Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/February

<<	Selected anniversaries for February in aviation					>>
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An archive of historical anniversaries that appeared on the Aviation Portal 2024 day arrangement

February 1

• 2008 – Mauricio Delfabro wins the first FAI South American Gliding Championships and 55th National Gliding Championships of Argentina in Adolfo Gonzales Chaves in the mixed Open, 18 m, 15 m and Standard Class, Carlos Adrover became South American Club Class Champion.

• 2008 – A United States Air Force McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle from the 199th Fighter Squadron, 154th Wing of the Hawaii Air National Guard flying on a routine training flight crashes into the Pacific Ocean near Oahu, Hawaii. After losing control at low altitude simulating air-to-air combat the pilot ejected about 60 miles (97 km) south of the Honolulu International Airport and was rescued by a United States Coast Guard helicopter.

• 2006 – UAL. Corp, United Airlines' parent company emerges from bankruptcy after being in such position since December 9, 2002, the longest such filing in history..

• 2003 – The Space Shuttle Columbia, OV-102, is lost as it reenters after a two-week mission, STS-107. Damage to the shuttle's thermal protection system (TPS) leads to structural failure in the shuttle's left wing and, ultimately, the spacecraft breaking apart as it decelerated over Texas. Investigations after the tragedy reveal the damage to the reinforced carbon-carbon leading edge wing panel had resulted from a piece of insulation foam breaking away from the external tank during the launch and hitting shuttle's wing. Rick Husband, William McCool, Michael P. Anderson, David M. Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel B. Clark and Ilan Ramon were killed. See Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.

• 1992 – British Aerospace’s latest Hawk demonstrator, Hawk Mk 102D, ZJ 100, takes to the skies for the first time. It is an enhanced two-seater ground-attack version with a modified wing and incorporates many improvements to its onboard sensors and weapons system.

• 1991 – USAir Flight 1493, a Boeing 737, strikes SkyWest Airlines Flight 5569, a Fairchild Metro commuter plane waiting to take off from the same runway on which the Boeing 737 was landing at Los Angeles International Airport. Of the 101 people on both aircraft, 34 people, including all 12 aboard the Metro and 22 of the Boeing 737 passengers, are killed.

• 1991 – In the Gulf War, a U. S. Navy A-6E Intruder hits an Iraqi Navy patrol boat near Min-al-Bakr oil terminal, leaving it burning.

• 1987 – People Express Airline ceased operations. It is merged with Continental Airlines.

• 1983 – Boeing announces it will stop producing Boeing 727 airliners.

• 1982 – Death of Richard B. Kershner, American Chief Designer. Developer of the Transit navigation satellite system.

• 1981 – Donald Wills Douglas, Sr., founder of the Douglas Aircraft Company, dies at age 88 (b. 1892]).

• 1979 – Pakistani Air Force Lockheed C-130B Hercules 23488, c/n 3698, former USAF 62-3488, coded 'P', registered AQ-ACP, then AS-HFP, jumped chocks during night engine test run, collided with C-130E 10687, c/n 4117, former USAF 65-10687, coded 'D'. Both written off, hulls at Lahore, June 1981.

• 1975 – In the previous 16 days all 8 world time-to-height records have been captured by a specially modified McDonnell Douglas F15 Streak Eagle. The final record sets a time of 3 min 27 seconds from standstill on the runway to a height of 30,000 m (98,425 feet).

• 1973 – Death of George Clapham Dixon, Canadian WWI flying ace.

• 1971 – Death of Amet-khan Sultan, WWII Soviet fighter ace and test pilot, while making a test flight on Tu-16 test-bed.

• 1971 – The 4,000th McDonnell Phantom II, an F-4E for the Air Force, is delivered.

• 1970 – Captain Raymond Munro makes the first hot air balloon crossing of the Irish Sea from Brittis Bay in Cop Wicklow to Ennerdale in Cumberland.

• 1968 – The Royal Canadian Air Force and Royal Canadian Navy are disestablished as they merge with the Canadian Army to form the unified Canadian Armed Forces.

• 1967 – Rookie member of the Blue Angels U.S. Navy flight demonstration team, Lt. Frank Gallagher, of Flushing, New York, is KWF when his Grumman F-11A Tiger crashes during a practice flight ~16 miles NW of NAS El Centro, California. Fighter impacts in rugged desert terrain on a Navy test range. Assigned to the team only six weeks before, he is the fourth Blue Angels team member to die in an accident. Gallagher flew as the solo in the four-man formation and as number 6 in the full formation.

• 1964 – Entered Service: Boeing 727 with Eastern Air Lines.

• 1964 – President Lyndon Johnson publicly acknowledges the existence of the Lockheed A-12 Mach 3+ spy plane program and shows a picture that is actually a YF-12 A.

• 1963 – The United States Army activates the 11th Air Assault Division (Test) to test the concept of helicopter assault by ground forces.

• 1963 – Over 200 are injured and 73 killed when a Turkish Air Force Douglas C-47 Skytrain, CBK28, and a Middle East Airlines Vickers 745D Viscount turboprop airliner, OD-ADE, c/n 244, collide in a cloud bank in the afternoon over Ankara, Turkey, the press initially reports. Most of the victims were pedestrians and occupants of buildings lining Ulus Square in the Turkish capital. Eleven passengers and three crew aboard the commercial flight, and three crew aboard the Dakota were included in the fatalities. The C-47 was on a training flight. The body of one its crew was found on top of a building near the square with a partially opened parachute. Later description of the accident reported that the Viscount, Flight Number 265, from Cyprus to Ankara, was descending into Ankara-Esenboga Airport (ESB/LTAC), when it overtook the Dakota, which was returning to Etesmigut Airport. The airliner's number 3 (starboard inner) prop sliced off the Dakota's port horizontal stabilizer, while the starboard side of the Viscount was torn open with some passengers sucked out of the fuselage. An attempt to avoid the Dakota by the Viscount crew at the last moment was unsuccessful. This account gives ground fatalities as 87, and reports conditions as clear.

• 1961 – The Vickers Vanguard entered service with Trans Canada Airlines. Delivery of the first C-130 Navigation Trainer to 429 Squadron Winnipeg.

• 1961 – First launch of a LGM-30 Minuteman, U. S. nuclear missile, land-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

• 1961 – Birth of Daniel Tani, American engineer and NASA astronaut.

• 1960 – Pilot Officer Noel H Lokuge of Royal Ceylon Air Force bailed out at 700 feet when his Jet Provost Mk2 suffered an engine failure during a formation flying training near Katunayake AFB and became the first Sri Lankan (Then Ceylon) ejectee.He suffered no injuries and resumed flying the next day. His Martin-Baker Mk4 seat earned him the No 57 of Martin Baker Tie Club.

• 1958 – Launch of Explorer 1, first US Earth satellite.

• 1958 – United Airlines sets a record commercial Honolulu, Hawaii-to-Los Angeles, California, flight time of 6 hours 21 min.

• 1958 – A USAF Douglas C-118A Liftmaster military transport, 53-3277, of the 1611th ATW, and a United States Navy Lockheed P2V-5F Neptune patrol bomber, BuNo 127723, collided over Norwalk, California (a suburb of Los Angeles) at night. 47 servicemen were killed as well as a 23-year-old civilian woman on the ground who was hit by falling debris. Two crew on P2V-5F survive. A plaque commemorating the disaster was erected by the American Legion in 1961 at the location of the accident, the corner of Firestone Boulevard and Pioneer Boulevard.[citation needed]

• 1957 – Northeast Airlines Flight 823, a Douglas DC-6, crashes during a snowstorm shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport; twenty of the 101 occupants die.

• 1956 – Vought F8U-1 Crusader, BuNo 140444, crashes N of Edwards AFB, California, Vought test pilot Harry T. Brackett killed.

• 1954 – USAF Curtiss C-46D-15-CU Commando, 44-78027, c/n 33423, suffered an in-flight fire. Pilot attempted a ditching in the Tsugaru Straits, but aircraft crashed off Hokkaido, 35 killed.

• 1950 – Eight Grumman F9 F Panthers land on the USS Valley Forge to complete the first aircraft carrier night landing trials by jets.

• 1949 – Women's Royal Air Force (WRAF) revives, offering women a full professional career in the air force for the first time.

• 1945 – First flight of the Kawasaki Ki-100, Japanese fighter aircraft.

• 1944 – The U. S. Navy orders two Piasecki XHRP-1 helicopters. They are the first American helicopters to be developed under a military contract.

• 1944 – Death of James Alexander Connelly, Jr., American WWI flying ace and businessman.

• 1942 – The U. S. Navy aircraft carriers USS Enterprise (CV-6) and USS Yorktown (CV-5) launch air strikes against Japanese bases in the Marshall Islands. It is the first offensive operation by American forces in World War II.

• 1941 – Birth of Enzo Venturini, Italian Air force pilot.

• 1940 – The Soviets begin a new ground offensive in Finland, supported by about 500 bombers.

• 1940 – Death of George de Bothezat, Russian American engineer, businessman and pioneer of helicopter flight.

• 1940 – The Southern Rhodesian government forms Southern Rhodesian Air Services.

• 1939 – Reserve Command is formed under the command of Air Marshal C. L. Courtney.

• 1935 – Birth of Vladimir Viktorovich Aksyonov, Soviet pilot and cosmonaut.

• 1933 – First flight of the Boeing XF6 B, Boeing's last biplane design for the USN, carrier based fighter/bomber.

• 1932 – The Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carrier Hōshō joins the carrier Kaga in Chinese territorial waters during the Shanghai Incident.

• 1930 – San Francisco’s first air ferry service starts to operate, cutting journey time across the Bay to 6 min. The ferry flies from San Francisco to Alameda, and from Oakland to Vallejo.

• 1929 – First flight of the Lublin R-X.

• 1929 – The aviation and space operations of Boeing and Pratt & Whitney were merged to form the United Aircraft & Transport Corp.

• 1927 – The first NCO pilots Began training at Borden. They were A. Anderson, R. Marshall, A. J. Horner. They received their wings 30 April 1927.

• 1923 – 1923 – The Danish Army Flying Corps is established

• 1920 – World War I American ace (twelve victories) Field Eugene Kindley is killed in a crash at Kelly Field near San Antonio, Texas, during a demonstration flight for General John J. Pershing. A control cable snaps on the Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5 biplane Kindley is flying, AS-8137, of the 96th Aero Squadron, he stalls, falls from an altitude of 100 feet. Kindley Air Force Base, Bermuda, is later named for him. Other sources give his crash date as both 2 February and 3 February.

• 1920 – The first interisland commercial flight in the Hawaiian Islands takes place when pilot Charles Fern carries a paying passenger from Honolulu to Maui and back. The outbound flight requires an emergency stop on Molokai.

• 1920 – The South African Air Force is established as an independent air arm.

• 1913 – Birth of Jeffrey Kindersley Quill OBE AFC FRAeS, British WWII RAF officer, RNVR officer and Test pilot. He test-flew every mark of Spitfire.

• 1912 – First flight of the Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2 (Blériot Experimental), a British single-engine two-seat biplane.

• 1911 – Burgess and Curtiss becomes the US's first licensed aircraft manufacturer, receiving a license to build Wright aircraft from the Wright Brothers, who held several key aeronautical patents.

• 1902 – Death of Rudolf Max Wilhelm Hans Bartsch von Sigsfeld, German airship designer and pilot.

• 1898 – Birth of Francis Jefferies Williams, British WWI flying ace.

• 1898 – Birth of John Carbery Preston, British WWI flying ace.

• 1896 – Birth of James Henry Forman, Canadian WWI flying ace.

• 1893 – Birth of Loudoun James MacLean, British WWI flying ace.

• 1891 – Birth of Corradino D'Ascanio, Italian aeronautical engineer who designed the first production helicopter, for Agusta, and designed the first motor scooter for Ferdinando Innocenti.

• 1891 – Birth of Mario Fucini, Italian WWI flying ace.

• 1888 – Birth of Henri Péquet, French pioneer aviator, WWI pilot and test pilot.

• 1887 – Birth of Henry Meyrick Cave-Browne-Cave CB, DSO, DFC, RAF, British engineering officer in the Royal Naval Air Service during WWI and senior commander in the RAF.

• 1885 – Death of Stanislas Charles Henri Dupuy de Lôme, French naval architect and Navigable balloons designer.

• 1876 – Birth of Francis Kennedy 'Frank' McClean AFC, English civil engineer and pioneer aviator, One of the founding members of the Royal Aero Club and one of the founders of naval aviation and amateur flying.

• 1858 – First flight in Australia in a Balloon is made by William Dean at Cremourne Gardens near Richmond.

References

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February 2

• 2013 – French aircraft pound Islamist targets in Kidal and Tessalit in the far northern part of Mali.

• 2013 – (Overnight) French aircraft pound Islamist targets in Kidal and Tessalit in the far northern part of Mali.

• 2011 – An Indian Army HAL Cheetah helicopter crashed at Nashik, western India, killing both crew.

• 2007 – A HAL Dhruv helicopter, part of the Saarang Helicopter Aerobatics team, loses altitude and crashes while practicing for the Aero India-2007 at the Yelahanka Air Base near Bangalore, India. The pilot is severely injured, and the co-pilot is killed. The Saarang team continue their planned performance for the airshow.

• 2007 – AH-64D Apache 02-5337 from A Company, 1st Battalion, 227th Aviation Regiment, 1st Air Cavalry Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division shot down by a combination of gunfire and a shoulder-fired missile, near Taji, killing the two pilots.

• 2001 – First flight of the Prototype General Atomics RQ-1 Predator B, later redesignated MQ-9 Reaper.

• 1998 – Cebu Pacific Flight 387, a McDonnell-Douglas DC-9, crashes into a mountain near Mount Sumagaya in Misamis Oriental in the Philippines. The plane is flying an unfamiliar route not well documented in maps following an unscheduled stop in Leyte to drop off two mechanics. All 104 passengers and crew members are killed.

• 1996 – An Grumman F-14A Tomcat crashes in the northern Persian Gulf. The U.S. Navy announces a three-day stand down for F-14 operations. The safety standdown will allow the service "to assess all aspects of operations and procedures", a Navy spokeswoman said. She said the review will "assess available information to determine if any procedural or other modifications to F-14 operations are warranted."[337]

• 1991 – Coalition aircraft attack Iraqi Navy vessels at the Al Kalia naval facility, hitting a missile boat with two laser-guided bombs and straddling another with twelve 500-pound (227-kg) bombs; helicopters from the American guided-missile frigate USS Nicholas (FFG-47) engage four Iraqi patrol boats near Maradim Island, destroying one and damaging two; and U.S. Navy A-6 Es destroy an Iraqi patrol boat in Kuwait Harbor with two laser-guided bombs. The Coalition claims to have sunk or damaged 83 Iraqi Navy vessels thus far in the Gulf War, with Coalition aircraft inflicting most of the losses. Iraqi antiaircraft artillery shoots down a U.S. Navy A-6E Intruder near Kuwait City, Kuwait, an Iraqi short-range surface-to-air missile downs a U.S. Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II, and a U.S. Marine Corps AH-1 J SeaCobra crashes due to non-combat causes while returning from an armed escort mission.

• 1989 – The first prototype JAS 39 Gripen crashed on its sixth flight when landing in Linköping as a result of pilot-induced oscillation. The accident was filmed in a now famous recording by a crew from Sveriges Television's Aktuellt. The pilot remained in the tumbling aircraft, and escaped miraculously with just a fractured arm.

• 1987 – After racking up an unmanageable amount of debt in only four years of existence, Newark-based PEOPLExpress Airlines ceases operations and merges with Continental.

• 1971 – Two USAF crew are found dead in the escape module after their General Dynamics F-111 crashes near Mandeville, Louisiana three weeks earlier. A parachute was found hanging from a nearby tree, but it did not deploy in time to save the airmen.

• 1970 – An Convair F-106A-100-CO Delta Dart, 58-0787, of the 71st Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, out of Malmstrom AFB, (the Cornfield Bomber), piloted by Capt. Gary Faust, enters a flat spin during air combat maneuvering (ACM) over Montana. Faust follows procedures and ejects from the aircraft. The resulting change of balance causes the aircraft to stabilize, and it lands wheels up in a snow-covered field, suffering almost no damage. The aircraft is then sent back to base by rail, repaired and returned to service. Preserved initially at Griffiss AFB, New York, it is now on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force.

• 1968 – The personnel and organization of the Royal Canadian Navy, Canadian Army, and the Royal Canadian Air Force were unified into a single organization, the Canadian Armed Forces.

• 1966 – Pakistan International Airlines Flight 17, a Sikorsky S-61 helicopter, crashes near Faridpur, Bangladesh, Pakistan; of the 23 on board, only a passenger survives.

• 1964 – NASA space probe Ranger 6 impacted the Moon on the eastern edge of Mare Tranquillitatis (Sea of Tranquility).The orientation of the spacecraft to the surface during descent was correct, but no video signal was received and no camera data obtained.

• 1962 – At Halls Beach N.W.T. a 412 Squadron North Star 17520 lost power to three engines in quick succession just after takeoff. The pilot turned back and lined up to land and the fourth engine began to lose power. A wheels – up landing was made safely in the snow to the right of the runway. All on board were safe.

• 1961 – The first commercial use of the de Havilland Canada DHC-4 Caribou took place.

• 1957 – Death of Antonio Lippi, Italian Aviator who flew with Italo Balbo on transatlantic flights.

• 1954 – Japan Air Lines inaugurates its first international service: a twice-weekly route to San Francisco.

• 1953 – In the 1953 Skyways Avro York disappearance, a plane with 39 on board disappears over the North Atlantic.

• 1951 – First flight of the Douglas DC-6 B, extended version All-passenger variant of DC-6 A, without cargo door.

• 1944 – First flight of the Republic XP-72, American prototype interceptor fighter developed as a progression of the P-47 Thunderbolt design.

• 1941 – Eight Fairey Swordfish aircraft from the British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal attack the dam at San Chiar d’Ula, Sardinia, with torpedoes, but inflict no visible damage on the dam.

