible.

1981 – Death of Jens Frederick “Swede” Larson, American WWI flying ace

1981 – A mechanical failure caused an abrupt nose pitch-down of United States Air Force Boeing EC-135N ARIA, 61-0328, call sign AGAR 23, of the 4950th Test Wing, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, from Flight Level 290, disappearing from radar at 10:49:48 EDT to crash in a farmer’s field, in Walkersville, Maryland. All 21 aboard were killed. A memorial is scheduled to be built at Walkersville Heritage Farm Park pending funds.

1968 – Astronaut Neil Armstrong ejects from Bell Aerospace Lunar Landing Research Vehicle No. 1, known as the “Flying Bedstead”, at NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center, Ellington AFB, Houston, Texas, as it goes out of control. Had he ejected 1/2 second later, his chute would not have deployed fully. Armstrong suffers a bit tongue.

1966 – Birth of Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Skvortsov, Russian cosmonaut.

1966 – USMC McDonnell RF-4B-24-MC Phantom II, BuNo 153090, of VMCJ-3, MCAS El Toro, California, on out-and-back familiarization flight from MCAS Yuma, Arizona, is lost ~2 miles off of Del Mar, California in the Pacific when the pilot gets into an aerobatic maneuver stall. Both crew eject. Cause of the accident was pilot factor in that he failed to control the aircraft properly resulting in a spin. He then failed to execute properly the spin recovery technique. His instrument scan and awareness of what his airplane was doing were also seriously deficient. Wreckage discovered in 1994 by the UB88 dive group.

1963 – Death of Paul Ward Spencer ‘George’ Bulman CBE, MC, AFC and Bar, British WWI pilot, air racer and chief test pilot for Hawker aircraft.

1962 – In the 1962 Channel Airways Dakota accident, a Douglas Dakota flies into a hill on the Isle of Wight in bad weather, 12 killed.

1960 – Death of Marcel Marc Dhôme, French WWI flying ace, racing car driver, who also served in WWII and during the Korean war.

1959 – SNECMA C.450-01 Coleoptere made its first free vertical flight at Melun-Villaroche.

1959 – Boeing B-47E-75-BW Stratojet, 51-7041, of the 306th Bomb Wing aborts takeoff at MacDill AFB, Florida, burns to right of runway. Three crew escape but co-pilot is killed.

1957 – Birth of Didier Delsalle, French Helicopter test pilot, first pilot to land a Helicopter on Mount Everest.

1955 – United Airlines begins the first nonstop flights between New York and San Francisco.

1955 – Birth of Donald Alan Thomas, American engineer and a former NASA astronaut.

1952 – Birth of Chiaki Mukai, Japanese doctor, and JAXA astronaut. She was the first Japanese woman in space, and was the first Japanese citizen to have 2 spaceflights.

1951 – Convair B-36D-25-CF Peacemaker, 49-2660, of the 7th Bomb Wing, Carswell AFB, Texas, crashes while landing at Kirtland AFB, New Mexico, in high winds, 23 of 25 crew killed.

1949 – Birth of David Cornell Leestma, American astronaut.

1949 – Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA) operates its first flight with a leased Douglas DC-3 with weekly service between San Diego and Oakland with a stop in Burbank, California. They would later be absorbed by USAir in May of 1987.

1946 – Birth of Patrick Pierre Roger Baudry, French Air Force pilot And CNES astronaut.

1945 – 1st Lt. Vincent J. Rudnick, on local training and acrobatics flight out of King’s Cliffe, Great Britain, in North American P-51D Mustang, 44-13720, coded ‘MC-X’ and named “Mine 3 Express”, of the 20th Fighter Group, loses control at top of a loop at ~1445 hrs. near Stoke Ferry, aircraft goes into irrecoverable spin, pilot bails out, airframe impacting near cottage of Springside. In June 1985, crash site excavated and some wreckage located.

1945 – Royal Air Force sinks its last German submarine. (British Liberator aircraft Sqdn. 224/T)

1944 – Mitsubishi A7 M1 Reppu (designed as the successor to the Imperial Japanese Navy’s A6 M Zero) officially flies for the first time.

1944 – First flight of the Douglas XB-42 Mixmaster, American experimental bomber aircraft, designed for a high top speed, with two engines within the fuselage driving a pair of contra-rotating propellers mounted at the tail, leaving the wing and fuselage clean and free of drag-inducing protrusions.

1943 – Curtiss XP-60D, 41-19508, crashed at Rome Air Depot, New York. Was second XP-53 – later redesignated XP-60D.

1942 – Four U. S. Army Air Forces B-17 Flying Fortresses attack the Japanese aircraft carrier Shōhō south of Bougainville, but do not damage her.

1942 – First flight of the Kawanishi N1K (“Mighty Wind”), an Allied reporting name “Rex”

1941 – First flight of the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt. In its 25 years of service, more than 15, 600 were made by Republic Aviation in Farmingdale, NY.

1941 – (Overnight) through 11-12 (overnight) – Royal Air Force Bomber Command mounts four major raids on Hamburg, Germany, over the course of six nights, averaging 128 bombers per raid. The second, third, and fourth raids combined kill 233, injure 713, and leave 2,195 homeless.

1941 – Igor Sikorsky sets a world endurance record for helicopter flight of 1 h 32 min, in a Sikorsky VS-300

1940 – Trans World Airlines receives their first Boeing 307 Stratoliner, one month after Pan Am becomes the launch airline.