• 1938 – Two U.S. Navy Consolidated PBY-2 Catalinas, BuNo 0462 of VP-13 and BuNo 0463 of VP-11 collide in midair off San Clemente, California, killing 3 officers and 8 enlisted men, 11 of the 14 onboard.

• 1938 – Death of Enrico Comani, Italian Aviator on a return trip from Brazil with a CANT Z.506 B floatplane. After engines failure, they Ditched in a rough sea. To avoid fire and explosion the crew jumped in the water. Only one member over 5 survived to sharks.

• 1931 – Austrian Friedrich Schmiedl launches his V7 mail rocket with 100 letters aboard from Schoeckel bei Graz to Sankt Radegund, Austria, a distance of 2 km.

• 1929 – The Boeing Airplane and Transport Corp. changes its name to United Aircraft and Transportation Corp. and by the end of the year had expanded its operations to include Chance Vought Corp., Hamilton Metalplane Division, Boeing Aircraft of Canada, Stout Airlines, Northrop Aircraft Corp., Stearman Aircraft Co., Sikorsky Aviation Corp., Standard Steel Propeller Co. and Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Co.

• 1925 – A Breguet 19 flown by Captain Ludovic Arrachart and Captain Henri Lemaître takes off from Paris to Villa Cisneros (Sahara) for a new distance record flight in straight line.

• 1919 – Death of Leslie Jacob "Rummy" Rummell, American WWI flying ace.

• 1918 – The first operational squadrons of the American Expeditionary Force are formed in France.

• 1916 – Zeppelin LZ54 (L19), damaged and with 3 engines over 4 failing, came under Dutch fire. It sank in the North Sea, drowning all crew members.

• 1916 – The only Imperial Russian Navy seaplane carrier to see service in the Baltic Sea during World War I, Orlitza, is commissioned.

• 1914 – Birth of Nicolas Roland Payen, French engineer and first designer of the Delta wing. Builder of the world's smallest jet aircraft (Pa-49).

• 1904 – Birth of Valery Pavlovich Chkalov, Russian aircraft test pilot.

• 1898 – Birth of Richard Pearman Minifie, Australian WWI fighter ace who also served as a squadron leader in the Air Training Corps of the RAAF during WWII.

• 1897 – Birth of Jeffery Batters Home-Hay, Canadian WWI flying ace, pioneering bush pilot, Commercial Pilot who served In the RCAF during WWII. He took part in the first Canadian transcontinental flight from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Vancouver.

• 1897 – Birth of Lucien Marcel Gasser, French WWI flying ace.

• 1896 – Birth of Ramón Franco y Bahamonde Salgado Pardo de Andrade, Galician pioneer of aviation, a political figure and brother of later dictator Francisco Franco.

• 1872 – French navy-engineer Dupuy de Lome achieves 9 to 11 km/h with his muscle powered airship.

References

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February 3

• 2011 – Two Republic of China Air Force AT-3 trainers collide, one aircraft crashed near Fangliao and other landed safely. The two pilots of the crashed AT-3 ejected safely.

• 2010 – A Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter of the United States Army crashed in Germany about 1800 hrs. local time northeast of Mannheim, killing three people on board.

• 2008 – Silver State Helicopters ceases operations and enteres bankruptcy. At the time of closing Silver State operating 194 helicopters from its 34 flight schools.

• 2005 – Kam Air Flight 904, a Boeing 737-200, crashes in a snowstorm in Afghanistan. All 96 passengers and eight crew members die.

• 2001 – First flight of the AgustaWestland AW139, 15-seat medium-sized twin-engined helicopter.

• 1998 – Cavalese cable car disaster: A United States Marine Corps EA-6 B Prowler cut a cable supporting a gondola, causing the death of 20 people. The two pilots, Captain Richard J. Ashby and his navigator Captain Joseph Schweitzer, were put under trial in the United States, but were found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter and negligent homicide, but later they were found guilty of obstruction of justice for having destroyed evidence. Both were discharged from the Marines.

• 1995 – Launch: Space Shuttle Discovery STS-63 at 05:22:04 am UTC. Mission highlights: Mir rendezvous, Spacehab, IMAX, Astronaut Eileen Collins becomes the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle Discovery.

• 1994 – Launch: Space Shuttle Discovery STS-60 at 7:10:05 am EST. Mission highlights: SPACEHAB, Wake Shield Facility.

• 1994 – First launch: H-II, Japanese satellite launch system.

• 1988 – Death of Kenneth Lee Porter, American WWI flying ace, Engineer who worked for Boeing during WWII and was a member of the US fighting pilots Association.

• 1991 – Returning from a strike against Iraqi forces, a U. S. Air Force B-52G Stratofortress attempting to land at Diego Garcia crashes on final approach.

• 1985 – First flight of the Atlas XH-1 Alpha, a South African prototype attack helicopter, used as a concept demonstrator for the then-planned Rooivalk project.

• 1984 – Launch: Space shuttle Challenger STS-41-B at 13:00:00 UTC. Mission highlights: Comsat deployments, first untethered spacewalk by Bruce McCandless II with Manned Maneuvering Unit; first landing at KSC; dry run of equipment for Solar Max rescue.

• 1982 – The Mil Mi-26 helicopter lifts a load weighing 57 metric tons to 2,000 m (6,500 ft) to break a world record for a helicopter.

• 1978 – Introduction: de Havilland Canada Dash 7, popularly known as the Dash 7, turboprop-powered regional airliner with STOL capabilities, is introduced in service by Rocky Mountain Airways.

• 1977 – Salyut 4 is back on earth.

• 1966 – Launch of ESSA-1 (or OT-3) US spin-stabilized operational meteorological satellite.

• 1966 – Luna 9, an unmanned Soviet spacecraft, makes the first successful landing on the Moon.

• 1964 – The 1964 Turkish Airlines Ankara crash occurred when a Turkish Airlines Douglas C-47 A-5-DK airliner, registration TC-ETI, on a cargo flight from Istanbul Yeşilköy Airport (IST/LTBA) to Esenboğa Airport (ESB/LTAC) in Ankara, flew into terrain in Ankara Province whilst on an ILS approach. The aircraft had three crew on board and all were killed at the accident.

• 1964 – The Federal Aviation Agency launches Operation Bongo Mark 2 to investigate the effects of supersonic flight; over the coming months, a Convair B-58 will fly through the sound barrier at low altitude over Oklahoma City.

• 1964 – The North Vietnamese Air Force establishes its first jet fighter unit, Fighter Regiment No. 921, equipped with MiG-17 s. North Vietnamese jet fighter units will be based in the People’s Republic of China until August while their pilots undergo training.

• 1961 – Operation Looking Glass commences, meaning that the US Air Force Strategic Air Command would have a permanent, airborne command post.

• 1959 – Boeing B-47E-50-LM Stratojet, 52-3371, of the 384th Bombardment Wing, crashes during landing near Little Rock, Arkansas. Pilot, co-pilot, and navigator killed.

• 1959 – First flight of the Agusta-Bell AB.102, Italian helicopter based on the mechanical components of a Bell 48 that Agusta incorporated into an all-new, streamlined fuselage.

• 1959 – American Airlines Flight 320, a Lockheed L-188 Super Electra, crashes into the East River, New York City, as a result of pilot error; sixty-five passengers and crew are killed.

• 1959 – A Beechcraft Bonanza carrying musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, crashed near Clear Lake, Iowa, in what has become known as "The Day the Music Died".

• 1958 – Birth of Joe Frank Edwards, Jr., United States Naval officer, test pilot and NASA astronaut.

• 1956 – Death of Guglielmo Fornagiari, Italian WWI flying ace.

• 1948 – All 145 pilots and co-pilots at National Airlines go on strike, grounding the carrier’s 22 aircraft. The dispute is mainly over air safety.

• 1946 – Pan American inaugurates the first commercial use of Lockheed Model 049 Constellation with the aircraft’s first scheduled service between New York and Bermuda.

• 1945 – The US Army’s Eighth Air Force launches Operation Thunderclap – 1,000 B-17 bombers raid Berlin, killing 3,000 and leaving 120,000 homeless.

• 1945 – Bound for the Kola Inlet in the Soviet Union, Convoy JW 64 becomes the first Arctic convoy to depart from the River Clyde. Its escort, designated Operation Hotbed, includes the British escort aircraft carriers HMS Campania and HMS Nairana. Campania carries the first night fighter involved in a convoy escort operation, a Fairey Fulmar equipped with airborne intercept radar.

• 1944 – U. S. Navy Task Force 58 completes its support of ground operations on Kwajalein Island and Roi-Namur.

• 1943 – (Overnight) 263 British bombers attack Hamburg, Germany; 16 are shot down, mostly by Messerschmitt Bf 110 night fighters of Nachtjagdgeschwader 1.

• 1943 – While shooting down a British Halifax bomber, German night fighter ace Reinhold Knacke is himself shot down and killed by one of the Halifax’s gunners. The first of three out of Germany’s top four night fighter aces to die during the month, his score stands at 44, all at night, when he is killed.

• 1942 – The Canadian Women’s Auxiliary Air Force was renamed RCAF Women’s Division.

• 1941 – Death of Enzo Omiccioli, Italian WWII pilot, killed during a dogfight Against 6 Gloster Gladiators in Ethiopia.

• 1937 – In the Spanish Civil War, a Nationalist (rebel) attack on Málaga begins, supported by an Italian “legionary” air force of about 100 aircraft.

• 1935 – Hugo Junkers died, German engineer and aircraft designer, who pioneered the first great changes in aviation materials and design technology.

• 1934 – Lufthansa begins the first regular airmail service across the Atlantic Ocean, between Berlin and Rio de Janeiro.

• 1931 – Canadian Airways flew the first international service between Winnipeg and Pembina, North Dakota.

• 1928 – New York City decides to build its first municipal airport.

• 1928 – First flight of the Boeing F3B (Model 77), an American biplane fighter and fighter bomber in a land version.

• 1925 – A distance record of 3,166 km (1,967 miles) in a straight line, is established by a Breguet 19 flown by Captain Ludovic Arrachart and Captain Henri Lemaître from Paris to Villa Cisneros (Sahara).

• 1920 – Death of Hermann Hasselmann, German Aviation Pioneer, and Hugo Schäfer, German WWI flying ace on board of their Junkers F 13.

• 1918 – Death of Rupert Randolph Winter, British WWI flying ace, killed in action.

• 1913 – The Gothaer Waggonfabrik (Gotha railway wagon factory) open an aeroplane division.

• 1911 – The Blériot XIII, French experimental passenger-carrying aircraft, flown by Léon Lemartin broke a world record by flying with 8 passengers.

• 1903 – Birth of Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, Scottish nobleman and pioneering aviator.

• 1894 – Birth of Arthur Thomas Drinkwater, Australian WWI flying ace.

• 1892 – Birth of Eduard Ritter von Dostler, German WWI fighter ace.

• 1884 – Birth of Frank Maxwell Andrews, general officer in the United States Army and one of the founding fathers of the USAF.

• 1873 – Birth of Hugh Montague Trenchard, British officer who was instrumental in establishing the RAF, described as the Father of the Royal Air Force.

• 1873 – Birth of Karl Jatho, German Aviation pioneer and inventor.

• 1859 – Birth of Hugo Junkers, innovative German engineer, as his many patents in varied areas (gas engines, aeroplanes) show, pioneering the first great changes in aviation materials and design technology.

References

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February 4

• 2012 – Australian filmmaker Andrew Wight is at the controls of his private Robinson R44 helicopter with American filmmaker Mike deGruy as a passenger for a flight to scout filming locations when the helicopter crashes on takeoff and burns at Jaspers Brush near Berry in New South Wales, Australia. Both men are killed.

• 2011 – First flight of the Northrop Grumman X-47B, an American demonstration Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle (UCAV).

• 2010 – Yakutia Airlines Flight 425, operated by Antonov An-24 RA-47360 suffered an engine failure on take-off from Yakutsk Airport for Olekminsk Airport. During the subsequent landing, the nose and port main undercarriage were retracted, causing substantial damage to the aircraft.

• 2009 – N834TP, a Douglas Aero Modified Turbo DC-3 operated by the National Test Pilot School is involved in a take-off accident at Mojave Air & Space Port, United States, and substantially damaged.

• 2009 – C-FCCE, a DHC-6 Twin Otter 100 operated by Transwest Air, crashes on take-off from La Ronge (Barber Field) Airport, Canada and is substantially damaged.

• 2008 – Continental Airlines begins service with the Bombardier Dash 8 Q-400 out of Newark Airport.

• 1997 – Two Israeli Sikorsky CH-53 Yas'ur 2000, 357 and 903, collide in darkness near the remote She'ar Yeshuv kibbutz, over northern Israel at ~1900 hrs. in a storm, killing 73 Israel Defense Forces soldiers. See 1997 Israeli helicopter disaster.

• 1997 – An General Dynamics F-16D Block 30J Fighting Falcon, 87-385, of the 466th Fighter Squadron, crashed about ten miles northeast of Wendover, Utah, near the Utah-Nevada state line after suffering engine flame-out. The crew was from the 419th Fighter Wing at Hill Air Force Base, Utah. A Hurlburt Field crew flying an MC-130E Combat Talon I on a mountain terrain exercise were diverted to help search for the jet's crew. After refueling in mid-air, the Hurlburt crew found the two flyers and sent up flares to pinpoint their location for search helicopters. Major Edward G. Goggins was the pilot and Captain Mark C. Snyder a passenger flight surgeon. One suffered a broken ankle and the other had burns.

• 1997 – First flight of the Groen Hawk 4, a two-seat auto-gyro.

• 1992 – Passengers aboard Aerolíneas Argentinas Flight 386 – A Boeing 747-287 B en route from Lima, Peru, to Los Angeles, California, with 356 people on board – Are inadvertently fed an in-flight meal that includes shrimp tainted with cholera. Seventy-six people become ill, and one of them dies.

• 1986 – Pakistan International Airlines Flight 300, a 747-200 (AP-AYW) lands on its belly at Islamabad Airport because the crew forgot to lower the gear. All of the 264 aboard escaped unharmed. After Boeing repaired the aircraft, PIA flew her for another 19 years. Incidentally, New York-based startup Baltia Airlines took delivery of this airframe in 2010.

• 1981 – A United States Air Force General Dynamics F-111F, 72-1441, c/n E2-71 / F-71, of the 48th Tactical Fighter Wing, crashes on approach to RAF Lakenheath, Bury St. Edmunds, United Kingdom, coming down in an open field in Suffolk. A statement released by the Mildenhall headquarters of U.S. Third Air Force said that pilot and WSO parachuted to safety and were both based at Lakenheath.

• 1977 – Kenya Airways begins service from Jomo Kenyatta International airport in Nairobi.

• 1970 – Aerolíneas Argentinas Flight 707, a Hawker Siddeley HS 748, crashes near Loma Alta, Argentina, killing all 37 on board.

• 1969 – Retired: North American XB-70 Valkyrie, a prototype version of the proposed B-70 nuclear-armed deep-penetration bomber

• 1968 – American Max Conrad, with a Piper PA-23 Aztec, sets a distance record over closed course of 6,357.48 km (3,950.35 mi) between Chicago and Milwaukee.

• 1967 – Death of Ignaz "Igo" Etrich, Austrian flight pioneer, pilot and fixed-wing aircraft developer.

• 1966 – Death of Giorgio Michetti, Italian WWI flying ace.

• 1966 – All Nippon Airways Flight 60, a Boeing 727-100, crashes into Tokyo Bay, Japan; all 133 aboard are killed in Japan's worst air disaster at that time.

• 1961 – Launch of Tyazhely Sputnik, also known as Venera 1VA No.1, and in the West as Sputnik 7, Soviet spacecraft, which was intended to be the first spacecraft to explore Venus.

• 1959 – USAF Boeing WB-50D Superfortress, 49-0343, weather reconnaissance aircraft, assigned to 59th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron at Kindley AFB Bermuda was lost on weather track over Atlantic with 12 killed. Crash was observed by a Japanese freighter about 2 hours after takeoff.

• 1958 – The world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the CVAN-65 USS Enterprise is laid down at the Newport News shipyard.

• 1958 – Royal Air Force Blackburn Beverly C.1, XH118, c/n 1024, suffers double engine failure, attempts emergency landing at Beihan, Yemen, overturns, killing one of 10 on board.

• 1949 – In the US, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) gives authorization for the full use of ground control approach (GCA) landing aids. These will be used only in conditions of poor visibility caused by fog or bad weather and comprise a ground radar system.

• 1948 – First flight of the Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket, a supersonic research aircraft was made. It was launched from underneath its B-29 mother-ship and exceeded Mach 1 while in a dive.

• 1948 – The United States Air Force (USAF) Military Air Transport Service (MATS) is established.

• 1946 – First flight of the Republic XF-12 Rainbow, an American four-engine, all-metal prototype reconnaissance aircraft.

• 1945 – The British Pacific Fleet arrives at Fremantle, Australia.

• 1945 – US President Franklin D. Roosevelt touches down at Yalta, the Crimean resort, in his presidential airplane Sacred Cow for a crucial summit with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. The leaders are meeting to discuss terms for German surrender and the shape of post-war Europe.

• 1944 – Boeing B-17F Flying Fortress 42-30188 "Temptation" suffered runaways on Nos. 1 and 2 propellers and crash landed north north west of RAF Snetterton Heath, Norfolk. All eleven crew survived but the aircraft was damaged beyond repair and fit only for parts salvage

• 1944 – A U. S. Army Air Forces B-24 Liberator flies the first Allied photographic reconnaissance mission against Truk Atoll, Japan’s main base in the South Pacific Ocean, making a 1,700-nautical mile (3,148-km) flight from Bougainville.

• 1943 – The Casablanca directive directs the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces to accomplish the “progressive destruction and dislocation of the German military, industrial, and economic system and the undermining of the morale of the German people to a point where their capacity for armed resistance is fatally weakened. ” It also establishes bombing priorities, notably including German submarine construction yards and oil plants and the German aircraft industry and transportation system.