1937 – The Zeppelin Hindenburg bursts into flames and crashes while attempting a landing at Naval Air Engineering Station, Lakehurst, New Jersey; of the 97 people on board, 35 are killed; one person on the ground also dies.

1936 – First flight of the Latécoère 298, French seaplane that served during WWII. It was designed primarily as a torpedo bomber, but served also as a dive bomber against land and naval targets, and as a maritime reconnaissance aircraft

1935 – First flight of the Curtiss P-36 Hawk, also known as the Curtiss Hawk Model 75, American Fighter aircraft.

1930 – First flight of the Boeing Monomail, American single, low set, all metal cantilever wing. Retractable landing gear and a streamlined fuselage.

1926 – Flying a Blackburn Dart, Flight Lieutenant Gerald Boyce makes the first night deck landing in history, landing aboard the British aircraft carrier HMS Furious off the south coast of England.

1919 – The first commercial flight, from Canada to United States, occurs as a Canadian Curtiss aircraft flies 150 pounds of raw furs from Toronto to Elizabeth, New Jersey. It is not a non-stop flight.

1918 – Death of Jean Chaput, French WWI fighter ace, killed in action in his SPAD XIII.

1918 – Death of William Lewis Wells, British WWI flying ace from wounds received in action.

1917 – Birth of Rex Theodor Barber, American WWII fighter pilot, best known as a member of the top-secret mission to intercept the aircraft carrying Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

1912 – Birth of Paul M. Fitts, known as one of the pioneers in improving aviation safety

1908 – The Wright brothers fly for the first time since 1905, at Kitty Hawk. Wilbur pilots the 1905 Flyer III, modified so that the pilot and a passenger can sit erect, on a flight of just over 1,000 feet.

1906 – Death of Carl Berg, German entrepreneur and airship builder

1899 – Birth of Edward Grahame Johnstone, British WWI fighter ace

1896 – Samuel Pierpont Langley flies the unmanned Aerodrome No. 5 from a houseboat on the Potomac River a distance of 3,300ft.

1895 – Birth of Ernest Charles Hoy DFC, Canadian WWI flying ace, and airmail flight pioneer.

1894 – Birth of Richard Raymond-Barker, British WWI flying ace.

1894 – Birth of Sir Alan John Cobham, KBE, AFC, English aviation pioneer.

1894 – Birth of George Clifton Peters, Australian WWI flying ace

1888 – Birth of Johann Frint, Austro-Hungarian WWI flying ace.

#onthisday Content automatically derived from Wikipedia.org

Today’s Aviation Events (May 05):

2013 – Israeli aircraft strike Mount Qassioun, which overlooks Damascus, Syria, targeting surface-to-surface missiles sent from Iran to Hezbollah.[1][2] The Syrian government claims the strike targeted a scientific research facility.[3]

2009 – United States Marine Corps Bell AH-1W SuperCobra belonging to HMM-166, based at MCAS Miramar, California, crashes at 1154 hrs. PST into the Cleveland National Forest, California, killing both pilots.

2008 – Philippine Airlines’ regional carrier PAL Express began operations with 8 daily flights between Manila and Malay with Bombardier Dash-8-400 turboprops.

2007 – Kenya Airways Flight 507, a Boeing 737-800 (5Y-KYA) scheduled to fly to Nairobi, Kenya, crashes just after takeoff from Douala, Cameroon. All 114 occupants are killed after the pilot departs without clearance and then does not realize the aircraft is banking hard to the right in time for correction due to improper auto-pilot inputs. The aircraft strikes a forested swamp a few miles to the south of the airport, where a reporter would find one year later that aircraft wreckage and human remains are still present.

2007 – Eos Airlines begins flights from London Stansted to Newark, New Jersey with their 48-seat Boeing 757-200 aircraft.

2006 – Siberia Airlines renames their airlines to S7 Airlines, and repainting their aircraft to a bright green, which is partly so the aircraft can be spotted among the tundra of Russia in the event of a crash.

2006 – During the Children’s Day flight exhibition (Suwon Air Base, South Korea), Capt. Kim Do-hyun of the Republic of Korea Air Force’s Black Eagles display team is killed when he loses control of his Cessna A-37B Dragonfly.

2005 – First flight of the Dassault Falcon 7X, a large-cabin, long range business jet manufactured by Dassault Aviation

2004 – Air France and Netherlands-based KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines) merge, the two airlines are now known as Air France-KLM.

1998 – A Peruvian Air Force Boeing 737-282, FAP-351, c/n 23041, line number 962, chartered from Occidental Petroleum, crashes at ~2130 hrs. during poor weather near Andoas, Peru killing 75 of the 88 people on board.

1994 – A 1st Fighter Squadron pilot from Tyndall Air Force Base near Panama City, Florida, safely ejected from his McDonnell-Douglas F-15C Eagle of the 1st FS, 325th FW, before it crashed into the Gulf of Mexico about 5 miles south of Port St. Joe, Florida. On a training mission, student pilot lost control due to G‑induced loss of consciousness; was rescued from the gulf by an MH-53 Pave Low Helicopter from the Air Force Special Operations Command at Hurlburt Field.

1993 – Jet Airways begins commercial airline operations with four Boeing 737-300 airliners.

1990 – A Douglas DC-6 (N84BL) operated by Aerial Transit Company crashes after takeoff from Guatemala City, Guatemala, killing all 3 on the aircraft and an additional 24 on the ground. The cargo flight destined for Miami, Florida, develops engine trouble and strikes the ground while trying to make its way back to the airport.

1988 – Birth of Jessica Dubroff, a seven-year-old pilot trainee who died attempting to become the youngest person to fly an airplane across the United States.

1985 – Due to air traffic control errors, a Tupolev Tu-134 operating as Aeroflot Flight SSSR-65856 with 79 people on board and a Soviet Air Forces Antonov An-26 with 15 people on board collide at 13,000 feet (3,962 m) near Zolochev in the Soviet Union’s Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, killing all 94 people on board the two planes. Among the dead are the Estonian table-tennis player Alari Lindmäe, two Soviet Army generals, and Nikolai Dmitrijev, a Hero of Socialist Labor and one of the Soviet Union’s most decorated civil airline pilots who had been the captain of the Tu-134.

1983 – Eastern Air Lines Flight 855,a Lockheed L-1011 Tristar, loses power from all engines 30 minutes after takeoff from Miami International Airport; the pilot is able to return to Miami after restarting one engine; no casualties are reported on board.

1972 – Alitalia Flight 112, a Douglas DC-8 flying from Leonardo da Vinci Airport, Rome, Italy, to Palermo International Airport crashes into Mount Longa, about 5 km (3.1 mi) south-west of Palermo while on approach, killing all 115 passengers and crew; it remains the deadliest single-aircraft disaster in Italy.

1969 – USAF North American F-100D-70-NA Super Sabre, 56-3214, one of two 452nd TFS, 81st TFW, RAF Lakenheath, Super Sabres on gunnery mission over Holbeach Range, Cambs., UK, suffers engine failure, forcing pilot Capt. R.E. Riggs to eject. Fighter impacts into farmland, missing group of workers by 400 yards (370 m), airframe demolished in explosion, only fin and rudder assembly intact.

1968 – A Grumman Gulfstream II becomes the first executive jet to make a non-stop Atlantic crossing after completing a 3,500-mile (5,633 km) flight from Teterboro, New Jersey to London Gatwick.

1967 – Launch of Ariel 3, first artificial satellite designed and constructed in the UK.

1965 – Birth of Colonel Fei Junlong, Chinese military pilot and an astronaut. He flew on the second manned spaceflight of the Shenzhou program.

1965 – Iberia Airlines Flight 401, a Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation, crashes after striking a tractor on the runway at Los Rodeos Airport, Tenerife, during a go-around in foggy weather; 30 of 49 passengers and crew die.

1961 – Commander Alan Shepard, Jr., U. S. Navy, becomes the second man to explore space when he rides his Mercury Freedom 7 capsule, launched by a Redstone missile, to 115 miles above the Earth. It is three weeks since Yuri Gagarin’s first manned space flight.

1960 – Birth of Douglas H. Wheelock, American astronaut and the commander of International Space Station (ISS) Expedition 25.

1959 – A Kamov Ka-15S, Soviet 2 seat Helicopter, Set a record of 170.455 km/h over 500 km.

1958 – A Royal Air Force Miles Marathon T.2 (XA253) crashes after landing at Topcliffe RAF Station in the UK after the crew accidentally retracted the landing gear instead of raising the flaps.

1958 – Birth of Lieutenant Colonel Ron Arad (pilot), Israeli Air Force weapon systems officer (WSO) who is officially classified as missing in action since October 1986, but widely presumed dead. (lost on a mission over Lebanon, captured by Shiite group Amal and was later handed over to the Hezbollah)

1958 – Lt. Gerald Stull steers his failing Convair F-102A-75-CO Delta Dagger, 56-1348, of the 327th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, away from residential homes while attempting a landing at Truax Field, Madison, Wisconsin, at 1330 hrs., and aims it for Lake Monona, ejecting at the last moment, too late to save himself. Posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross at Tyndall AFB, Florida, on 5 August, a trust fund was established to provide an education for the pilot’s infant son. A memorial to Stull’s heroism is installed at Hudson Park near the lake 51 years later.

1955 – An agreement was concluded between the United States and Canada for the construction and operation of distant early warning (DEW) radar defense line.

1953 – Christopher Draper, WWI Ace & WWII Pilot, (“the Mad Major”), upset at the government’s treatment of veterans, protest by flying under the Thames bridges.He flew a rented, 100 h. p. Auster monoplane under 15 of the 18 bridges. It was a spectacular stunt; the bridge arches were only 40 to 50 feet high; Draper was flying 90 mph and dodged around a ship. According to news accounts, he pulled off his stunt as a means of seeking attention and soliciting job offers. He was arrested, charged with flying too low in an urban area, and assessed a nominal ten guineas court costs.

1950 – Prototype Scottish Pioneer II (VL515), civil registered as G-AKBF makes its first flight.

1950 – First production of Supermarine Attacker F.1 makes its first flight.

1949 – Birth of Oleg Atkov, Russian cosmonaut. (Soyuz T-10/Soyuz T-11)

1948 – Entered Service: McDonnell FH Phantom with U. S. Navy Fighter Squadron 17 (VF-17) aboard USS Saipan (CVL-48)
1947 – First Flight of Alitalia

1945 – (5-6) The British aircraft carriers HMS Emperor, HMS Hunter, HMS Khedive, and HMS Stalker resume support of Operation Dracula, bombing Japanese forces south of Rangoon and attacking shipping off Burma’s Tenasserim coast.