• 1943 – (4-16) Royal Air Force Coastal Command and the U. S.Army Air Forces Antisubmarine Command carry out Operation Gondola over the Bay of Biscay to test the theory that every German submarine transiting an interdicted area could be attacked at least once by Allied aircraft if they flew in sufficient numbers day and night. Aircraft of the two commands fly a combined 2,260 flight hours during the operation.

• 1943 – First flight of the Bristol Buckingham, a British WWII medium bomber.

• 1941 – Armstrong Whitworth Albemarle prototype, P1360, written off in crash landing on test flight out of RAF Boscombe Down when six-foot square panel is lost from port wing surface. John Hayhurst bails out successfully, but flight test engineer Norman Sharp's parachute entangles with tail structure and he releases his chute just before touchdown on a flat ridge on top of a quarry SE of Crewkerne, Somerset, landing at ~150 mph (240 km/h) in snow and bushes, surviving with serious injuries. Pilot Brian Huxtable survives crash landing.

• 1935 – First flight of the Mitsubishi A5M 'Claude', a Japanese carrier-based fighter aircraft. World's first monoplane shipboard fighter and direct ancestor of the famous Mitsubishi A6 M 'Zero'.

• 1929 – Frank Hawks and Oscar Grubb takes off their Lockheed Air Express from Burbank, California to New york for a new flight record.

• 1928 – Henry Berliner and Temple Nach Joyce found the Berliner-Joyce Aircraft Corporation.

• 1920 – Pierre van Ryneveld and Quentin Brand set out in a Vickers Vimy from Cairo to cross Africa by air from North to South. They will arrive in Cape Town on March 20.

• 1919 – First of three Bristol F.2C Badger prototypes, F3495, suffers crash landing when its 320 hp (240 kW) ABC Dragonfly I nine-cylinder radial engine fails during the type's first take-off due to an air lock in the fuel feed. Pilot Cyril Uwins unhurt. Aircraft is subsequently rebuilt and flown.

• 1919 – First flight of the Bristol Badger, a British two-seat fighter-reconnaissance aircraft.

• 1917 – Work began at Camp Borden to make this the main training site for the Royal Flying Corps.

• 1916 – First Canadian air casualty in WWI. Lt. William F. N. Sharpe was killed in a training accident in England.

• 1912 – Death of Franz Reichelt, also known as Frantz Reichelt or François Reichelt, Austrian-born French tailor, inventor and parachuting pioneer, now sometimes referred to as the Flying Tailor, killed after jumping from the Eiffel Tower while testing a wearable parachute of his own design. The jump is captured on film.

• 1907 – Birth of Geoffrey Arthur Virley Tyson OBE, British Aerobatic and test pilot.

• 1902 – Charles Augustus Lindbergh, American pilot, was born (d. 1974). Charles Augustus Lindbergh, also known as “Lucky Lindy” and “The Lone Eagle, ” was an American pilot famous for the first solo, non-stop flight across the Atlantic, from Roosevelt Field, Long Island to Paris 1927 in the “Spirit of St. Louis. ”

• 1902 – First balloon flight in Antarctica when Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton ascend to 244 m in a tethered hydrogen balloon to take the first Antarctic aerial photographs.

• 1899 – Birth of Viktor Fedorovich Bolkhovitinov, Soviet engineer, Aircraft designer and team-leader of the developers of the Bereznyak-Isayev BI-1 aircraft.

• 1898 – Birth of Robert Wallace Farquhar, British WWI flying ace.

• 1897 – Birth of Carl Frederick Falkenberg DFC, AFC, Canadian WWI fighter ace, and WWII RACF instructor.

• 1896 – Birth of Paul Joseph "Ginty" McGinness, Australian WWI flying ace who also served the RAAF during WWII, co-founder of Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services (QANTAS).

• 1875 – Birth of Ludwig Prandtl, German scientist, pioneer in the development of rigorous systematic mathematical analyses which he used for underlying the science of aerodynamics, which have come to form the basis of the applied science of aeronautical engineering.

• 1851 – Birth of Carl Berg, German entrepreneur and airship builder.

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February 5

• 2012 – MatlinPatterson, the private equity firm in control of World Airways and North American Airlines, takes its Global Aviation Holdings subsidiary carriers into Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization less than four years after shuttering fellow subsidiary carriers ATA Airlines and Arrow Air.

• 2010 – A Bell UH-1H Iroquois helicopter of the Brazilian Air Force crashed in Campo Grande.

• 2009 – Death of Franz Villinger, German aircraft designer who built one of the first Human powered aircraft.

• 2003 – 5-9 – Aero-India show is held at Bangalore with 176 companies from 22 countries participating.

• 1991 – A U. S. Navy F/A-18 C Hornet crashes in the northern Persian Gulf while returning to its aircraft carrier from a strike against Iraqi forces.

• 1987 – Launch of Soyuz TM-2, spacecraft used to launch a long duration crew to the Soviet space station Mir, first manned spaceflight of the Soyuz-TM spacecraft.

• 1982 – Laker Airways, wholly private, British independent airline operates its last flight.

• 1974 – Mariner 10, NASA spacecraft passes Venus, sending the first pictures.

• 1972 – Airlines in the United States begin mandatory inspection of passengers and baggage for weapons and explosives.

• 1972 – NASA and de Havilland Canada extensively modify a C-8 Buffalo for STOL experiments

• 1972 – Aeroflot and Lufthansa jointly open services between Moscow and Frankfurt-am-Main

• 1971 – Apollo 14 Mission – Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell aboard LM, Antares land on the Moon at Fra Mauro formation.

• 1968 – The first CF-5 A was taken on strength by the CAF.

• 1967 – Launch of Lunar Orbiter 3, NASA spacecraft designed to photograph areas of the lunar surface for confirmation of safe landing sites for the Surveyor and Apollo missions. It was also equipped to collect selenodetic, radiation intensity, and micrometeoroid impact data.

• 1962 – A Sikorsky HSS-2 Sea King of the US Navy sets a world helicopter speed record of 210.6 mph, in the course of a flight between Milford and New Haven, Connecticut.

• 1960 – First flight of the PZL TS-11 Iskra, (Polish for Spark), a Polish jet trainer aircraft.

• 1958 – A United States Air Force Boeing B-47E Stratojet, 51-2349A, of the 19th Bomb Wing out of Homestead AFB, Florida has ~0200 hrs. mid-air collision with USAF North American F-86L-50 Sabre, 52-10108 of the 444th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, Charleston AFB, South Carolina, on simulated combat mission near Sylvania, Georgia, jettisons Mark 15, Mod 0 nuclear bomb training weapon casing, No. 47782, from 7,200 feet (2,200 m) over Wassaw Sound off Tybee Beach, Georgia. Stratojet recovers to Hunter AFB, Georgia, bomb is still missing. The Pentagon disputes reports that the plutonium trigger WAS on the weapon. See also Tybee Bomb. The B-47 was subsequently scrapped. Sabre pilot ejects safely, and the B-47 crew are uninjured in emergency landing. Some accounts[who?] say pilot made three attempts to land, but the pilot has been quoted as saying he made a straight-in approach, as he wasn't about to risk additional flight time in the damaged bomber.

• 1958 – A Boeing B-47E-45-LM Stratojet, 52-0388, of the 22d Bombardment Wing, March AFB, California, disappears 50 miles WSW of San Miguel Island, California, over the Pacific at night during a Hairclipper mission. It apparently blew up. Three crew lost. No trace found.

• 1951 – The United States and Canada announce the establishment of the Distant Early Warning (DEW), the air defense system that uses more than 30 radar stations located across the northern portion of the continent.

• 1949 – An Eastern Air Lines Lockheed Constellation lands at LaGuardia, New York, at the end of a flight of 6 hours 18 min from Los Angeles, a coast-to-coast record for transport aircraft.

• 1947 – Birth of Mary Louise Cleave, American engineer and NASA astronaut.

• 1946 – TWA begins transatlantic service with the Lockheed Constellation flying the New York-Gander-Shannon-Paris route.

• 1945 – RCAF Air Transport Group was formed at Rockcliffe Ontario.

• 1944 – After nearly 7 months in the jungle of New Britain island, Papua New Guinea, Fred Hargesheimer, along with other downed airmen, is rescued by the USS Gato.

• 1943 – Douglas A-20 Havoc, 39-735, modified as prototype Douglas XP-70 night fighter, assigned to the 349th Night Fighter Squadron, 50th Fighter Group (Special), crashes on takeoff from Kissimmee Army Airfield, Florida, coming down 1/2 mile NW of the field, killing pilot James H. Toal. The Army Air Force decides at the end of March that the airframe is beyond repair and scraps it.

• 1941 – Focke Achgelis Fa 223 V1 crashes when right rotor pylon breaks off in flight. Test pilot Carl Bode (25 February 1911 - 16 November 2002) successfully parachutes from the stricken helicopter (quite possibly the first helicopter parachute attempt ever), but passenger Dr. Ing. Heinz Baer is killed in the crash.

• 1939 – Alex Henshaw Takes off his Percival Mew Gull from Gravesend near London to Cape Town in South Africa for a record breaking flight.

• 1938 – SSSR-V6 OSOAVIAKhIM, Soviet semi-rigid airship, collided with the high ground near Kandalaksha, 280 km south of Murmansk. Of the 19 people on board, 13 perished.

• 1933 – Death of James Herman Banning, American aviation pioneer, America’s first black aviator to fly coast-to-coast, killed in a plane crash during an air show near San Diego.

• 1932 – The first air-to-air clash of the Shanghai Incident takes place, between five Japanese aircraft from the aircraft carrier Hōshō and nine Nationalist Chinese fighters.

• 1931 – Death of Air Commodore Charles Rumney Samson CMG, DSO & Bar, AFC, British naval aviation pioneer.

• 1929 – Death of Ehrenfried Günther Freiherr von Hünefeld, German Aviation pioneer and initiator of the first trans-atlantic flight in East-West direction.

• 1929 – First flight of the Fairey Firefly II, a British fighter, single-seat, single-engine biplane of all-metal construction.

• 1929 – Frank Hawks and Oscar Grubb land their Lockheed Air Express in New York after a record flight of 18 hours 20 min from Los Angeles.

• 1927 – Birth of Jacob Louis Veldhuyzen van Zanten, Dutch aircraft captain and flight instructor, Captain of the ill-fated KLM Royal Dutch Airlines Boeing 747 which was involved in the Tenerife airport disaster.

• 1926 – First prototype Dewoitine D 12 French Fighter is written off in an accident at Cazaux.

• 1925 – Clyde V. Cessna, Walter Beech and Lloyd Stearman founded Travel Air Manufacturing Company Ltd.

• 1920 – The Royal Air Force College is established at Cranwell, Lincolnshire.

• 1920 – No. 2 Squadron, CAF, and No. 1 Canadian Wing Headquarters were disbanded in England.

• 1919 – Beginning of regular flights between Berlin and Weimar by the Deutsche Luft-Reederei with AEG and DFW biplanes.

• 1919 – Birth of George Preddy, American WWII fighter ace, top P-51 Mustang ace of WWII and 6th on the list of all-time highest scoring American aces.

• 1919 – Birth of Ion Dobran, Romanian WWII flying ace and airliner pilot.

• 1918 – Death of Harold Day, Welsh WWI flying ace, killed in action in his in his Sopwith Camel.

• 1918 – Death of Leonard Monteagle Barlow, MC and 2 Bars, British WWI flying ace, while test flying a Sopwith Dolphin which broke up in mid air.

• 1918 – 2nd Lt Stephen Thompson claims the first aerial victory for the US Air Service.

• 1916 – Entered Service: Vickers F. B.5 Gunbus with No. 5 Squadron RFC.

• 1913 – Greek military aviators, Michael Moutoussis and Aristeidis Moraitinis perform the first naval air mission in history, with a Farman MF.7 hydroplane.

• 1911 – The first undisputed aeroplane flight in New Zealand is made by Vivian Walsh at Auckland

• 1908 – Birth of Loris Pivetti, Italian WWII pilot.

• 1897 – Birth of Paul Joannes Sauvage, French WWI youngest flying ace.

• 1896 – Birth of Thomas Gantz Cassady, American WWI flying ace, WWII intelligence officer and Businessman.

• 1893 – Birth of Carrick Stewart Paul, New Zealand WWI flying ace.

• 1892 – Birth of Marcel Anatole Hugues, French WWI fighter ace, WWII pilot and commanding officer.

• 1891 – Birth of Carl “Charly” Degelow, German WWI fighter ace who also served in WWII, last person to win the military Pour le Merite (Blue Max).

• 1889 – Birth of Konstantin Alekseevic Kalinin, Russian engineer, pilot and aircraft designer.

• 1880 – Birth of Gabriel Voisin, aviation’s earliest pioneers and creator of Europe’s first manned, engine-powered, heavier-than-air aircraft capable of a sustained circular (1 km) controlled flight, including take-off and landing.

• 1861 – Birth of August von Parseval, German airship designer.

• 1840 – Birth of Hiram Stevens Maxim, British American-born inventor of the first portable, fully automatic machine gun and early aircraft designer.

• 1744 – Birth of John Jeffries, Boston physician, scientist, and military surgeon with the British Army in Nova Scotia and New York during the American Revolution. He is best known for accompanying Jean-Pierre Blanchard on his 1785 balloon flight across the English Channel.

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February 6

• 2011 – Launch of USA-225,(Rapid Pathfinder Prototype ‘RPP’ or NRO Launch 66 ‘NROL-66‘), American satellite to perform technology demonstration and development experiments, including advanced dosimeters to characterize the space environment from a 1,200 km low Earth orbit.

• 2009 – FedEx closes its first hub for the first time in history when their Asian-Pacific center at Subic Bay International Airports ceases operations, which were then transferred to Guangzhou Baiyun Airport in southern China.

• 2008 – First flight of the New Zealand design Falcomposite Furio, a carbon-fibre kit aircraft.

• 1998 – Washington National Airport is renamed Ronald Reagan National Airport.

• 1998 – Death of Anthony W. “Tony” LeVier, American air racer and test pilot for the Lockheed Corporation.

• 1998 – Andy Nelson and navigator Bertrand Piccard, lands the Breitling Orbiter II settind the world record for endurance at nine days and 17 hours – or, to be exact, 233 hours, and 55 min in an attempt of a round the world flight aborted as China did not did not allow them to fly avor the country.

• 1996 – Birgenair Flight 301, a Boeing 757, with 189 people on board, crashes into the ocean off Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic shortly after taking off. All passengers and crew are killed.

• 1992 – A Kentucky Air National Guard Lockheed C-130B Hercules, 58-0732, c/n 3527, of the 165th Tactical Airlift Squadron, stalls and crashes into the JoJo's restaurant and Drury Inn while practicing touch and go maneuvers at the Evansville, Indiana Airport. All five crew members and nine people on the ground were killed. Several others were injured.

• 1991 – Two U. S. Air Force F-15 C Eagles of the 36th Tactical Fighter Wing use AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles to shoot down four Iraqi Air Force aircraft – Two Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 s (NATO reporting name “Fishbed”) and two Sukhoi Su-25 s (NATO reporting name “Frogfoot”) – Fleeing to Iran at an altitude of about 100 feet (30 m).

• 1990 – A USAF General Dynamics F-111E-CF, 68-0001, known as "Balls 1", c/n A1-170 / E-11, out of RAF Upper Heyford, crashes into the North Sea off the east coast of England during a routine training mission, killing two crew. The Third Air Force identified the crew as pilot Capt. Clifford W. Massengill, 30, of Edenton, North Carolina, and WSO 1st Lt. Thomas G. Dorsett, 26, of Pensacola, Florida.

• 1983 – Death of Cyril Nelson ‘Kit’ Lowe, British WWI flying ace, International Rugby player and supposedly the inspiration for W. E. Johns’ character “Biggles”.

• 1978 – Senator Howard Cannon of Nevada introduces the airline Deregulation Act, which would be passed the next October.

• 1975 – Death of Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Rodney Park GCB, KBE, MC & Bar, DFC, RAF, New Zealand soldier, WWI flying ace and WWII Royal Air Force commander.

• 1972 – Canadian airport radar and communications technicians strike, halting all but military air traffic until March 2.

• 1971 – Alan Shepard makes a historical golf drive on the moon.

• 1968 – First flight of the Canadair CF-5 (officially designated the CF-116 Freedom Fighter), Canadair licensed-built version of the American Northrop F-5 Freedom Fighter aircraft primarily for the Canadian Forces.

• 1966 – Death of Bertram Hutchinson Smyth, British WWI flying ace.

• 1965 – LAN Chile Flight 107, a Douglas DC-6, crashed shortly after takeoff from Santiago-Los Cerrillos Airport in Santiago, Chile. All 87 passengers and crew on board are killed.

• 1964 – United Airlines puts the Boeing 727 into service, 5 days after delivery.

• 1962 – First flight of the FMA IA 50 Guaraní I, Argentine prototype utility aircraft, refined version of the Huanquero.

• 1961 – Birth of Col. Yuri Ivanovich Onufriyenko, Ukrainian-Russian cosmonaut.

• 1959 – First launch of a Martin Marietta SM-68 A/HGM-25 A Titan I, US first multistage ICBM.

• 1958 – In the Munich air disaster, a British European Airways Airspeed Ambassador operating as Flight 609 crashes during takeoff from Munich-Riem Airport, killing 23 of 44, including eight Manchester United footballers.

• 1956 – TWA Captain William Judd flew his Cessna 180 “Star of the Red Sea” non-stop from New York to Paris – A distance of more than 3600 miles across the North Atlantic.

• 1952 – Martin P4M-1Q Mercator, BuNo 124371, based in Port Lyautey, French Morocco, staging out of Nicosia, Cyprus. Operationally attached to NCU-32G. Returning from the Black Sea made an open ocean dead-stick landing east of Cyprus. Lt. Robert Hager, killed, 14 survivors rescued by HMS Chevron.