1942 – Rabaul-based Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft raid Port Moresby, New Guinea.

1942 – Operation Ironclad, the British invasion of the Vichy French-controlled island of Madagascar, begins with a destructive surprise strike at dawn by aircraft from the British aircraft carrier HMS Indomitable on French airfields in the vicinity of Diego Suarez.

1942 – Royal Air Force Mustang Mark I – The British version of the North American P-51 A Mustang – Tactical reconnaissance aircraft of No. 26 Squadron see combat over the English Channel. It is the first combat action by any version of the P-51 Mustang.

1941 – Major George Putnam Moody (13 March 1908 – 5 May 1941), an early Air Force pioneer, is killed while flight-testing a Beechcraft AT-10-BH Wichita advanced two-engine training aircraft at Wichita Army Airfield, Kansas when it stalls/spins. Major Moody earned his military wings in 1930 and flew U.S. airmail as a member of the United States Army Air Corps in 1934. Valdosta Airfield, Valdosta, Georgia, opened 15 September 1941, is renamed Moody Army Airfield on 6 December 1941 in honor of Maj. Moody. The AT-10 is used extensively at Moody AAF during World War II.

1941 – Birth of Anatoli Levchenko, Soviet cosmonaut. Mir LII-1 (Soyuz TM-4 / Soyuz TM-3

1941 – Two Dutch pilots succeeded in evading an escorting German-flown Fokker G. I and escaped to England. Their G.IB was taken to the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, for examination, and used subsequently by Phillips and Powis (Miles Aircraft) at Reading for research into wooden construction.

1940 – The British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal begins a week and a half of support to Allied forces in the Narvik area of Norway.

1936 – The Second Italo-Abyssinian War ends in an Italian conquest of Ethiopia as Italian forces enter Addis Ababa. Facing no opposition, the Italian Royal Air Force (Regia Aeronautica) has played a decisive role in Italy’s victory in the eight-month war, but has engaged in a brutal campaign – In which Benito Mussolini’s sons Vittorio and Bruno and son-in-law Count Ciano voluntarily participate – of indiscriminate terror bombing and widespread use of mustard gas.

1934 – Carina Massone Negrone establishes her first altitude record (5 544 m) with a Seaplane Class C.

1931 – Death of Glen Kidston, record-breaking aviator and motor racing driver from Britain. His borrowed de Havilland Puss Moth broke up in mid-air while flying through a dust storm over the Drakensberg mountains (South Africa).

1931 – Richard Waghorn lost control of his Hawker Horsley biplane bomber in high winds. He and his passenger parachuted from the aircraft but was seriously injured and died 2 days later.

1930 – Birth of Michael J. Adams, American aviator, engineer, USAF astronaut and X-15 Pilot.

1930 – First solo flight from England to Australia by a woman begins with British Amy Johnson in her de Havilland D. H.60G Moth ‘Jason’. She flies from Croydon, England to Darwin, Australia in 19 days.

1928 – USN LT’s Arthur Gavin and Zeus Soucek, with a PN-12 seaplane, flew a total of 36 hours and 1 min, setting the world duration record for Class C seaplanes.

1926 – First flight of the Wright XF3W.

1923 – Birth of Nikolai Vasilevich Sutyagin, Soviet WWII fighter pilot, Korean war fighter ace and high-ranking officer.

1918 – Death of Giovanni Nicelli, Italian WWI flying ace, killed in action

1913 – Birth of Robert William Prescott, American WWII flying ace, founder and president of Flying Tiger Line, pioneer of the air cargo industry.

1904 – Birth of Squadron Leader Robert Kronfeld, AFC, Austrian-born gliding champion and sailplane designer. He became a British subject and an RAF test pilot.

1897 – Birth of Gilbert Sardier, French WWI flying ace.

1893 – Birth of Georges Halberger, French WWI flying ace

1887 – Birth of Charles Richard Fairey, British aircraft manufacturer, involved with the development of many of the companies most important products including; aircraft, rotorcraft, marine craft, mechanical engineering and rocketry.

#onthisday Content automatically derived from Wikipedia.org

Today’s Aviation Events (May 04):

2013 – The first Solar Impulse aircraft, HB-SIA, the world’s first solar-powered aircraft capable of operating day and night, completes the first leg of its attempt to become the solar-powered aircraft to fly across the contiguous United States, landing at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, Arizona, at 12:30 a.m. PDT after departing Moffett Field in Mountain View, California, at dawn on 3 May and covering 1,203 km (747 miles) in 18 hours 18 minutes at an average speed-over-ground of 65.5 km/h (40.7 mph). Plans call for the aircraft, which requires no fuel because it uses photovoltaic cells in its wings to supply it with power and charge its batteries for use at night, to make a series of five flights of 19 to 25 hours each, flying at about 40 mph (64 km/h), with a stopover of approximately 10 days in each city it visits, culminating in an arrival at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, New York.[1][2]

2012 – A United States Air Force F-16 of the 421 Fighter Squadron crashed at the Utah Test and Training Range, pilot ejected safely.

2009 – Northwest Airlines Flight 557, an Airbus A320-211, registration N311US, is substantially damaged in a heavy landing at Denver International Airport, United States. Vertical deceleration in excess of 3G is recorded. The aircraft may be written off.

2009 – A Russian Navy Kamov Kamov Ka-27 (Helix) Helicopter landing on the Baltic Fleet Frigate Yaroslav Mudryi, the main-rotor made contact with the ship superstructure, crashed on the deck and then rolled over the side into the sea. The 5 crew from the Kamov helicopter were successfully rescued from the sea.

2006 – Hawaiian Airlines announces service to the mainland destinations of San Diego, Seattle and Portland with their four additional Boeing 767-300 airliners.

2004 – US Airways becomes the 15th member of the airline coalition Star Alliance.

2003 – Frontier Airlines increases service to Atlanta, Dallas/Fort Worth, Los Angeles, Portland, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle. Their regional operation Frontier JetExpress also adds regional jet service to Boise, Oklahoma City and Tucson, while discontinuing service to Oakland.

2002 – Launch: Spot-5 satellite, with 2.5 m, 5 m and 10 m capability

2002 – EAS Airlines Flight 4226, a BAC 1-11 500 series, crashes into the Gwammaja neighborhood at Kano, Nigeria shortly after takeoff; the ensuing crash resulted in the deaths of 75 passengers and at least 73 civilians on the ground.

2002 – Launch of Aqua (EOS PM-1), multi-national NASA scientific research satellite in orbit around the Earth, studying the precipitation, evaporation, and cycling of water.

1989 – Launch: Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-30 at 14:48:59 EDT. Mission highlights: Magellan Venus probe deployment.

1986 – American Eagle Flight 5452, a CASA C-212 operated by Executive Airlines, crashes on landing at Eugenio María de Hostos Airport in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, killing both pilots. The other four people on board, all passengers, survive with minor injuries.

1982 – Argentinian Navy Super Étendard aircraft fatally damage the British destroyer Sheffield with an Exocet missile southeast of the Falkland Islands. Sheffield sinks on May 10.

1982 – The British lose their first Sea Harrier of the Falklands War, shot down by ground fire during a bombing raid over Goose Green. The pilot is killed.

1978 – First prototype Lockheed Have Blue stealth test bed, c/n 1001, on its 37th flight, hit the runway a little too hard at Groom Lake, Nevada, and had to lift off for another pass rather than go into a skid, but had bent the right main gear strut. The landing gear had been retracted after the “touch and go”, and now the right main gear leg wouldn’t extend. Despite many attempts, there was no way to get the gear down. Critically low on fuel, Lockheed test pilot Bill Park decided to eject and let the aircraft crash into the desert. Park suffered a serious back injury and concussion, ending his career as a test pilot. The airframe was bulldozed under the desert. News of the crash leaked to the press, and some vague comments were made about the possible existence of “stealth” aircraft.

1976 – Launch of LAGEOS 1, or Laser Geodynamics Satellites, scientific research satellitesdesigned to provide an orbiting laser ranging benchmark for geodynamical studies of the Eart.

1972 – An Aeroflot Yakalov Yak-40 (CCCP-87778) crashes due to windshear at Bratsk, Russia, killing all 18 on board.

1969 – 4-11 – The Daily Mail Transatlantic Air Race commemorates the 50th anniversary of Alcock and Brown’s crossing. It is won by a Royal Navy F-4 Phantom, taking 4 hours 47 min.

1967 – The Lunar Orbiter 4 launches on a 180-day mission to take photographs of The Moon for research purposes. It would take over 500 photos before striking the surface.

1966 – Death of William Edward George “Pedro” Mann, British WWI flying ace, one of the first to fly an inverted formation at Hendon. He also served in WWII and helped to develop mobile radar and signals units that served as models for the entire RAF.

1963 – Dassault Falcon 20 first prototype, registered F-WLKB, makes its first flight at Bordeaux-Merignac.

1962 – (4–5) During the Carupanazo revolt against Venezuelan President Rómulo Betancourt, Venezuelan Air Force aircraft attack rebel positions at Carúpano.

1961 – Project Strato-Lab: To test the Navy’s Mark IV full-pressure suit, A world balloon record of 113,739.9 feet is set in a two-place open gondola balloon Strato Lab V by U. S. Navy Commander Malcolm David Ross and Lieutenant Commander Victor A. Prather. The flight lasted 9 hours 54 min and covered a horizontal distance of 140 miles (230 km). Unfortunately, Victor Prather drowned during the helicopter transfer after landing.

1959 – First flight of the Pilatus PC-6 Porter, civilian utility aircraft built by Pilatus Aircraft of Switzerland.

1959 – Birth of Maurizio Cheli, Italian engineer, air force officer, a European Space Agency astronaut and a veteran of one NASA space shuttle mission.

1956 – Birth of Michael Landon Gernhardt, NASA astronaut.

1955 – Death of Louis Charles Breguet, French aircraft designer and builder, one of the early aviation pioneers.

1953 – English Electric Canberra B2 WD952, fitted with Rolls-Royce Olympus engines set a world altitude record – 63,668 ft (19,406 m).

1969 – 4-11 – The Daily Mail Transatlantic Air Race commemorates the 50th anniversary of Alcock and Brown’s crossing. It is won by a Royal Navy F-4 Phantom, taking 4 hours 47 min.

1950 – Prototype reconnaissance platform Northrop YRB-49 A, makes its first flight.