• 1948 – A new 100 km closed circuit speed record of 542mph is established by Squadron Leader W. A. Waterton, flying a Gloster Meteor IV.

• 1945 – The United States Coast Guard’s efforts to develop the United States Department of the Navy’s capability to use the helicopter as an antisubmarine warfare platform come to an end.

• 1944 – American forces complete the conquest and occupation of Kwajalein Atoll.

• 1943 – First flight of the Supermarine Type 322, a British prototype carrier borne torpedo, dive bomber and reconnaissance aircraft single engined monoplane.

• 1941 – Boeing B-17B Flying Fortress, 38-216, c/n 2009,[56] crashes near Lovelock, Nevada while en route to Wright Field, Ohio, killing all eight on board. Pilot Capt. Richard S. Freeman had shared the 1939 MacKay Trophy for the Boeing B-15 flight from Langley Field, Virginia via Panama and Lima, Peru at the request of the American Red Cross, for delivering urgently needed vaccines and other medical supplies in areas of Chile devastated by an earthquake. General Order Number 10, dated 3 March 1943, announces that the advanced flying school being constructed near Seymour, Indiana is to be named Freeman Field in honor of the Hoosier native.

• 1941 – A Trans-Canada Air Lines Lockheed 14H-2, Fin 38 [CF-TCP] crashed at Armstrong, Ontario. This was the first loss of passenger life for the airline.

• 1938 – Junkers Ju 90 V1, D-AALU, "Der Grosse Dessauer", combination of wings, engines, undercarriage and tail assembly of Junkers Ju 89 V3, Werknummer 4913, mated to a new transport fuselage, broke up in flight while undergoing flutter tests out of Dessau, Germany.

• 1938 – First successful in-flight separation of The Short-Mayo composite (Short S.21 Maia and Short S.20 Mercury seaplane) from the Shorts works at Borstal, near Rochester, Medway.

• 1933 – 6-8 – Gayford and Nicholetts make the first non-stop flight from England to South Africa in a Fairey Long-Range Monoplane. The 5,309 mile (8,544 km) flight is a new distance record. They take 57 hours 25 min.

• 1933 – 6-9 – Jim Mollison flies a de Havilland Puss Moth from the United Kingdom to Brazil, via Senegal, across South Atlantic. He becomes the first person to fly solo across the North and South Atlantics.

• 1933 – First flight of the Kawanishi E7K, a Japanese three-seat biplane reconnaissance floatplane.

• 1931 – Imperial Airways begins scheduled services between England and Africa using Armstrong Whitworth Argosys.

• 1923 – Deutsche Luft-Reederei, Early German Airline, and first German airline to use heavier than air aircraft, ceased operations.

• 1919 – Death of Edgar George Davies, British WWI flying ace, Killed in his SE.5a while trying a high-speed roll over Bickendorf Airfield.

• 1916 – Aircraft from the Imperial Russian Navy Black Sea Fleet’s seaplane carriers Imperator Nikolai I and Imperator Aleksandr I sink the Ottoman collier Irmingard (4,211 grt). Irmingard is the largest ship sunk by air attack in World War I.

• 1916 – The airline Deutsche Luft Reederei flies its first service, which is freight only, between Berlin and Weimar.

• 1896 – Birth of Arthur Clunie “Snowy” Randall, Scottish WWI flying ace.

• 1896 – Birth of Harold Alan Hamersley, Australian WWI fighter ace, Avro test pilot and WWII flying officer.

• 1895 – Birth of Kurt Wolff, Imperial Germany’s WWI fighter ace.

• 1892 – Birth of Guido Keller, Italian WWI pilot, poet and adventurer.

• 1892 – Birth of Ivan Alexandrovich Loiko, Russian WWI flying ace.

• 1890 – Birth of Gottfried von Banfield, most successful Austro-Hungarian WWI naval aeroplane pilot, known as the ‘Eagle of Trieste’. He may have been the only flying ace who flew a flying boat to five or more victories.

• 1883 – Birth of Dmitry Pavlovich Grigorovich, Russian/Soviet aircraft designer.

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February 7

• 2013 – The Japan Air Self-Defense Force scrambles four jet fighters to intercept two Russian Naval Aviation jets of the Red Banner Pacific Ocean Fleet which Japan claims violated Japanese airspace off the northwest tip of Hokkaido. The Russian Navy denies that the aircraft, which were participating in a military exercise, violated Japanese airspace.

• 2013 – Syrian Air Force jets attack the Damascus ring road with air-to-ground rockets to halt a rebel offensive.

• 2009 – In the 2009 Manaus Aerotáxi crash, a Manaus Aerotáxi Embraer EMB-110 Bandeirante crashes near Santo António, Brazil, killing 24 of the 28 aboard.

• 2008 – Launch: Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-122 at 19:45 UTC. Mission highlights: ISS assembly flight 1E: European Laboratory Columbus, crew rotation.

• 2007 – CH-46E Sea Knight from HMM-364 is shot down, by a shoulder-fired missile, in al-Karma, outside Fallujah, killing all 7 on board. (see picture above)

• 2001 – Launch: Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-98 at 18:13 pm EST. Mission highlights: ISS assembly flight 5A: Destiny lab.

• 2001 – Death of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, born Anne Spencer Morrow, pioneering American aviator, author, and spouse of fellow aviator Charles Lindbergh.

• 1999 – Launch of Stardust, NASA robotic space probe to study the asteroid 5535 Annefrank and collect samples from the coma of comet Wild 2.It is the first sample return mission to collect cosmic dust and return the sample to Earth and the first to acquire images of a previously visited comet.

• 1995 – Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of multiple airliner bombing-plots and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, is arrested in Islamabad, Pakistan.

• 1994 – Death of Richard M. Bissell, Jr., Jr., American CIA officer responsible for major projects such as the U-2 spy plane.

• 1994 – First launch of a Milstar Satellite (Military Strategic and Tactical Relay) operated by the USAF.

• 1990 – A USAF Fairchild-Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II crashes in the Black Mountains of Wales, ~eight miles S of Hay-on-Wye on the English border, less than 18 hrs. after an General Dynamics F-111 was lost in the North Sea. The unidentified A-10 pilot was killed. Gen. Marcus Anderson, commander of the Third Air Force, grounds all British-based tactical fighters for a one-day safety review, although an Air Force press spokesman said the two accidents were unrelated, calling it "a terrible coincidence" that they occurred so close together.

• 1984 – Astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger STS-41-B Mission, become the first to use the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) in space during the first untethered space walk. Mission Specialist Bruce McCandless II makes the most distant space walk from a spacecraft at 320 feet.

• 1981 – A Tupolev Tu-104 airliner belonging to the Soviet Pacific Fleet and carrying its top brass on the return from a staff maneuvers in Leningrad crashes on take-off at a military airfield in Pushkin, Leningrad oblast. Out of 52 aboard, including 16 generals and admirals and 20 captains, 51 are pronounced dead at the scene, and the co-pilot later dies in hospital from his injuries. Admiral Emil Spiridonov, Fleet's CO, was among the killed. The reason was later determined to be the improper loading of the plane, with a part of the cargo, two huge rolls of book paper, unsecured and shifting during the take-off, causing a wingstrike.

• 1980 – Death of Secondo Campini, Italian engineer and one of the pioneers of the jet engine.

• 1980 – Death of Richard Williams (RAAF officer), Australian WWI Pilot, WWII high-ranking officer, Australian director of Civil aviation postwar, first military pilot trained in Australia, widely regarded as the “father” of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF).

• 1978 – Death of Johannes Jensen (aviator), German WWI flying ace.

• 1977 – Launch of Soyuz 24, Soviet mission to the Salyut 5 space station, 3rd and final mission to the station, last purely military crew for the Soviets and the final mission to a military Salyut.

• 1973 – A US Navy LTV A-7E-8-CV Corsair II, BuNo 157539, c/n E-195, of VA-195 piloted by Lt. Robert Lee Ward, 28, one of two on a routine training flight to Sacramento, California from NAS Lemoore near Fresno, California, crashes at 2013 hrs. in Alameda, after breaking formation at 28,000 feet for unexplained reasons. Fighter strikes four-story Tahoe Apartments building at 1814 Central Avenue in the city center with fire spreading to other structures, killing pilot and ten civilians, 26 injured. Navy inquiry found evidence of a cockpit fire involving the pilot's oxygen hose, and that the in-flight blaze was "very near" Ward's oxygen mask. Speculation that smoking could have caused it, but no proof. Lawsuits for more than $700,000 were filed in connection with the disaster, including a $500,000 damage action filed in Alameda County Superior Court by owner of the demolished 36-unit Tahoe Apartments.

• 1971 – Death of Alfred Atkey, Canadian WWI fighter ace.

• 1964 – The Canadian Golden Hawks aerobatic team is disbanded.

• 1963 – Birth of Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, American Naval officer and a former NASA astronaut.

• 1956 – Death of Hugh Trenchard, 1st Viscount Trenchard, British officer who was instrumental in establishing the RAF, described as the Father of the Royal Air Force.

• 1938 – Squadron Leader J. W. Gillan of N° 111 Squadron, makes headline news when he flies his Hawker Hurricane from Edinburgh in Scotland to Northolt in Middlesex at an average speed of 657kph (408 mph). The night flight benefited from a strong tail wind.

• 1937 – The prototype Blackburn B-24 Skua two-seat fighter/dive-bomber makes its maiden flight, piloted by “Dasher” Blake at Brough, Yorkshire. It is Britain’s first dive-bomber.

• 1934 – The first airmail flight between Australia and New Zealand is made by Charles Ulm in an Avro Ten, taking 14 hours 10 min.

• 1932 – Birth of Alfred Worden, American test pilot and astronaut who was the command module pilot for the Apollo 15 Moon Mission, one of only 24 people to have flown to the Moon.

• 1931 – Sole Boeing XP-15, (Boeing Model 202), NX270V, c/n 1151, accepted by the U.S.Army for testing at Wright Field but never actually purchased, so no USAAC serial, suffers propeller blade failure during a high-speed dash, unbalanced engine tears from mounts.

• 1928 – Bert Hinkler leaves Croydon in an Avro Avian, attempting the first solo flight from England to Australia. He will arrive in Darwin on February 22.

• 1927 – Georgetown University medical school in Washington, D. C., offers the first aviation medicine course in the United States.

• 1926 – Birth of Konstantin Petrovich Feoktistov, Soviet cosmonaut and eminent space engineer.

• 1920 – French aviator Joseph Sadi-Lecointe, piloting a Nieuport-Delage 29 V, becomes the first pilot to set a new Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI) world speed record after World War I. He reaches a measured speed of 171.141 mph along the 3,280-foot course.

• 1918 – During U.S. Navy tests of a converted Curtiss N-9 biplane as an unpiloted flying bomb, equipped with a Sperry automatic control, Lawrence Sperry takes it up to prove airworthiness of the design, crashes, but pilot unhurt.

• 1917 – Imperial German Navy Zeppelin LZ82 L 36, damaged during landing in fog at Rehben-an-der-Aller and decommissioned.

• 1906 – Birth of Oleg Antonov, Soviet aircraft designer, founder of Antonov ASTC, world-famous aircraft company.

• 1903 – Death of James Glaisher FRS, English meteorologist and aeronaut.

• 1897 – Birth of James Green (aviator), British WWI flying ace.

• 1894 – Birth of Arthur Coadou, French WWI flying ace, who also served in WWII.

• 1889 – Birth of Otto Hartmann, German WWI flying ace.

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February 8

• 2011 – A Royal Jordanian Air Force General Dynamics F-16AM Fighting Falcon crashed in central Jordan, killing the pilot.

• 2010 – First flight of the Boeing 747-8 in the United States.

• 2010 – Launch: Space Shuttle Endeavour STS-130 at 09:14 UTC. Mission highlights: ISS assembly flight 20A: Node 3 and Cupola.

• 2008 – Eagle Airways Flight 2279, a BAe Jetstream 32, is hijacked ten minutes after taking off from Blenheim, New Zealand by a passenger who attacked both pilots. The hijacker is eventually restrained by the co-pilot and the flight lands safely at Christchurch. All nine on board survive the incident.

• 2006 – Steve Fossett takes off The Scaled Composites Model 311 Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer for a world endurance record.

• 1999 – First flight of the Tupolev Tu-334, a Russian short to medium range airliner project that was developed to replace the aging Tu-134 s and Yak-42 s

• 1993 – Iran Air Tours Tupolev Tu-154 departing on a non-scheduled flight from Mehrabad International Airport, Tehran, to Khoram Dareh is involved in a midair collision with an Iranian Air Force Sukhoi Su-24 that was on approach to the same airport.

• 1989 – Independent Air Flight 1851, a Boeing 707, crashes into a hill on approach to Santa Maria, the Azores. All 144 people on board are killed.

• 1988 – The Federal Aviation Administration retires an aircraft registration number for the first time – That of Amelia Earhart’s airplane, which disappeared over the Pacific in July 1937.

• 1982 – Death of Vladimir Yevgeniyevich Turovets, Russian test pilot in the crash of a Mi-8 Helicopter.

• 1974 – The crew of Skylab 4 leaves the American space station for the last time.

• 1974 – A USAF Boeing B-52G Stratofortress, 58-0174, of the 744th BS, 456th BW, veered off the runway during night take-off from Beale AFB, California, skidded 1,500 feet through a muddy field before overturning, destroyed by four massive explosions and fire. One crew member, the first pilot, was thrown free with severe burns, but seven others perished.

• 1967 – First flight of the Saab 37 Viggen, a Swedish single-seat, single-engine, short-medium range fighter and attack aircraft.

• 1966 – Freddie Laker founds Laker Airways

• 1965 – Eastern Air Lines Flight 663, a Douglas DC-7B on takeoff, overreacts in avoiding Pan Am Flight 212 (a Boeing 707) on approach, loses control, and crashes into the ocean several miles off Jones Beach State Park, New York, killing all 84 on board.

• 1958 – A nuclear weapon was inadvertently dropped from a Boeing B-52D Stratofortress bomber parked at a pad and ready to be unloaded at Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota. Preliminary reports indicated that an airman erred and pulled the manual release handle which released the weapon from the bomb bay and through the unopened bomb bay doors. Damage to the weapon included a dented afterbody, two smashed fins, and a displaced secondary. There was no capsule aboard the aircraft. The bomb was loaded aboard a trailer and removed to the Q Area weapons maintenance depot (Site F) at Rushmore Air Force Station, South Dakota, adjacent to Ellsworth AFB. The damaged weapon was later exchanged for an operational weapon from stockpile.

• 1956 – A flight of eight Royal Air Force Hawker Hunter F1s was redirected to another airfield due to inclement weather. With low visibility over the alternate airfield and little fuel left, six aircraft ran out of fuel and crashed, with one pilot killed.

• 1951 – First flight of the Leduc 0.16, a French research aircraft powered solely by a ramjet, evolution of the 0.10 featuring a Turbomeca Marbore I turbojet on each wingtip, to provide better control during landings

• 1950 – A Lockheed P-2 Neptune of the US Navy establishes a distance record for carrier-launched aircraft flying 5,156 miles in 25 hours 59 min, non-stop from the Atlantic to San Francisco.

• 1943 – The second Bell XP-39E Airacobra (of three), 41-19502, is damaged during a forced landing when a Wright Field test pilot runs out of fuel short of Niagara Falls Airport, New York, where the Bell Aircraft plant is located.

• 1941 – Prototype Curtiss XSB2C Helldiver, BuNo 1758, suffers engine failure just prior to landing and fuselage is heavily damaged. Repaired.

• 1941 – A fleet of Junkers Ju 52s is used to airlift German troops to North Africa.

• 1933 – Squadron Leader O Gayford (officer in charge of the RAF Long Range Development Unit) and his navigator Flight Lieutenant G. E. Nicholetts lands their Fairey Long-Range Monoplane at Walvis Bay, South West Africa. Coming from Cranwell they set a 5,309 mile (8,544 km) flight, new distance record. They took 57 hours 25 min.

• 1933 – First flight of the Boeing 247, an early US airliner, considered the first such aircraft to fully incorporate advances such as all-metal (anodized aluminum) semi-monocoque construction, a fully cantilevered wing and retractable landing gear.

• 1928 – Charles Lindbergh with the Spirit of St Louis completes the 7,800-mile (12,600 km) “Good Will Tour” of Latin America and the Caribbean after having spent 125 hours in the air.

• 1919 – Henry Farman carries 11 paying passengers in his F.60 Goliath plane from Paris to London on first commercial flight between the two cities.

• 1918 – Lafayette Escadrille, the US volunteer squadron serving in the French Army is transferred to the US Army and re-designated the 103rd Aero Squadron.

• 1917 – First allied pilot to shoot down a German heavy bomber is French Georges Guynemer, bringing down a Gotha G.III with his Spad VII.

• 1914 – 8-10 – Berliner, Haase and Nikolai fly 3053 km in their free balloon from Bitterfeld to Perm. This record lasted until 1950.

• 1913 – Russian pilot N. de Sackoff becomes the first pilot shot down in combat when his biplane, possibly a Maurice Farman MF.7, is hit by ground fire following bomb run on the walls of Fort Bizani during the First Balkan War. Flying for the Greeks, he comes down near small town of Preveza, on the coast N of the Aegean island of Levkas, secures local Greek assistance, repairs plane and resumes flight back to base.

• 1912 – Robert Grant Fowler lands his Wright biplane in Jacksonville, Florida, after a 4 months west to east coast-to-coast journey. coming from San Francisco. He becomes the first person to traverse the US from the West Coast to the East Coast.

• 1912 – Birth of Horst Ademeit, German WWII fighter ace.

• 1909 – Birth of Wassili Iwanowitsch Rakow, Soviet WWII Pilot and high-ranking officer.

• 1908 – First flight of the Gastambide-Mengin monoplane, (later Gastambide-Mengin I, Gastambide-Mengin II and Antoinette II), early French experimental aircraft designed by Leon Levavasseur and first aircraft built by the Antoinette company.

• 1902 – Birth of Gori Castellani, Italian raid aviator.

• 1899 – Birth of Lester James Maitland, American aviation pioneer and a veteran pilot of WWI and WWII.

• 1896 – Birth of Bruce Digby-Worsley, British WWI fighter ace.

• 1894 – Birth of Air Marshal William Avery “Billy” Bishop VC, CB, DSO & Bar, MC, DFC, ED, Canadian WWI flying ace, officially credited with 72 victories, making him the top Canadian ace, and according to some sources, the top ace of the British Empire.

• 1894 – Birth of Erich Bönisch, German WWI flying ace.

• 1892 – Birth of William Spurrett Fielding-Johnson, British WWI flying ace.

• 1892 – Birth of Wilhelm Fahlbusch, German WWI flying ace.

• 1886 – Birth of Gunther Plüschow, German aviator, aerial explorer and author, Only German Prisoner of war (in either WW) to escape from Britain back to Germany.

• 1884 – Birth of John Theodore Cuthbert Moore-Brabazon, first Baron Brabazon of Tara, GBE, MC, PC, English aviation pioneer and politician, first Englishman to pilot a heavier-than-air machine under power in England, who he served as Minister of Transport and Minister of Aircraft Production during WWII.

• 1882 – Birth of Thomas Etholen Selfridge, first person to die in a crash of a powered airplane. He was a passenger while Orville Wright was piloting the Wright Flyer.

• 1862 – Birth of Ferdinand Ferber, French Army artillery captain who played an important role in the development of aviation.

• 1825 – Birth of Henri Giffard, French engineer, who invented the steam injector and the powered airship.

References

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February 9

• 2010 – A Bell AH-1 Cobra gunship helicopter of the Pakistan Air Force crashed in the Teera Valley in Pakistan's Khyber tribal area near the Afghanistan's border. Both the pilot and gunner lost their lives in the incident.

• 2009 – A Royal Air Force BAE Systems Harrier T.10 (ZH656) on a routine training exercise from No. 20 Squadron (R) Operational conversion unit based at RAF Wittering crashes on the runway at Royal Air Force Station Akrotiri, Cyprus. The 2 crew ejected safely from the aircraft which was damaged in a fire.

• 2009 – A leased Pilatus U-28A, 06-0692, with three personnel of the 319th Special Operations Squadron, 1st Special Operations Wing on board, based at Hurlburt Field, Florida, makes a gear-up landing at Craig Field (Alabama) at Selma, Alabama (formerly Craig Air Force Base), whilst performing simulated engine failure approach, breaking off nosewheel and causing severe damage to nosewheel strut assembly, propeller and main undercarriage doors. A board of officers will investigate the 1415 hrs. incident in which there were no injuries. This accident has been classified as a Class A accident, indicating that fairly substantial damage was incurred. Aircraft repaired and reported flying again by 29 April 2009.

• 2006 – Andrew Keech sets 3 world records for autogyros: Speed over a closed circuit of 500 km (311 mi) without payload: 168.29 km/h (104.57 mph), speed over a closed circuit of 1,000 km (621 mi) without payload: 165.07 km/h (102.57 mph), and distance over a closed circuit without landing: 1,019.09 km (633.23 mi).

• 2006 – Death of Sir Frederick Alfred Laker, British airline entrepreneur, best known for founding Laker Airways.

• 2005 – (9-13) Aero-India show in Bangalore, India.

• 2004 – Death of Janusz Zurakowski, renowned Polish WWII fighter and test pilot.

• 1997 – First flight of the Boeing 737 Next Generation

• 1996 – Death of Adolf “Dolfo” Joseph Ferdinand Galland, German Luftwaffe General and flying ace who served throughout WWII in Europe.

• 1995 – Space Shuttle astronauts Bernard A. Harris, Jr. and Michael Foale become the first African American and first Briton, respectively, to perform spacewalks during the Space Shuttle Columbia STS-55 mission.

• 1995 – 9-12 – Heavy fighting continues between Peru and Ecuador. Peruvian and Ecuadorian air forces step up their activities.

• 1993 – Death of Elwood Richard “Pete” Quesada, CB, CBE, USAF General, FAA administrator and also a raid pilot.

• 1991 – A U. S. Navy A-6E badly damages an Iraqi Zhuk-class patrol boat with a Rockeye cluster bomb.

• 1989 – Entered Service: Boeing 747-400 with Northwest Airlines.

• 1985 – An armed USAF Fairchild-Republic A-10A Thunderbolt II, 78-0723, crashed into a cliff in Oak Creek Canyon just north of Sedona, Arizona during a morning rainstorm. A military demolitions crew was sent in to recover unexploded munitions and the canyon was closed to traffic for several days. The lone pilot, attached to the 354th Tactical Fighter Wing at Myrtle Beach Air Force Base, South Carolina, was killed.

• 1983 – British Airways begins Boeing 757 service.

• 1982 – Japan Airlines Flight 350, a Douglas DC-8-61, crashes on approach to Tokyo International Airport (Haneda); of the 166 passengers and 8 crew, 24 passengers are killed.

• 1978 – Launch of FLTSATCOM 1, American satellite communication system of the U. S. Navy used for UHF radio communications between ships, submarines, airplanes and ground stations of the U. S. Navy.

• 1977 – Death of Sergey Vladimirovich Ilyushin, Soviet aircraft designer who founded the Ilyushin aircraft design bureau.

• 1975 – Death of Fritz Wendel, German Messerschmitt test pilot during WWII.

• 1975 – Soyuz 17 returns to earth after setting a Soviet mission-duration record of 29 days on a trip to the Salyut 4 space station.

• 1975 – A Luftwaffe Transall C-160D, 50+63, c/n D-85, one of three en route from Hohn Air Base, West Germany, to Chanea-Souda Airport, Crete, Greece, strikes 5,000-foot Mount Koukoules in a snow storm, killing all 42 on board.

• 1974 – A USAF North American T-39A Sabreliner, 60-3506, returning to McClellan AFB, California collides with a USAF Boeing NKC-135A Stratotanker at 23,000 feet, over Peterson Field, Colorado, killing all seven on board the T-39. The Sabreliner had experienced landing gear trouble, rendezvoused with the NKC-135 for a look-over, accidentally striking the rear fuselage and fin of the Boeing. The NKC-135, en route from Seattle, Washington, to Kirtland AFB, New Mexico, lands safely.

• 1974 – Two USAF Republic F-105 Thunderchiefs of the 457th TFTW (TH tailcode), Carswell AFB, Texas, suffer mid-air collision, downing one aircraft ~1 mile from Holliday, Texas, with the pilot ejecting, suffering broken right leg on landing, recovered by helicopter. Second F-105 recovers to Carswell despite damage, pilot uninjured. 1st Lt. Hayes C. Kirby in F-105D-10-RE, 60-5375, had a violent pitch up and roll in the aircraft and hit his leader in F-105D-10-RE, 60-0513. Ejected in a flat spin. Leader landed okay.

• 1972 – First flight of the Boeing E-3 Sentry (EC-137D), an American airborne warning and control system (AWACS) prototype derived from the Boeing 707 which will lead to the final version of the E-3 Sentry.

• 1971 – Apollo 14 returns to earth following the third manned Moon mission.

• 1969 – First flight of the Boeing 747 “Jumbo Jet” airliner takes place in Seattle, Washington. The wide-bodied, long-range transport is capable of carrying 347 passengers, and is the largest aircraft in commercial airline service in the world.

• 1963 – First flight of the Boeing 727, an American mid-size, narrow-body, three-engine, T-tailed commercial jet airliner.

• 1960 – Birth of Peggy Annette Whitson, American biochemistry researcher, NASA astronaut and NASA’s Chief Astronaut.

• 1960 – The US Air Force opens its National Space Surveillance Control Centre at Bedford, Massachusetts..

• 1959 – The R-7 Semyorka (NATO name SS-6 Sapwood) becomes the world’s first operational intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) at Plesetsk, USSR.

• 1955 – First flight of the Convair CV-540

• 1959 – Introduction: Morane-Saulnier MS.760 Paris

• 1954 – Birth of Prof. Dr. Ulrich Hans Walter, German physicist/engineer and a former DFVLR astronaut.

• 1945 – Balloon bombs launched by Japan were found near Moose Jaw, Sask.

• 1945 – In an event that would later be known as “Black Friday, ” a large force of 46 Allied Bristol Beaufighter, North American P-51 Mustang and Warwick aircraft suffers heavy casualties over the coast of Norway during an unsuccessful attack on German destroyer Z33 and its escorting vessels. Only 37 planes would return to base, with 14 airmen killed in action and four taken as POWs, while four Luftwaffe Focke-Wulf Fw 190 s would be shot down, killing only two pilots and seven sailors.

• 1943 – Death of Sahei Yamashita, Japanese WWII fighter ace, killed in action.

• 1939 – Alex Henshaw sets a new speed record for the round trip between England and Cape Town in 4 days 10 min in a Percival Mew

• 1937 – First flight of the Blackburn Skua, a British carrier-based low-wing, two-seater, single-radial engine aircraft operated by the British Fleet Air Arm which combined the functions of a dive bomber and fighter..

• 1936 – Tommy Rose lands at Wingfield Aerodrome in Cape Town, South Africa, after a record flight from England of 3 days 17 hours 38 min.

• 1934 – Douglas O-35 s and B-7 s are flown by the Army Air Corps after President Roosevelt cancels commercial airmail contracts.

• 1933 – Jim Mollison lands his de Havilland Puss Moth in Natal, Brazil. He flew from Lympne via Senegal, across South Atlantic, becoming the first person to fly solo across the North and South Atlantics.

• 1916 – First flight of the Sopwith Pup flown by Harry Hawker.

• 1914 – U.S. Army Lt. Henry Post exceeds his previous altitude records by reaching 12,140 feet. During descent, the Wright Model C, Signal Corps 10, aircraft sustained damage (wing collapsed) and crashed into San Diego Bay, killing Lt. Post. On 24 February, due to a large number of accidents and deaths, an Army board at the Signal Corps, Aviation School, San Diego, condemned all pusher airplanes. This recommendation basically condemned all Wright aircraft, which were all pushers.

• 1914 – Death of Henry Burnet Post, American pioneer aviator, when the right wing of his hydro-aeroplane crumpled in San Diego Bay.

• 1910 – Birth of Dan Vizanti, Romanian WWII fighter ace.

• 1907 – Birth of Charles Alfred ‘Chief’ Anderson, known as ‘the father of Black Aviation’, first African American to earn a transport, or commercial, pilot’s license, raid pilot and instructor for the Tuskegee airmen in WWII.

• 1899 – Birth of John Arthur Aldridge, British WWI flying ace who also served with the Air Training Corps in WWII.

• 1897 – Charles Kingsford Smith, Australian pilot, was born (d. 1935). Sir Charles Edward Kingsford “Smithy” Smith made the first trans-Pacific flight from the United States to Australia. He also made the first non-stop crossing of the Australian mainland, the first flights between Australia and New Zealand, and the first eastward Pacific crossing from Australia to the United States.

• 1895 – Birth of Stanley Cockerell, British WWI flying ace and test pilot for Vickers.

• 1895 – Birth of Max Valier, Austrian rocketry pioneer.

• 1894 – Birth of Alexandre Paul Leon Madeleine Marty, French WWI flying ace.

• 1894 – Birth of Helmut Dilthey, German WWI flying ace.

• 1875 – Birth of Modesto Panetti, Italian Aeronautical Engineer and politician.

• 1861 – Birth of Rudolf Max Wilhelm Hans Bartsch von Sigsfeld, German airship designer and pilot.

References

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February 10

• 2011 – A Peruvian Air Force Zlin Z-242L crashed at Pisco airfield, Peru killing the two crew.

• 2011 – Manx2 Flight 7100 from Belfast, operated by Fairchild Swearingen Metroliner EC-ITP leased from Flightline BCN of Barcelona, overturns on its third attempt to land at Cork, Republic of Ireland in fog, killing six and injuring six.

• 2010 – A Eurocopter AS350 helicopter of the Brazilian Army crashed while training tactical piloting maneuvering at Sao Pedro da Aldeia naval base, about 130 kilometers (81 mi) away from Rio de Janeiro city.

• 2009 – The communications satellites Iridium 33 and Kosmos-2251 collide in orbit 490 miles (789 km) above Siberia at a speed of 26,170 miles per hour (42,120 km/h).This was the first major collision of two satellites in Earth orbit. Both satellites were destroyed.

• 2004 – Kish Air Flight 7170, a Fokker 50, crashes at Sharjah International Airport, killing 43 people. Three survive with serious injuries.

• 2000 – Death of Igor Bensen, Russian born American engineer, founder of the Bensen Aircraft, which produced a successful line of Gyro-gliders (rotor kites) and Autogyros. He founded the Popular Rotorcraft Association in 1962, a non-profit interest group for owners and homebuilders of auto-gyros and helicopters, based in Mentone, Indiana.

• 1997 – Death of Amron Harry Katz, American physicist who specialized in aerial reconnaissance.

• 1995 – The prototype Antonov An-70 is destroyed after a mid-air collision with an An-72 chase plane. All seven aboard are killed in the crash.

• 1995 – Two Peruvian Sukhoi Su-22 Ms are shot down by a pair of Ecuadorian Mirage F.1JAs. Almost simultaneously, a Peruvian Cessna A-37 B is also shot down by an Ecuadorian Kfir C.2.

• 1993 – McDonnell Douglas produces its 10,000th aircraft

• 1991 – U. S. Navy A-6 Es sink two Iraqi Navy patrol boats in the northern Persian Gulf. Iraqi antiaircraft artillery shoots down a U. S. Marine Corps AV-8 B Harrier II over southern Kuwait.

• 1988 – The pilot of an General Dynamics F-16A Block 15J Fighting Falcon, 82–0909, c/n 61–0502, ejected safely when his plane caught fire and crashed on take-off at Moody Air Force Base in south Georgia. Problems occurred during a routine practice flight. Witnesses said the aircraft climbed straight into the air during take-off and exploded into flames before hitting the ground. The plane was assigned to Moody.

• 1982 – The flight of the Argus 10742 from Summerside to Rockcliffe for delivery to National Aviation Museum. The Argus overflew Canadair plant in a final salute.

• 1981 – Two United States Marine Corps helicopters (a CH-46 and a CH-53) collide over Tustin MCAS in California, United States, six killed.

• 1977 – Death of George John Dufek, American naval officer, naval aviator, and Arctic expert.

• 1975 – The Royal Australian Navy suffers its only operational Grumman S-2E Tracker loss during approximately 17 years of operation of the type when N12-153608 is lost at sea with two fatalities.

• 1971 – Death of Alfred Clayburn Atkey, Canadian WWI fighter ace.

• 1968 – Birth of Garrett Erin Reisman, American engineer and NASA astronaut.

• 1967 – First flight of the Dornier Do 31, a West German experimental VTOL jet transport.

• 1964 – The Royal Australian Navy aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne (R21) collides with the destroyer HMAS Voyager (D04) during exercises off of Jervis Bay, Australia, slicing the destroyer in two and killing 82 of Voyager's sailors.

• 1964 – Death of Eugen Sänger, Austrian-German aerospace engineer best known for his contributions to lifting body and ramjet technology.

• 1963 – Death of Isidore Auguste Marie Louis Paulhan, known as Louis Paulhan, pioneering French aviator who flew “Le Canard”, the world's first seaplane.

• 1962 – American U-2 pilot Gary Powers, shot down and arrested in the U. S. S. R. May 1st 1960, is exchanged along with American student Frederic Pryor in a well publicized spy swap for Soviet KGB Colonel Vilyam Fisher (aka Rudolf Abel), a Soviet colonel who was caught by the FBI and put in jail for espionage, at the Glienicke Bridge in Berlin, Germany.

• 1953 – Death of William Spurrett Fielding-Johnson, British WWI flying ace.

• 1952 – Maj George A. Davis Jr is awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously, after attacking a group of 12 Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15s that were about to bounce other US aircraft. He shot down two before being shot down himself.

• 1949 – USAF Douglas A-26B-66-DL Invader, 44–34719, out of Greenville AFB, South Carolina, piloted by Robert L. Kenyon, crashes at Waples Pond, Delaware - four killed.

• 1945 – German Junkers Ju 88 s attack Convoy JW 64 in the Arctic Ocean.

• 1944 – American Airlines Flight 2, a Douglas DC-3, crashes into the Mississippi River for reasons unknown, killing all 24 occupants (21 passengers and 3 crew members).

• 1943 – A U. S. Army Air Forces Antisubmarine Command B-24D Liberator sinks a German submarine, apparently U-519, in the North Atlantic Ocean, the first submarine sunk by the command.

• 1942 – A Hawker Hurricane Mk. I, P3664, of No. 55 OTU, based at RAF Usworth,[109] crashes in bad weather in an orchard opposite the High Marley Hill Radio Mast, killing RCAF Sergeant Pilot James D’Arcy Lees Graham, 24, of Carstairs, Alberta. The Air Ministry Crash Card records that the fighter flew into high ground in a squall, the weather deteriorated and the aircraft dived out of low cloud into a snow squall and failed to pull out of the dive. The pilot was interred at St Margaret's Church Cemetery, Castletown, Sunderland.

• 1941 – Britain uses paratroops for the first time in an attack on Tragino

• 1941 – (overnight) – 222 British bombers attack Hanover, Germany, losing seven of their number, and 43 others attack oil storage tanks in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. In the Rotterdam raid, the Short Stirling makes its combat debut as the United Kingdom's first four-engined heavy bomber.

• 1936 – First flight of the Fiat BR.20, an Italian low-wing twin-engine medium bomber.

• 1935 – First flight of the A. N. F. Les Mureaux 180, a French Single engine High wing monoplane 2 seat fighter prototype, evolution of the ANF Les Mureaux 170.