1949 – USAF North American F-82F Twin Mustang, 46-468, out of Mitchel Field crashes into an unfinished house on Fulton Avenue near Duncan Road, a residential neighborhood of Hempstead, New York near Hofstra University; the plane burst into flames but neither the pilot, 2nd Lt. Andrew Wallace, nor his radar observer, 1st Lt. Bryan Jolley, were killed. In fact, Wallace used a brick from the house to smash the right canopy and rescue Jolley.

1949 – In the Superga air disaster, an Italian Airlines Fiat G.212 CP carrying the Torino football team crashes into the Superga hills near Turin, killing all 31 on board, including 18 players.

1949 – The Avio Linee Italiane (Italian Airlines) Fiat G212CP carrying the Torino A. C. football squad flew into a thunderstorm on the approach to Turin and encountered conditions of low cloud and poor visibility. It crashed into the hill of Superga near Turin killing all 31 aboard

1949 – The Canadian Blue Devils aerobatic team is formed.

1945 – The British Home Fleet carries out its last operation of World War II, a raid by 44 Avengers and Wildcats from the aircraft carriers HMS Queen. HMS Trumpeter, and HMS Searcher against Kilbotn, Norway, sinking a German depot ship and submarine. It is the last air raid against Norway of World War II.

1945 – (4-5) Carrier aircraft of the British Pacific Fleet strike airfields on the Sakishima Gunto.

1944 – F/L LJ Bateman and crew in a Vickers Wellington of No. 407 Squadron sank the German submarine U-846 west of the Bay of Biscay

1943 – S/L BH Moffit and crew in Consolidated Canso of No. 5 (BR) Squadron, Eastern Air Command, sunk the German submarine U-630 in the West Atlantic Ocean.

1942 – 4-8 – The Battle of the Coral Sea is fought between US Navy and Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carriers. Japanese light carrier Shoho is sunk and Shokaku is badly damaged, and the USS Lexington is sunk.

1942 – Three Bristol Blenheims of No. 15 Squadron, South African Air Force, on a familiarisation flight from Kufra, Libya, become lost over the Libyan Desert and are forced to land due to fuel exhaustion. One of them is found on May 9 with its entire crew of three dead of exposure, and the other two on May 11 with eight of the nine men with them dead of gunshots or exposure.

1942 – (May 4-11, 1942) The Kufra tragedy occurred in May 1942 during World War II when eleven of twelve South African aircrew flying in three South African Air Force No. 15 Squadron Bristol Blenheim Mark IV aircraft died of thirst and exposure after the flight became lost following a navigational error near the oasis of Kufra in Libya and made a forced landing in the Libyan Desert.

1937 – Die Heinkel-Werke Oranienburg, important factory for aircraft construction, is inaugurated.

1936 – 4-7 – Amy Johnson sets a new England-South Africa speed record of 3 days 6 hours 26 min in a Percival Gull Six.

1928 – Death of Leonard Warden Bonney, pioneering aviator, while making the first flight of his ‘Bonney Gull ‘.

1927 – First flight of the Boeing TB

1927 – First flight of the Short Crusader, a British racing seaplane.

1926 – Birth of Milton Orville ‘Milt’ Thompson, NASA research pilot, first person to fly a lifting body.

1924 – First flight of the Sikorsky S-29-A

1924 – Etienne Oehmichen, flew for he first time a helicopter following a circular trajectory with a length of about one km after about 7 min and 40 seconds in the same place to land.

1918 – Death of Karl Patzelt, Austro-Hungarian WWI flying ace, killed in action.

1917 – Birth of Siegfried Freytag “The Malta Lion”, WWII German fighter ace and member of the French Foreign Legion during the French indochina war.

1916 – Zeppelin LZ-32 is shot down and destroyed by British naval gunfire.

1911 – The U. S. War Department approves a suggestion that S. C.No.1 (the Wright Flyer accepted by the Army August 2, 1909) be put at the disposal of the Smithsonian Institution for exhibition purposes following refurbishment.

1904 – Birth of Joaquín García-Morato y Castaño, leading Nationalist fighter ace of the Spanish Civil War. He is credited with 40 air victories, four gained while flying Heinkel He 51 s and 36 with the Italian Fiat CR.32.

1901 – Birth of Jerzy Bajan, prominent Polish sports and military aviator, winner of the Challenge 1934 contest.

1899 – Birth of Reginald Carey Brenton Brading, British WWI flying ace.

1899 – Birth of Fritz Adam Hermann Opel (Von Opel) German pilot and engineer remembered mostly for his spectacular demonstrations of rocket propulsion that earned him the nickname “Rocket Fritz”.

1892 – Birth of Otto Rosenfeld, German WWI flying ace.

1890 – Birth of François Marie Noel Battesti, French WWI flying ace

1883 – Birth of Jan Olieslagers, Belgian motorcycle racer, aviation pioneer (who set world records with both types of machinery) and WWI flying ace.

1860 – Birth of Hans Georg Friedrich Groß, German balloonist and airship constructor.

#onthisday Content automatically derived from Wikipedia.org

Today’s Aviation Events (May 03):

2013 – A United States Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker crashes 100 miles (161 km) west of the U.S. Air Force Transit Center at Manas base at Manas International Airport outside Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, leaving two of its crewman dead and one missing.[1][2]

2013 – Israeli Air Force aircraft strike a shipment of advanced surface-to-surface missiles at Damascus International Airport in Damascus, Syria. The shipment had orioginated in Iran and was destined for delivery to Hezbollah in Lebanon.[3][4][5]

2010 – Death of Günter F. Wendt, German-American engineer noted for his work in the U. S. manned spaceflight program. “There is no reason to say I am narrow-minded. Just do it my way and you will have no problem at all.”