• 1933 – First flight of the Hawker Demon

• 1930 – An Air Union Farman F.63 Goliath crashes while attempting an emergency landing at Marden Airfield, Marden, Kent due to structural failure, killing 2 of 6 on board.

• 1929 – Evelyn “Bobbi” Trout broke the record for the first all-night flight by a woman as well as and the new women's solo endurance record flying more than 17 hours in an open cockpit Bruner Winkle biplane .Trout flew from Mines Field USA.

• 1925 – The 1030 hrs. crash of a Curtiss JN-6H, AS-44806, ~2 miles (3.2 km) E of Brooks Field, Texas, kills instructor 1st Lt. Arthur L. Foster along with Maj. Lee O. Wright. Foster Field at Victoria, Texas is later dedicated to the pilot on 22 February 1942. Foster's widow, Mrs. Ruth Young Foster, of San Antonio, Texas, unveiled a plaque that read "Dedicated to the memory of Lieut. Arthur Lee Foster, a pioneer in aviation who gave his life teaching others to fly." Foster Field was designated Foster Air Force Base on an inactive status on 1 September 1952, by Department of the Air Force General Order No. 38, dated 29 August 1952.

• 1925 – Pacific Airways Ltd. was formed by D. R. MacLaren and took over the fishery patrol from the RCAF.

• 1923 – An experimental night flight arrives to Le Bourget, France, from Croydon, England. The pilot has given his position by radio and used the aviation light beacons to make his approach.

• 1914 – Berliner, Haase and Nikolai land their free balloon in Perm, setting a new distance record of 3053 km from Bitterfeld.

• 1913 – Birth of Federico Cozzolino, Italian Aviator.

• 1903 – Birth of George John Dufek, American naval officer, naval aviator, and Arctic expert.

• 1898 – Birth of Thomas Sydney Chiltern, British WWI flying ace.

• 1897 – Birth of Erik Thomas, German WWI flying ace.

• 1892] – Birth of Roland Rohlfs, American early aviator and test pilot.

• 1891 – Birth of Air Marshal Sir William Lawrie Welsh KBE, DSC, AFC, British Royal Air Force officer who commanded British air operations during Operation Torch and also a WWI RNAS Pilot.

References

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February 11

• 2010 – Click Mexicana Flight 7222, operated by Fokker 100 XA-SHJ suffered an undercarriage malfunction on approach to Quetzalcóatl International Airport, Nuevo Laredo. A low fly-past confirmed that both main gears had not deployed. The aircraft diverted to General Mariano Escobedo International Airport, Monterrey, where it was substantially damaged in the landing, having departed the runway and spun through 180°.

• 2010 – An Italian Air Force General Dynamics F-16A Fighting Falcon from 5th Fighter Wing crashed into the Adriatic Sea 3 nautical miles (5.6 km) from the coast near Ravenna at 1530 hrs. when he was training with another aircraft of the same unit. Pilot survived.

• 2010 – Trigana Air Service Flight 168, operated by ATR-42-300F PK-YRP made a forced landing in a paddy field at Bone, Indonesia. Two people were seriously injured and the aircraft was written off.

• 2009 – Two Grob G 115 Tutor aircraft collided above Porthcawl, South Wales killing four people. The aircraft took off from RAF St Athan shortly before. Among the dead were two female teenage cousins and two instructor pilots. See Porthcawl Mid-Air Collision.

• 2008 – Adam Aircraft Industries (AAI), American aircraft manufacturer ceased operations.

• 2008 – Death of Frank Piasecki, American engineer and helicopter aviation pioneer. Piasecki pioneered tandem rotor helicopter designs and created the compound helicopter concept of vectored thrust using a ducted propeller.

• 2007 – A British C-130 Hercules is destroyed by coalition forces after being heavily damaged in a night landing in southern Iraq; two are injured. The aircraft was struck by two improvised explosive devices placed by insurgents, upon landing at a temporary runway in Maysan Province.

• 2006 – Steve Fossett set the absolute world record for “distance without landing” by flying his GlobalFlyer from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, around the world eastbound, then upon returning to Florida continuing across the Atlantic a second time to land in Bournemouth, England. The official distance was 25,766 statute miles (41,467 km) and the duration was 76 hours 45 min.

• 2002 – First flight of the Airbus A340-500, European long-range wide-body four engine jet airliner.

• 2000 – Jacqueline Auriol, French aviatrix, dies (b. 1917). Auriol earned a military pilot license 1950 then qualified as one of the first female test pilots. She was among the first women to break the sound barrier and set five world speed records. Her exploits earned her the Harmon Trophy 1951 and aga1952.

• 2000 – JetBlue commences operations out of New York’s JFK Airport.

• 2000 – Launch: Space Shuttle Endeavour STS-99 at 12:43 EST (17:43 UTC). Mission highlights: Shuttle Radar Topography Mission.

• 1997 – Launch: Space Shuttle Discovery STS-82 at 3:55:17 am EST. Mission highlights: Tethered satellite reflight, lost due to broken tether.

• 1995 – STS-63, NASA Space Shuttle Discovery, second mission of the US/Russian Shuttle-Mir Program, which carried out the first rendezvous of the American Space Shuttle with Russia’s space station Mir, is back on earth.

• 1993 – An Ethiopian man, Nebiu Demeke, hijacks Lufthansa Flight 592, an Airbus A310-300 with 103 other people on board, during a flight from Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He forces the aircraft to fly to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, where he surrenders to authorities without further incident. It is the first transatlantic hijacking since 1976.

• 1992 – An F-16 jet crashes in residential district in the Netherlands. There are no fatalities.

• 1991 – U. S. Air Force F-15 C Eagles of the 36th Tactical Fighter Wing use AIM-7 Sparrow missiles to shoot down two Iraqi helicopters.

• 1988 – USMC McDonnell-Douglas AV-8B-4 Harrier II, BuNo 162071, c/n 512020/20, of VMA-331, crashes at Nellis AFB, Nevada, following engine flame-out.

• 1987 – Following its privatization, British Airways shares begin trading on the London Stock Exchange.

• 1986 – United completes its purchase of Pan Am’s Pacific division for $715 million and begins service to an additional 11 cities for a total of 13 cities in 10 Pacific Rim countries.

• 1985 – Death of Benjamin L. Abruzzo, American hot air balloonist and businessman, Killed in the crash of his Cessna 421 near Albuquerque.

• 1984 – Landed: Space shuttle Challenger STS-41-B at 12:15:55 UTC Kennedy Space Center. Mission highlights: Comsat deployments, first untethered spacewalk by Bruce McCandless II with Manned Maneuvering Unit; first landing at KSC; dry run of equipment for Solar Max rescue.

• 1978 – Pacific Western Airlines Flight 314, a Boeing 737-200, from Edmonton crashes at Cranbrook Airport after thrust reversers did not fully stow following a rejected landing, killing 42 of the 48 people on board.

• 1976 – Death of Alexander Martin Lippisch, German pioneer of aerodynamics. He made important contributions to the understanding of flying wings, delta wings and the ground effect. His most famous design is the Messerschmitt Me 163 rocket-powered interceptor.

• 1970 – Launch of Osumi (or Ohsumi), first Japanese artificial satellite put into orbit.

• 1969 – A Lockheed SP-2E Neptune, BuNo 131487, of a Navy Reserve unit based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, crashes in the Cleveland National Forest in the Santa Ana Mountains of Orange County, California, while on night training. Six crew KWF. The crew was serving two weeks of active duty at Naval Air Station Los Alamitos, 20 miles S of Los Angeles. The aircraft departed in the evening and headed for nearby MCAS El Toro for some night landing practice. The weather was somewhat cloudy and the rugged Santa Ana Mountains to the north were obscured. At 2023 hours local, a fighter jet flying over the area reported seeing a large fireball below him. The patrol plane was apparently executing a missed approach when its starboard wingtip struck the southern ridge of Harding Canyon. Aircraft cartwheels and disintegrates. KWF are Lt. Cmdr. Robert Frederick, pilot, 38, from White Bear, Minnesota; Lt. Cmdr. Beal Gordon Dolven Jr., co-pilot, 36, from Minneapolis; Lt. Cmdr. Oliver B. Walley, 34, from Menomonie, Wisconsin; Lt. John E. Surratt; Air Ordnanceman Walter R. Jacobson, 40, of St. Paul, Minnesota; Air Ordnanceman John Edward Hansen, 31, from Rochester, Minnesota; and Aviation Machinists Mate Harris R. Hendrickson, 47 of Minneapolis. Wings and tail of wreckage were removed, but much remains of the bomber in difficult, often near-vertical terrain.

• 1965 – Operation Flaming Dart II begins as 99 U. S. Navy carrier aircraft attack enemy logistics and communications at Chanh Hoa barracks in southern North Vietnam near the Demilitarized Zone.

• 1964 – US Navy select the Ling-Temco-Vought A-7 Corsair II for replacing their Douglas A-4 Skyhawk.

• 1964 – During an evening airpower demonstration, an Douglas B-26 Invader on a strafing pass over Range 52 at Eglin AFB, Florida, loses a wing as it pulls up at ~1945 hrs., with the loss of two crew, both assigned to the 1st Air Commando Wing, Hurlburt Field. KWF are pilot Capt. Herman S. Moore, 34, of 28 Palmetto Drive, Mary Esther, Florida, and navigator Capt. Lawrence L. Lively, 31, of 19 Azalea Drive, Mary Esther, Florida. Moore, originally of Livingston, Montana is survived by his widow, Nancy Lee Moore, and a stepson, John H. Duckworth, 9, and his parents, Mr. and Mrs. William N. Moore, 117 South 10th Street, Livingston. Mrs. Moore is a teacher in the Okaloosa County School system. Lively is survived by his widow, Joan R. Lively. The Invader was participating in a demonstration of the Special Air Warfare Center's counter insurgency capabilities, an activity that had been presented on average of twice each month for the past 21 months. This was the first such accident for SAWC during that period. The USAF subsequently grounds all combat B-26s on 8 April as the stress of operations now exceed the airframes' abilities. On Mark Engineering Company remanufactures 41 old airframes as one YB-26K and forty B-26Ks with new spars, larger engines and rudders, and new 1964 fiscal year serial numbers which see use in Southeast Asia, and which will be redesignated A-26As for political reasons.

• 1960 – Birth of Richard Alan “Rick” Mastracchio, American engineer and NASA astronaut.

• 1959 – A US meteorological balloon achieves a record height of 146,000 ft. carrying a special package of detectors sending information by radio signal to the ground.

• 1958 – Ruth Carol Taylor becomes the first African American flight attendant in the United States after being hired by Mohawk Airlines.

• 1958 – A USAF Boeing B-52D-70-BO Stratofortress, 56‑0610, c/n 17293, of the 28th Bomb Wing, on a training mission that had originated at Larson AFB near Moses Lake, Washington, crashes at Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota, during a landing attempt in a snowstorm, killing five aircrewmen and injuring six other persons. This was the first crash of a B-52 at Ellsworth.

• 1956 – First flight of the Antonov An-8

• 1954 – No. 1 Overseas Ferry Unit left St. Hubert Que with the first 14 Sabres for Squadrons in Europe led by S/L R. Middlemiss.

• 1954 – Test pilot John R. Noll began tethered hovering flight tests of the McDonnell XV-1, US experimental compound helicopter, designated as a convertiplane.

• 1953 – Birth of Stephen Douglas Thorne, American Naval officer and NASA astronaut candidate.

• 1950 – A Twin-engine Beechcraft D-18 cargo air service aircraft flying from Dayton, Ohio to Albuquerque, New Mexico, crashed four miles (6 km) west of West Mesa Airport with a pilot and two AEC security guards aboard. Plane was making an approach to a landing strip when it encountered a cloud and broke off the approach. While circling around the mesa atop which the airstrip was located, it hit a steep slope in an upright position. Completely demolished by the ensuing impact and fire, killing all three men aboard, the classified cargo of 792 HE detonator units in 22 boxes was destroyed – salvaged from the wreckage. As there was no evidence of sabotage, and since none of the detonators appeared to be missing, the incident was not reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

• 1949 – First flight of the CASA C-201 Alcotán (“Kestrel”), a Spanish twin-engine low-wing cantilever monoplane military transport aircraft.

• 1946 – U. S. and British negotiators reach the Bermuda Agreement, the first bilateral agreement regulating air transport. The two countries agree to fix transatlantic air fares through the International Air Transport Association.

• 1945 – First flight of the Consolidated Vultee XP-81, American single seat, long range escort fighter prototype that combined use of both a turbojet and a turboprop engines.

• 1944 – Carrier aircraft of U. S. Navy Task Force 58 strike Eniwetok.

• 1944 – Supporting American operations in the Marshall Islands, carrier aircraft of U. S. Navy Task Force 58 since January 29 have flown 6,232 sorties and dropped 1,156.6 tons (1,049,261 kg) of bombs, losing 22 aircraft in combat and 27 to other causes.

• 1944 – A Wellington bomber of No.407 Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force, sank the German submarine U-283 in the North Atlantic.

• 1942 – (11-13) 250 Messerschmitt Bf 109 and Focke Wulf Fw 190 fighters and 30 Messerschmitt Bf 110 night fighters participate in Operation Thunderbolt, the German Luftwaffe’s defense of the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen as they make the “Channel Dash” (Operation Cerberus) from Brest, France, to Wilhelmshaven and Brunsbüttel, Germany, via the English Channel and Strait of Dover. On February 12, six Fleet Air Arm Fairey Swordfish – All of which are shot down; their commander, Lieutenant Commander Eugene Esmonde receives a posthumous Victoria Cross for the attack – and some Royal Air Force Coastal Command Beauforts attempt torpedo attacks, but score no hits.

• 1941 – Death of Mario Visintini, first Regia Aeronautica WWII ace, crashing his Fiat CR42 on Mount Nefasit, Eritrea because of Storm. He was the top scoring pilot of all belligerent air forces in Eastern Africa (Africa Orientale) and the top biplane fighter ace of WW2.

• 1939 – After cross-country speed flight, Lockheed XP-38 Lightning prototype, 37-457, c/n 022-2201, crashlands on Cold Stream Golf Course on approach to Mitchel Field, Long Island, New York when engines fail due to icing. Pilot Ben Kelsey survives. Attempts by authorities to shield "secret" design from local photographers fail miserably.

• 1938 – First flight of the Bristol Type 146, a British single-seat, eight-gun fighter monoplane prototype.

• 1935 – First Flight in the United States with a car slung underneath the fuselage takes place.

• 1932 – First flight of the Couzinet 70, a French three-engined commercial monoplane.

• 1920 – Birth of Daniel “Chappie” James Jr., American WWII, Korean and Vietnam War fighter pilot and first black American to reach the rank of four-star general.

• 1914 – Distance record for balloons over land is set by H. Berliner, who flies 1,890 miles (c. 3,040 km) from Bitterfeldt, Germany to Kirgischano, Russia.

• 1913 – Escuela de Aviación del Capitán Manuel Ávalos Prado is founded, it will become later Fuerza Aérea de Chile, (Chilean Air Force).

• 1909 – An important pioneer in developing aviation in New Zealand, Vivian C. Walsh pilots a Howard-Wright biplane on what is generally considered the first flight in New Zealand by a powered airplane.

• 1905 – Arthur Charles Hubert Latham accompanied his cousin, the balloonist Jacques Faure, on a night crossing of the English Channel (from London to Paris) in a gas balloon.

• 1897 – Birth of Rudolf Stark, German WWI flying ace.

• 1893 – Birth of Harold William Medlicott, British WWI flying ace.

• 1888 – Birth of Lewis Hector “Hec” Ray, Canadian WWI flying ace.

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February 12

• 2013 – A North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) airstrike on a village in Kunar Province, Afghanistan, kills 10 civilians.

• 2012 – A Katanga Express Gulfstream IV crashes while landing at Kavumu Airport at Bukavu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing four of the seven people on board and two people on the ground and prompting the Congolese government to suspend Katanga Express's license.

• 2009 – Colgan Air Flight 3407, a Bombardier Dash 8 Q400, flying from Newark Liberty International in New Jersey to Buffalo Niagara International Airport in New York crashes into a house in Clarence, New York at 10:17 pm local time; all 49 aboard the plane are killed, with one fatality on the ground.

• 2004 – Exactly four years and one day after the launch of JetBlue, United Airlines responds to its low cost competitors by creating another airline called Ted.

• 2002 – An Iran Air Tours Tupolev Tu-154 hits high ground in the Sefid Kouh mountains during adverse rain, snow and dense fog, while descending for Khorramabad, Iran.

• 2001 – NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft touchdown in the “saddle” region of 433 Eros becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.

• 1991 – Continental unveils their blue and gray paint scheme.

• 1990 – A USMC pilot died and a reconnaissance observer was hurt when they ejected almost simultaneously from separate aircraft during training missions at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, Twentynine Palms, California. Capt. Thomas Kolb, 28, of San Diego, California, was killed after ejecting from his McDonnell-Douglas AV-8B-10 Harrier II, BuNo 163187, c/n 512109/103, from VMA-223, based at MCAS Cherry Point, North Carolina, which crashed in a remote area of range N of Twentynine Palms. Aerial observer Capt. Jeffrey P. Schade, of Southold, New York, ejected from North American OV-10 Bronco, suffering minor injuries. The Bronco landed safely.

• 1986 – US Navy aircraft carriers commence exercises in the Gulf of Sirte, off the coast of Libya, challenging that country's territorial claims to those waters.

• 1986 – A USAF General Dynamics F-16A Block 5 Fighting Falcon, 78-0055, flown by a pilot of the 3247th Test Squadron, disappears from Eglin Air Force Base's radar tracking screens at 1230 hrs., crashing in the Gulf of Mexico ~30 miles S of Okaloosa Island, Fort Walton Beach, Florida. The body of the pilot, Capt. Lawrence E. Lee, 31, of Kokomo, Indiana, is retrieved from the water by two rescue jumpers from a Sikorsky UH-60 Blackhawk at 1350 hrs., said Eglin public affairs officer Lt. Col. Bill Campbell. A parachute is found floating nearby. The pilot is thought to have drowned after ejecting from the fighter. "There were no radio transmissions ... nothing to indicate there were any problems", said Campbell. "We found no wreckage, so we can't be sure at this time what caused the crash. I don't know if we'll ever know for sure." Hypothermia may have been a factor in the pilot's death. The Gulf's water temperature averaged between 55 and 58 degrees Fahrenheit . Lee was performing what was to have been the aircraft's last test flight before it was returned to the Tactical Air Command. The F-16 had been modified for use in weapons tests by Eglin's Armament Division, then restored to its original condition. Campbell stated that he expects the Air Force will try to recover the wreckage to examine it for clues into the accident, although he acknowledged that such a crash "doesn't always leave much evidence." Lee is survived by his wife, Maj. Terri Lee, assigned to Eglin's 33rd Tactical Fighter Wing. A memorial service is held at 1 p.m. on 14 February in Eglin Base Chapel No. 2.The aircraft was later recovered from the Gulf of Mexico where it was inspected to determine the cause of the accident.It was found that While flying over the Gulf of Mexico at approximately 2500 ft and Mach 1.5, Capt Lee was performing 9G wind up turns to stress the aircraft and weapon system. The engine exploded and departed the aircraft through the backbone. Capt. Lee ejected at over Mach 1 breaking both arms causing him to drown.

• 1985 – First flight of the Aermacchi M-290 RediGO, an Italian turboprop-powered military basic trainer aircraft, originally manufactured by Valmet of Finland as the L-90 TP Redigo.

• 1981 – Max Anderson and Don Ida make a failed attempt to circumnavigate the world by balloon. Their craft, the Jules Verne only covers 2,900 miles (4,667 km) from Luxor to New Delhi

• 1979 – Air Rhodesia Flight 827, a scheduled civilian flight between Kariba and Salisbury is shot down by Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army militants using a SA-7 (Strela 2) surface-to-air missile soon after take off in similar circumstances to Flight 825 five month earlier; all 55 passengers and 4 crew are killed.

• 1969 – The Mil Mi12, the world’s largest helicopter, establishes a number of load-to-height records.

• 1967 – Operation Pershing begins against Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army units in Bin Dinh and Quảng Ngãi provinces in South Vietnam; it will last until 968. The U. S. Army’s 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) takes part alongside other U. S. Army, South Vietnamese Army, and South Korean Army units.

• 1965 – Death of John Hays Hammond, Jr., American inventor known as “The Father of Radio Control”.

• 1965 – First hovering for the Dassault Mirage IIIV, VTOL version of the French jet fighter.

• 1963 – Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 705 was a scheduled passenger flight operated by a Boeing 720 aircraft which broke up in midair and crashed into The Everglades shortly after take-off from Miami International Airport in a severe thunderstorm. The plane was destined to Portland, Oregon, via Chicago, Spokane and Seattle. All 43 people on board perished.

• 1962 – The wreckage of the Avro Avian 5 ‘Southern Cross Minor’ is discovered in the Algerian desert. The aircraft crashed while piloted by Captain William N. Lancaster, who flew the aircraft from Lympne airfield on 11 April 1933 in an attempt to set a new London to Cape Town record. Lancaster’s body had been mummified, and his diary and personal effects had survived intact.

• 1961 – Death of Frank Ormond “Mongoose” Soden, Canadian WWI fighter ace who stayed and served in the RAF until the end of WWII.

• 1961 – Launch of Venera 1, first planetary probe launched to Venus by the Soviet Union.

• 1960 – A Delta Air Lines Convair 880 flies from San Diego to Miami and sets a transcontinental speed record of 3 hours 31 min.

• 1959 – The last Convair B-36 bomber in operational USAF service is retired to Amon Carter Field, where it is put on display; Strategic Air Command is now equipped with an all-jet bomber force.

• 1957 – 423 Squadron began flying their CF-100 Canucks from St. Hubert, QC to Grostenquin, France in order to join No. 1 Division.

• 1947 – First flight of the Sikorsky S-52, an American 2 seater utility helicopter, first US helicopter with all-metal rotor blades.

• 1945 – U. S. Army Air Forces Twentieth Air Force B-29 s bomb Iwo Jima. In this raid and their January 24 and 29 raids, they have dropped a combined total of 367 tons (332,940 kg) of bombs on the island.

• 1942 – German dive bombers sink the British destroyer HMS Maori at Malta.

• 1942 – The U. S. Army Air Forces activate the Tenth Air Force for service in China, Burma, and India.

• 1942 – Nine Canadian squadrens (four bomber, four fighter and one coastal) took part in the chase of three German warships in the “Channel Dash”.

• 1939 – Spanish Nationalist forces have 600 aircraft, compared to only 40 available on the Republican side.

• 1935 – The US Navy's last rigid airship, the USS Macon, loses its upper fin off Point Sur, California, sinks to the surface of the Pacific Ocean in a controlled crash, and is lost, although the inclusion of lifevests on board allows the saving of 81 of 83 crew. It takes with it the four Curtiss F9C-2 Sparrowhawks, BuNos. A-9058/9061 carried aboard for fleet scouting. The airship's remains lie unfound until 1990 when a fisherman brings up a girder. Wreck is subsequently found by manned Navy submersible Sea Cliff.

• 1928 – Lady Mary Hearth leaves Cape Town in an Avro Avian in an attempt to make the first solo flight by a woman from South Africa to England. She will arrive in Croydon on May 17.

• 1926 – Death of Arthur Roy ‘Art’ Smith, Early American aviator, aircraft designer who also perfected the art of night time sky writing, WWI Instructor, and Airmail pilot, Killed in a crash on his airmail route in Montpelier, Ohio.

• 1921 – The U. S. Army Air Service establishes the first in an expending series of airways – routes safely surveyed by the army civilian and commercial users linking towns and cities by air – by leasing land between Washington and Dayton, Ohio to facilitate a stopover.

• 1917 – German Leutnants Peter and Frohwein, in a DFW CV aircraft, record the first night fighting victories when they shoot down two enemy bombers at Malzeville.

• 1914 – Igor Sikorsky’s giant four-engined biplane, the Ilya Muromets N°107 flies in Russia with 16 passengers aboard. It is an improved version of last year’s Bolshoi Baltiskii.

• 1903 – The world’s first successful heavier-than-air aircraft engine, which will power the Wright brothers‘ first airplane in December 1903, runs for the first time in Dayton, Ohio.

• 1900 – Birth of Risdon MacKenzie Bennett, British WWI flying ace.

• 1900 – Birth of Ioan Sandu, Romanian WWII flying ace.

• 1898 – Birth of Paul Marie Raphael Santelli, French WWI Balloon buster.

• 1898 – Birth of Eberhard Mohnicke, German WWI flying ace.

• 1879 – Birth of José Luis Sánchez Besa, Aviation Pioneer and seaplane designer from Chile.

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February 13

• 2013 – South Airlines Flight 8971, an Antonov An-24 with 52 people on board, overshoots the runway and crash-lands while attempting to make an emergency landing in fog at Donetsk International Airport in Donetsk, Ukraine, killing five people.

• 2009 – BA CityFlyer Flight 8456, an Avro RJ100, registration G-BXAR, is substantially damaged when the nosewheel collapses on landing at London City Airport. All 71 people on board are successfully evacuated via emergency chutes.

• 2007 – Death of Air Marshal Sir Richard (Dickie) Gordon Wakeford KCB OBE LVO AFC, officer in the Royal Air Force for 36 years, from 1941 to 1977. Beginning as a pilot of flying boats with Coastal Command, he became a flying instructor, and commanded the Queen’s Flight.

• 2006 – The 5,000th 737 comes off the production line. The 737 is the most-produced large commercial jet airplane in aviation history.

• 2003 – Continental and US Airways launch interline e-Ticketing.

• 2002 – The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) takes over responsibilities for airport security from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

• 1995 – $US 5 million in damage is caused when a violent thunderstorm hits Miami International Airport. Four airliners and nine airbridges are seriously damaged.

• 1991 – First flight of the Emivest SJ30, an American business jet.

• 1991 – Two U. S. Air Force F-117 A Nighthawk stealth fighters bomb a low structure in Baghdad which the Coalition believes houses an Iraqi military command-and-control facility. The attack destroys an air raid shelter, with Iraq claiming that over 400 civilians in it were killed, although the Coalition stands firm on its claim that the target was a military facility within which Iraq had illegally sheltered civilians to gain a propaganda advantage if they were killed. Iraqi antiaircraft artillery downs a Royal Saudi Air Force F-5E Tiger II fighter over southwestern Iraq.

• 1972 – The Soviet Union has started to use Cuba as a base from which to spy on the US. The first mission is flown by two Soviet Tu-95, which surveys part of the east coast.

• 1969 – Death of Florence Mary Taylor CBE (born Parsons), first qualified female architect, first woman to train as an engineer in Australia and first woman in Australia to fly in a heavier-than-air craft

• 1967 – President Lyndon B. Johnson orders a six-day halt of American bombing raids over Vietnam during the visit of Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin to London.

• 1965 – President Lyndon B. Johnson authorizes Operation Rolling Thunder, a campaign of air strikes against North Vietnam.

• 1964 – Birth of Stephen Gerard Bowen, US Navy submariner and a NASA astronaut.

• 1963 – Pacific Southwest Airlines becomes a public corporation.

• 1960 – France detonates its first nuclear weapon.

• 1958 – A British Ministry of Defence White Paper makes Britain’s nuclear weapons program public knowledge.

• 1957 – Death of Richard “Ricardo” Wenzl, German WWI flying ace.

• 1955 – A Sabena DC-6 crashes on Mount Terminillo, near Rieti, Italy, killing 29, including actress and model Marcella Mariani.

• 1950 – 1950 British Columbia B-36 crash: AA U.S. Air Force Convair B-36B-15-CF Peacemaker, 44-92075, of the 436th Bomb Squadron, 7th Bomb Wing, in transit from Eielson AFB, Alaska to Carswell AFB, Texas, loses three of six engines, suffers icing. To lighten aircraft, crew jettisons Mark 4 nuclear bomb casing over the Pacific Ocean from 8,000 feet (2,400 m). High explosives detonate on contact, large shockwave seen, 17 crew later bails out safely over Princess Royal Island, but five (the first to depart the bomber) are not recovered and are assumed to have come down in water and drowned. Aircraft flies 210 miles (340 km) with no crew, impacting in the Skeena Mountains at 6,000 feet (1,800 m), east of Stewart, British Columbia. Wreckage found in September 1953.

• 1945 – 13-15 – Allied bombers attack Dresden with incendiary weapons, destroying most of the city and killing some 50,000 people.

• 1945 – A Douglas C-47 of Air Transport Squadron 3 of the US Navy crashes into the sea near Alameda, California, killing all twenty-one passengers and three crew.

• 1944 – Carrier aircraft of U. S. Navy Task Force 58 strike Eniwetok.

• 1943 – First combat mission of the Vought F4U Corsair, when Guadalcanal-based Marine Fighter Squadron 124 (VMF-124) Corsairs escort U. S. Army Air Forces B-24 Liberator bombers on a raid against Kahili Airfield on Bougainville. They encounter no enemy aircraft.

• 1942 – One hundred Japanese aircraft drop 700 Japanese paratroopers onto Palembang on Sumatra.

• 1942 – Birth of Captain Donald Edward Williams, NASA astronaut and test pilot.

• 1939 – Birth of Valery Ilyich Rozhdestvensky, Soviet cosmonaut.

• 1937 – Birth of Sigmund Werner Paul Jähn, German pilot and first German to fly in space as part of the Soviet Union’s Intercosmos program.

• 1936 – Imperial Airways commences airmail services to West Africa

• 1935 – Bruno Hauptmann is convicted of murder for the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh’s 20-month-old son Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. He would be executed in the New Jersey’s infamous “Old Smokey” electric chair a year later.

• 1930 – Death of Karl Odebrett, German WWI fighter ace.

• 1928 – Sole prototype Blackburn F.1 Turcock, the firm's first fighter project in some eight years, an attempt to produce an aircraft equally suited as a land-based interceptor and as a ship-borne fighter, found no interest from the Air Ministry, but Blackburn built one as a private venture. It first flew (without guns) on 14 November 1927, piloted by Flt. Lt. Arthur George Loton, AFC, and having been purchased by the Turkish government was named the Turcock. Allocated the British registration G-EBVP for test and delivery purposes, it was destroyed in a flying accident this date. No other models of the type were built.

• 1928 – Prospecting Airways Ltd. was formed for aerial prospecting.

• 1923 – Chuck Yeager, American fighter & test pilot, and the first person to break the “sound barrier”. in level flight, is born (1947).

• 1919 – The first post-war French commercial service is established on a route from Paris to Lille for the carriage of food and clothing to France’s northern departments.

• 1918 – Birth of Junichi Sasai, Japanese Navy WWII fighter ace.

• 1913 – At the second British Aero Show in London, the world’s first airplane specifically designed to carry a gun, 37-mm cannon on biplane, is displayed for the first time. Called Destroyer and built by Vickers, Sons & Maxim, it is officially called the Experimental Fighting Biplane No.1 (E. F. B.1).

• 1912 – Birth of Giovanni Battista Boscutti, WWII Italian pilot.

• 1903 – Birth of Charles William Anderson Scott, AFC, British aviator.

• 1903 – Birth of Georgy Mikhailovich Beriev, founder of Soviet Union’s Beriev Design Bureau which concentrated on amphibious aircraft.

• 1895 – Birth of Arturo Ferrarin, Italian raid pilot.

• 1893 – Birth of Stearne Tighe Edwards, Canadian WWI fighter ace.

• 1893 – Birth of Campbell Alexander Hoy, British WWI flying ace, And RAF officer until end of WWII.

• 1893 – Birth of Franz Brandt, German WWI flying ace.

References

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February 14

• 2013 – American Airlines and US Airways announce an $11,000,000,000 deal to merge, creating the world's largest airline, with 900 planes, 3,200 daily flights, and 95,000 employees. Under the deal, former US Airways management will dominate the merged airline, but the "US Airways" brand will disappear.

• 2011 – Central American Airways Flight 731, a Let L-410 Turbolet, crashes while on approach to Toncontín International Airport, killing all 14 on board.

• 2011 – Two Royal Thai Air Force General Dynamics F-16s collide over north east Thailand. Both aircraft are destroyed but the pilots ejected safely.

• 2010 – A Yemeni Air Force Mil Mi-17 Helicopter crashes in the Kahlan district, east of the provincial capital Saada. Crash was the result of a technical fault. The helicopter's four-man crew and the seven wounded soldiers they were evacuating all died, as did two soldiers in a military vehicle which the aircraft crashed into.

• 2009 – N440RA, a CASA C-212 Aviocar operated by Arctic Transportation Services lands short of the runway at Ralph Wien Memorial Airport, Alaska and is significantly damaged.

• 2008 – Belavia Flight 1834, a Bombardier CRJ100, hits its left wing on the runway while taking off from Yerevan, Armenia. All 21 on board escape the aircraft before it erupts into flames.

• 2007 – JetBlue announces their codeshare agreement with Cape Air, connecting Boston passengers with Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.

• 2000 – The spacecraft NEAR Shoemaker enters orbit around asteroid 433 Eros, first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid.

• 1996 – China launches a Long March 3 rocket, carrying the Intelsat 708 satellite. The rocket flies off course 3 seconds after liftoff and crashes into a rural village due to an engineering defect. The number of fatalities is unconfirmed.

• 1992 – Aerolíneas Argentinas Flight 386, sometimes referred to as the Valentine’s Day flight, refers to an incident that occurred on board a scheduled flight of that carrier, in which food contaminated with cholera was distributed to the passengers, of which one died from the illness

• 1991 – U. S. Navy A-6E Intruders sink an Iraqi Navy Osa-class missile boat in Kuwait Bay, the last Iraqi naval loss of the Gulf War. Iraqi ground fire shoots down a Royal Air Force Tornado and a Royal Saudi Air Force F-5E Tiger II during strikes on Iraqi forces, and a U. S. Air Force EF-111 A Raven electronic warfare aircraft crashes in Saudi Arabia due to battle damage. The United States reports that Coalition airstrikes against Iraqi military forces in Kuwait have destroyed 1,300 of Iraq’s 4,280 tanks, 850 of its 2,870 armored personnel carriers, and 1,100 of its 3,110 artillery pieces there.

• 1990 – Voyager 1 took the first ever “family portrait” of our Solar System as seen from outside.

• 1990 – Indian Airlines Flight 605, an Airbus A320, crashes on its final approach to Bangalore Airport. 92 out of 146 people on board are killed.

• 1989 – The first of 24 Global Positioning System (Block-II) satellites is placed into orbit.

• 1984 – First flight of the Cessna S550 Citation

• 1980 – Japan Air Lines begins commercial operations with the highest-capacity airliner ever put into scheduled service, conducting the inaugural flight of eight Boeing 747SR. The aircraft has seating for 550 passengers, 45 in the upper deck.

• 1979 – Sabrina Jackintell sets an open class glider altitude record of 12,637 m with her Burkhart Grob G-102 Astir CS.

• 1978 – First flight of the Cessna T303 Crusader, an American six-place light twin aircraft.

• 1975 – Death of Arthur Hicks Peck, British WWI flying ace.

• 1973 – Death of Charles Ronald Steele, British WWI flying ace, High-ranking officer in WWII and Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief at RAF Coastal Command post war.

• 1963 – Launch of Syncom 1, first geosynchronous communications satellite.

• 1963 – The Indian Air Force receives its first batch of Soviet fighters, Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21s.

• 1956 – US Army de Havilland Canada U-1A Otter, 55-3252, c/n 93, encountered wake turbulence. The aircraft broke up in mid-air and crashed in Toronto, Canada. 4 killed.

• 1955 – First flight of the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21

• 1953 – The RCAF accepted the first of 69 de Havilland Otters.