2009 – XM715, a Handley Page Victor, briefly becomes airborne during a fast taxi run at Bruntingthorpe Aerodrome, United Kingdom. The aircraft is not airworthy and was not intended to have flown.

2009 – Táchira helicopter crash: A Fuerzas Terrestres Venezuela Mil Mi-17 Hip helicopter crashes on a border patrol with Colombia with 18 fatalities including the Venezuelan General Domingo Faneite. The accident occurred near the town of El Alto de Rubio, in Táchira state, Venezuela.

2007 – Death of Walter Marty Schirra, Jr., American test pilot, US Navy officer, and one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts chosen for the Project Mercury. He is the only person to fly in all of America’s first three space programs (Mercury, Gemini and Apollo), fifth American and the ninth human to ride a rocket into space. He was the first person to go into space three times.

2007 – A Chicago businessman who owned a ranch near Twin Bridges and his passenger were killed Thursday morning when the small jet they were flying crashed while trying to land at the Beaverhead County Airport at Dillon. At about 1040 mountain daylight time (MDT), a Cessna Citation S550, N22HP, collided with terrain during a circling instrument approach at Dillon, Montana.

2006 – Armavia Flight 967, an Airbus A320, crashes into the Black Sea near the Russian city of Sochi, killing all 113 on board.

2005 – Airwork Flight 23, a Fairchild Swearingen Metroliner crashes in Taranaki, New Zealand killing both crew members.

2002 – 2002 Jalandhar India MiG-21 crash: An Indian Air Force Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 pilot ejects after takeoff, with the aircraft crashing into a Jalandhar bank building, killing eight on the ground.

1998 – STS-90, Space Shuttle Columbia mission is back on earth

1986 – Air Lanka Flight 512, a Lockheed L-1011, is bombed by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, killing 21 of 148 on board.

1985 – Aeroflot Flight 8381, a Tupolev Tu-134, collides with a Soviet Air Force Antonov An-26; both aircraft crash near Zolochev, Ukraine, killing all 94 on board both aircraft.

1983 – The first CC 134 Challenger Jet was delivered to 412 Squadron.

1982 – A Gulfstream II from Algerian government is shot down above the border between Iran and Turkey. Both Iran and Iraq rejected responsibility.

1982 – Iraq shoots down an aircraft bound for Tehran, Iran, carrying Algerian Foreign Minister Mohammed Ben Yahia and 12 of his colleagues. The incident ends an Algerian attempt to mediate between Iran and Iraq and bring an end to the Iran-Iraq War.

1977 – Shortly after 1100 hrs. English Electric Canberra PR.9 aircraft, XH137, of No. 39 Squadron was returning to its base at RAF Wyton, near Huntingdon, after a routine training flight. About two miles from the end of the runway, it crashed by some houses in the estate of Oxmoor in the village of Hartford, north-east of Huntingdon. Three young children were killed and five people were injured, of whom two are detained in hospital. The two RAF members of the crew were also killed, said Secretary of State for Defence, Mr. Frederick Mulley.

1976 – A Pan Am Boeing 747SP makes a record around-the-world flight, taking 1 day 22 hours.

1973 – Death of Louis Prosper Gros, French WWI flying ace who served also in WWII.

1968 – Death of Bernard Artigau, French WWI flying ace, pioneering commercial pilot who also served in WWII

1968 – Braniff Flight 352, a Lockheed L-188A Super Electra en route from Houston, Texas to Dallas, breaks up in mid-air in a thunderstorm and crashes near Dawson, Texas; killing its five crew and 80 passengers. Nine years earlier Braniff Flight 542 crashed 49 miles (79 km) away in Buffalo.

1965 – The U. S. Marine Corps’s first attack helicopters, modified UH-1 Es of Marine Observation Squadron 2 (VMO-2), arrive at Da Nang, South Vietnam, to begin operations in the Vietnam War.

1963 – First flight of the production form Piper PA-30 Twin Comanche.

1961 – The Boeing Airplane Company changes its name to Boeing Company.

1955 – The first pre-series Sud-Ouest SO 9050 Trident II was flown.

1952 – The first landing at the North Pole is made by Americans Lt. Col. William P. Benedict and Lt. Col. J. O. Fletcher on a ski-and-wheel equipped Air Force Douglas C-47.

1950 – HMS Ark Royal (R09) is Launched at Birkenhead. Audacious-class aircraft carrier, Royal navy’s last remaining conventional catapult and arrested-landing aircraft carrier and world’s first aircraft carrier to be commissioned with an angled flight deck.

1950 – The 2nd prototype Blackburn B-54 Y. A.8. with a crew of three makes his first flight.

1949 – Birth of Albert Sacco, Jr.,American chemical engineer who flew as a Payload Specialist on the Space Shuttle Columbia on shuttle mission STS-73 in 1995.

1949 – First launch, of Viking 1.( Viking Rocket) It attained an altitude of 50 miles (80 km). The altitude was limited by a premature engine cut-off, eventually traced to steam leakage from the turbine casing.

1948 – Second Douglas D-558-1 Skystreak, BuNo 37971, NACA 141, crashes on takeoff on 20th flight for NACA (46th total take-off) at Edwards AFB, California, due to compressor disintegration that cut control runs in fuselage, killing NACA pilot Howard C. Lilly. Lilly is the first NACA pilot to die while on duty, and the first pilot who had flown at supersonic speed to be killed.

1945 – Royal Air Force Hawker Typhoon fighter-bombers sink the German passenger ships SS Cap Arcona and SS Deutschland and the German cargo ship SS Thielbek in the Bay of Lübeck, unaware that the ships are carrying more than 10,000 concentration camp prisoners. About 5,000 people die aboard Cap Arcona (the second-greatest loss of life in a ship sinking in history) and about another 2,750 aboard Thielbek, and there also is a heavy loss of life aboard Deutschland.

1945 – (3-4) The fifth Japanese Kikusui attack on ships off Okinawa includes 125 kamikazes. They sink three destroyers and two smaller ships and damage the aircraft carrier HMS Formidable, the light cruiser USS Birmingham (CL-62), four destroyers, a destroyer-minelayer, and three smaller ships.

1943 – During an inspection tour, Lt. Gen. Frank Maxwell Andrews (1884–1943) is killed in crash of Consolidated B-24D-1-CO Liberator, 41-23728, of the 330th Bomb Squadron, 93d Bomb Group, 8th Air Force,[193] out of RAF Bovingdon, England, on Mt. Fagradalsfjall on the Reykjanes peninsula after an aborted attempt to land at the RAF Kaldadarnes, Iceland. Andrews and thirteen others died in the crash; only the tail gunner, S/Sgt. George A. Eisel, survived. Others KWF included pilot Capt. Robert H. Shannon, of the 330th BS, 93rd BG; six members of Andrews’ staff, including Maj. Ted Trotman, B/Gen. Charlie Barth, Col. Marlow Krum, and the general’s aide, Maj. Fred A. Chapman; and Capt. J. H. Gott, navigator. Andrews was the highest-ranking Allied officer to die in the line of duty to that point in the war.[194] At the time of his death, he was Commanding General, United States Forces, European Theatre of Operations. Camp Springs Army Air Field, Maryland, is renamed Andrews Field (later Andrews Air Force Base), for him on 7 February 1945.

1942 – Tragedy at Kufra – Three Bristol Blenheim Mk. IVs, Z7513, Z7610, and T2252, of No. 15 Squadron, South African Air Force, detached to support Allied ground forces garrisoning the oasis at Kufra in Libya, become lost whilst on a familiarization flight and land in the Libyan Desert. They are not found until 11 May by which time only one of twelve crew survive. Z7610 and T2252 are flown out in May but damaged Z7513 is abandoned in place.

1942 – In a raid on the Arctic convoy PQ 15, six Heinkel He 111 s of the Luftwaffe’s I. Gruppe, Kampfgeschwader 26, make Germany’s first torpedo bomber attack of World War II. They sink two merchant ships outright and damage a third, which a German submarine later sinks. Three of the He 111 s are lost.

1937 – Death of Cosimo Rennella, Italian born Ecuadorian WWI flying ace, and pioneering aviator in South America Pre and post WWI war.

1941 – (3-6) RAF aircraft continue to attack Iraqi positions surrounding RAF Habbinya and Iraqi airfields, eventually forcing Iraq forces to withdraw on May 6.

1928 – Imperial Japanese Army Air Corps aircraft see action in China during the Tsinan Incident.

1928 – USN LT’s Arthur Gavin and Zeus Soucek, takes off in a PN-12 seaplane for a world duration record for Class C seaplanes.

1926 – Birth of Georgi Konstantinowitsch Mossolow, Soviet test Pilot.

1924 – Birth of Robert Kenneth “Ken” Tyrrell, British WWII flying mechanic, Formula 2 racing driver and founder of the Tyrrell Formula One constructor

1923 – The Sikorsky Aero Engineering Corporation is formed by Igor Sikorsky at a Long Island chicken farm.

1923 – U. S. Air Service Fokker T-2 pilots Lts. Oakley G. Kelly and John A. Macready complete the first non-stop flight across the United States in 26 hours, 50 min, 38.4 seconds from Roosevelt Field, Long Island to Wickenburg, Arizona.

1918 – Atlantic City, New Jersey became the first US municipal airport (Bader Field).

1918 – Death of Samuel Parry, Welsh WWI flying ace, killed in a flying accident in a Bristol F.2b.

1918 – Death of Omer Paul Demeuldre, French WWI flying ace, Killed in action in his Spad.

1915 – Birth of Ugo Drago, Italian WWII Pilot.

1907 – The Wright brothers are elected honorary members of the Vienna Aviation Club, Austria.

1896 – Birth of Louis Marcel Germain ‘Marcel’ Doret, French Aerobatic, Record breaker and test pilot.

1896 – Birth of Karl Allmenröder, German WWI flying ace.

1891 – Birth of William Graham Westwood, South African WWI flying ace

1866 – Birth of Richard von Kehler, German Balloon pioneer.

1812 – Birth of William Samuel Henson, pre-Wright brothers aviation engineer and inventor.

1695 – Birth of Henri Pitot, French hydraulic engineer and the inventor of the Pitot tube.

#onthisday Content automatically derived from Wikipedia.org