• 1951 – Major Raymond S. Wetmore, World War II ace (21.25 kills), and commander of the 59th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron at Otis Air Force Base, Massachusetts, is killed this date in the crash of North American F-86A-5-NA Sabre, 48-0149, c/n 151-43517 at age 27. After a cross-country flight from Los Angeles, California, to Otis AFB, he was on his final approach when his plane suddenly shot up skyward, and then turned towards the ground where it crashed. Raymond was killed instantly. He was reported to have said that he had trouble steering and ejecting from the plane. He was also reported to have said to the tower that, "I'm going to go up and bring it down in Wakeby Lake, so I don't hit any houses." When he died, he left a widow and four children.

• 1947 – Birth of Pham Tuân, Vietnam Air Force aviator, first Vietnamese citizen and first Asian (outside of Russia) in space.

• 1946 – Philippine Airlines resumes service after a 5-year hiatus during World War II.

• 1945 – Death of Otto “Bruno” Kittel, German WWII flying ace on his 583rd combat mission, shot down and killed by the air gunner of a Shturmovik.

• 1945 – On the first day of the bombing of Dresden, the British Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces begin fire-bombing Dresden, the capital of the German state of Saxony. Prague is also bombed probably due to a mistake in the orientation of the pilots.

• 1943 – The Vought F4U Corsair naval fighter makes its operational debut in Solomon Island, escorting PB4Y-1 Liberators (the US Navy’s version of the B-24) raiding Bougainville.

• 1943 – Birth of Shannon Matilda Wells Lucid, American biochemist and NASA astronaut.

• 1943 – The first combat action of the F4U Corsair occurs, when 50 Imperial Japanese Navy A6 M Zero fighters attack a formation of American bombers and their escorting fighters. In what the Americans call the “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, ” the Japanese shoot down two U. S. Marine Corps Corsairs and eight U. S. Army Air Forces aircraft – Two P-40 s, four P-38 s, and two B-24 s – Losing three Zeroes in exchange.

• 1943 – The Dakotas Sqn begin air supply missions to Chindit forces working behind enemy lines in Burma. Chindits were small pockets of highly trained British troops, usually with local guides, who operated behind enemy lines, cutting enemy lines of communication.

• 1942 – The Douglas C-54 Skymaster makes its first flight. Designed as the DC-4, it is adapted for military use. During the war Skymasters complete 79,632 transoceanic flights with only three ditchings, one of which was a test.

• 1939 – Death of Lucien Marcel Gasser, French WWI flying ace, killed in an air crash.

• 1936 – First flight of the Hawker Hector, a British co-operation aircraft.

• 1934 – Howard R. Hughes launches the Hughes Tool Co. aircraft division, which evolves into Hughes Helicopters Inc.

• 1934 – First prototype Bulgarian DAR-3 Garvan ("Raven") (ДАР-3) two-seat biplane, first flown Autumn 1927 and rebuilt twice with different powerplants, written off this date in a fatal crash.{(DAR - Derzhavna Aeroplanna Rabotilnitsa - State Airplane Workshop)}

• 1932 – Ruth Nichols sets a new altitude record for a diesel-powered aircraft, 6,047 m (19,928 ft) in a modified Lockheed Vega

• 1928 – First flight of the Short S.8 Calcutta, a British three engine biplane airliner flying boat, First airliner with a full kitchen.

• 1922 – Death of Herbert Brian Richardson, British WWI fighter ace.

• 1921 – Birth of Werner Utter, German pilot, one of the first pilot for Lufthansa, who flew more of 100 types of aircraft from sailplanes to Jumbo Jet.

• 1914 – An official American nonstop duration and distance record is made when Lt. Townsend Dodd and Sgt. Herbert Marcus fly the U. S. Signal Corps Burgess H tractor biplane. (S. C. No. 26) 244.8 mi. in 4 hours 43 min. Although it established a record for two people in one airplane, it also exceeded the previous single-seat record.

• 1913 – Birth of Anthony W. “Tony” LeVier, American air racer and test pilot for the Lockheed Corporation.

• 1910 – Birth of Eugène Przysiecki, polish aviator, test pilot and WWII bomber pilot.

• 1898 – Birth of John William Pinder, British WWI fighter ace and aviation pioneer in South America.

• 1898 – Birth of William Newton “Bill” Lancaster, pioneering British aviator.

• 1897 – Birth of Laurent Baptisti Ruamps, French WWI flying ace.

• 1896 – Birth of Mary Anita ‘Neta’ Snook Southern, American pioneer aviator who achieved a long list of firsts, first woman aviator in Iowa, first woman student accepted at the Curtiss Flying School in Virginia, first woman “aviatrix” to run her own aviation business and first woman to run a commercial airfield. She was Amelia Earhart’s first flying instructor.

• 1896 – Birth of Harold Albert “Pete” White, British WWI flying ace.

• 1895 – Birth of Alexander Alexandrovich Mikulin, Soviet aircraft engine designer.

• 1894 – Birth of Horace Balfour Davey, British WWI flying ace.

• 1891 – Birth of Katherine Stinson, American early female flier.

• 1889 – Birth of Bartolomeo ‘Meo’ Costantini, Italian WWI flying ace and post war racing driver and manufacturer.

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February 15

• 2011 – United Airlines temporarily grounds all 96 of its Boeing 757 aircraft to check on a recent software upgrade that had not been performed to spec.

• 2011 – Death of Jean Boulet, French test pilot and helicopter record breaker.

• 2010 – Spanish airline Hola Airlines ceases operations.

• 2009 – A Bell 205 Helicopter while flying in dense mist and light rain crashes into Polhuín Hill, Chanco, Cauquenes Province, Chile. The accident occurred when the Bell helicopter owned by Flight Services Helicópteros was ferrying local fire-fighters from a Eucalyptus plantation to a forest fire in the Quirihue Sector of the Eighth Region. The wreckage from the accident was scattered over a large area killing the pilot a former Chilean Airforce officer and 12 fire-fighters from the Celulosa Arauco y Constitucion (CELCO) company.

• 2007 – Air Mauritanie hijacking: A Boeing 737-700 on a flight from Nouakchott to Las Palmas in the Spanish Canary Islands was hijacked by Mohamed Abderraman, who was allegedly seeking political asylum in France.

• 2006 – Origin Pacific Airways, New-Zealand airline, ceased operations.

• 2005 – The first 777-200LR Worldliner, the world’s longest range commercial airplane is rolled out in Everett, Wash. It can carry 301 passengers up to 9,420 nautical miles.

• 1996 – At the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in China, a Long March 3 rocket, carrying an Intelsat 708, crashes into a rural village after liftoff, killing many people.

• 1994 – First flight of the Eurocopter EC135

• 1991 – Iraqi shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles shoot down two U. S. Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft while they are attacking Iraqi Republican Guard forces, and a U. S. Navy A-6E Intruder crashes in Saudi Arabia due to battle damage. A U. S. Air Force F-15 Eagle on an anti-Scud ballistic missile mission destroys a hovering Iraqi helicopter with a laser-guided bomb; the helicopter is the last Iraqi aircraft destroyed in the air during the Gulf War.

• 1986 – First flight of the Beechcraft Starship, a twin-turboprop six- to eight-passenger pressurized business aircraft.

• 1971 – Breda Nardi Costruzioni Aeronautiche is established for licensed production of the Hughes Helicopter series.

• 1970 – Death of Air Chief Marshal Hugh Caswall Tremenheere Dowding, first Baron Dowding GCB, GCVO, CMG, British officer in the Royal Air Force. He was the commander of RAF Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain.

• 1970 – The RAF Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, AOC-in-C Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain, died at the age of 87.

• 1970 – Contaminated fuel causes dual engine failure shortly after takeoff from Las Américas International Airport near Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic in the Dominicana DC-9 air disaster; all 102 on board were killed.

• 1965 – Mrs. Guy Meher sets out from Culver City, California on a journey to become the first woman to cross the United States by helicopter

• 1964 – Birth of Leland Devon Melvin, American engineer and NASA astronaut.

• 1964 – The North Vietnamese Air Force scores its first aerial victory against an American aircraft when a North Vietnamese T-28 Trojan armed trainer shoots down a C-123 Provider transport plane.

• 1961 – Sabena Flight 548, a Boeing 707, crashes on approach in Brussels, Belgium, killing 73, including the entire United States figure skating team: a runaway stabilizer is thought to have been the cause of the first fatal accident involving a 707 in regular passenger service.

• 1959 – First flight of the Aermacchi AL-60

• 1950 – A de Havilland DH 108 “Swallow” (a British tailless, swept wing with a single vertical stabilizer experimental aircraft), VW120, flown by RAE's OC, Squadron Leader J. Stewart R. Muller-Rowland, enters steep dive from 27,000 feet (8,200 m), breaking up around 10,000 feet (3,000 m) with fatal result. The main wreckage comes down at Little Brickhill, near Bletchley. The pilots body was found near Sandy Lane near Woburn Sands also near Bletchley. Accident investigation pointed to a faulty oxygen system that incapacitated the pilot.

• 1949 – First flight of the Breguet Deux-Ponts, a French double-deck transport aircraft.

• 1947 – An Avianca Douglas DC-4 Crashed into Mount Tablazo obscured by fog, 30 km NW of Bogota, killing all 53 on board.

• 1947 – Birth of Viktor Ivanovich Belenko, American aerospace engineer and lecturer of Soviet origin. Belenko was sentenced to death in the Soviet Union for state treason, having successfully defected to the West, flying his Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 “Foxbat” jet fighter to Hakodate, Japan.

• 1946 – First flight of the Douglas DC-6, an American piston-powered airliner and transport aircraft.

• 1945 – In ten weeks of steady bombardment of Iwo Jima, the U. S. Army Air Forces‘ Seventh and Twentieth Air Forces have dropped nearly 6,800 tons (6,168,920 kg) of bombs on the island.

• 1944 – Birth of Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Serebrov, Russian cosmonaut.

• 1944 – Very heavy Allied air raids demolish the Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino in Italy, but fail to dislodge its German defenders Off Anzio, a German guided bomb destroys a Liberty ship unloading ammunition and a tank landing craft alongside her.

• 1943 – Convoy JW 53 departs Loch Ewe, Scotland, for the Kola Inlet in the Soviet Union. The British aircraft HMS Dasher escorts it, but must turn back after only two days due to damage incurred during bad weather. No aircraft carrier escorts an Arctic convoy again until February 1944.

• 1941 – First flight of the Curtiss XP-46, a US prototype fighter aircraft.

• 1940 – The Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA), British WWII civilian organization that ferried new, repaired and damaged military aircraft between UK factories, assembly plants, transatlantic delivery points, Maintenance Units (MU), scrap yards, and active service squadrons and airfields, is formed.

• 1938 – First flight of the Bloch MB-170, French twin engine 3 seat reconnaissance bomber prototype.

• 1936 – Italian aircraft based at nearby Mek’ele, Ethiopia, maintain at least 12 aircraft over the battlefied all day during the Battle of Amba Aradam against Ethiopian troops. It is a forerunner of the World War II “cab rank” technique of keeping airborne aircraft continually on call over a battlefield to bomb enemy positions when needed.

• 1935 – Birth of Roger Bruce Chaffee, American aeronautical engineer, Lieutenant Commander in the U. S. Navy and NASA astronaut.

• 1926 – The Ford Motor Co. becomes the first U. S. private air carrier to operate a contract airmail (CAM) route. Ford begins operations with CAM-6 between Detroit and Chicago and CAM-7 between Detroit and Cleveland.

• 1923 – King George V granted the prefix “Royal” to the Canadian Air Force.

• 1918 – Death of Kenneth Lloyd Gopsill, British WWI flying ace, Killed in action.

• 1917 – Death of Hans von Keudell, German WWI flying ace, killed in his Albatros D.III by a British Nieuport.

• 1917 – Death of Marcel Hauss, French WWI flying ace, killed in action.

• 1915 – Russian Sikorsky Ilya Muromets bombers attack the Vistula-Dobrzhani area of Poland

• 1910 – King Edward VII grants the title “Royal” to the Aero Club of the United Kingdom.

• 1897 – Birth of Frederick Dudley Travers, British WWI flying ace and pioneering airliner pilot.

• 1895 – Birth of Dennis Edward Francis Waight, British WWI fighter ace.

• 1895 – Birth of George Everard Gibbons, British WWI fighter ace.

• 1890 – Birth of Cosimo Rennella, Italian born Ecuadorian WWI flying ace, and pioneering aviator in South America pre and post WWI war.

• 1890 – Birth of Marie Gaston Fulerand Leon Vitalis, French WWI flying ace.

• 1890 – Birth of Matome Ugaki, admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy during WWII, most remembered for his role at the Battle of Leyte Gulf. He led the last Kamikaze mission.

• 1858 – Birth of John Joseph Montgomery, American aviation pioneer who made the first manned, controlled, heavier-than-air flights of the US.

References

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February 16

• 2013 – President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai announces that he will prohibit Afghan troops from calling in airstrikes against residential areas in Afghanistan.

• 2013 – Iraqi Airways begins flights to Kuwait for the first time since Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990.

• 2010 – An Indian Air Force Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-27 fighter went down near Siliguri in West Bengal killing the pilot, a squadron leader.

• 2009 – An entire South African Airways crew is arrested at London Heathrow Airport after five kilos of cocaine are allegedly discovered in a bag. It is the second drug arrest of an entire SAA crew for drug smuggling within three weeks.

• 2009 – 90-09, a HESA IrAn-140 operated by the Iranian Police crashes on approach to Isfahan International Airport, Iran and is destroyed, killing all five people on board.

• 2006 – Kobe Airport, a controversial offshore airport in Kobe, Japan, opens for airline service.

• 2002 – First flight of the UL-Jih Evolution.

• 2001 – A Royal New Zealand Air Force Douglas A-4K Skyhawk, NZ6211, from No. 2 Squadron RNZAF crashes near HMAS Albatross in New South Wales while practicing maneuvers for an upcoming air show, killing the aircraft's pilot.

• 1999 – Gulfstream II carrying film director Barry Sonnenfeld (Men in Black, Men in Black II, and Wild, Wild West), slid off runway at Van Nuys, California; Sonnenfeld was uninjured.

• 1998 – China Airlines Flight 676, an Airbus A300, crashes into a residential area while attempting to land in Taipei, Taiwan. All 196 people on board are killed, in addition to six on the ground.

• 1991 – A U. S. Air Force F-16 C crashes while making an instrument landing approach in Saudi Arabia.

• 1986 – Ouadi Doum air raid is carried out by eight Jaguars escorted by four Mirage F1 s, against the Libyan airbase of Ouadi Doum in northern Chad, during the Chadian – Libyan conflict.

• 1982 – The first production Airbus Industries A310 is rolled out at the factory in Toulouse, France, destined for Swissair as the launch customer.

• 1980 – The Aeropuerto de Vitoria (IATA: VIT – OACI: LEVT) opens.

• 1980 – Death of Geoffrey Hornblower Cock, British WWI fighter ace, highest scoring ace to fly the Sopwith 1½ Strutter.

• 1977 – Death of Silvio Scaroni, Italian WWI fighter pilot credited with 26 victories. He was the second ranking Italian ace of WWI.

• 1968 – No. 434 Tactical Fighter OTU was formed at CFB Cold Lake, Alberta.

• 1967 – Garuda Indonesia Flight 708, a Lockheed L-188 Electra, crashes on landing at Sam Ratulangi Airport, killing 22 of 84 passengers on board; all 8 crew survive.

• 1967 – First flight of the MBB Bö 105 D-HDCI, a German light, twin-engine, multi-purpose utility helicopter.

• 1965 – Death of George Arthur ‘Art’ Welsh, Canadian WWI flying ace, WWII soldier, Politician and Sheriff.

• 1961 – Launch of Explorer 9 (S56 A), US satellite for Atmospheric density measurements.

• 1961 – First flight of the Avian Gyroplane, a Canadian two seat, single engine auto gyro.

• 1957 – The Nord 1405 Gerfaut II, French jet fighter prototype, established a number of time-to-height records from a standing start, including a climb to a height of 6,000 m in 1 min 17 seconds and to 9,000 m in 1 min 34 seconds.

• 1956 – B-47 51-2059 (later RCAF X059) arrived at Cartierville where Canadair would modify it to test the Orenda Iroquois engine for the Avro Arrow.

• 1956 – First crash of a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress when B-52B-30-BO, 53-0384, c/n 16863, of the 93rd Bomb Wing, Castle Air Force Base, suffered an explosion of an electrical power panel located on the alternator deck blowing off the cover and causing a fire. The cover jammed the regulator valve of the left hand forward alternator disabling the over speed protection and resulting in an over speed failure. Wreckage comes down near Sacramento, California. Four crew eject, four killed. The failure mode was determined later when another B-52 experienced a similar incident that blew off the rear right hand electrical power shield cover but did not cause a fire and Boeing pilot, Ed Hartz, landed safely at Boeing Field in Seattle.

• 1948 – Death of Jesse Orin Creech, American WWI flying ace.

• 1946 – First flight of the Sikorsky H-5, modified version of the YR-5 A, American helicopter with a greater rotor diameter, carrying capacity, and gross weight.

• 1945 – (16-17) Eleven fleet aircraft carriers and five light aircraft carriers of the U. S. Navy’s Task Force 58 conduct the first carrier-based airstrikes against Japan proper since the April 1942 Doolittle Raid, attacking targets in and around Tokyo and Tokyo Bay. U. S. Navy aircraft fly 2,761 sorties, claiming 341 Japanese planes shot down and 190 destroyed on the ground, several ships and craft sunk in Tokyo Bay, and damage to Japanese airframe and aircraft engine plants in exchange for 60 U. S. aircraft lost in combat and 28 more lost due to non-combat causes.

• 1945 – U. S. Navy surface ships conduct a two-day pre-invasion bombardment of Iwo Jima. Operating from the escort aircraft carrier USS Wake Island (CVE-65), U. S. Navy Observation Composite Squadron 1 (VOC-1) makes the Pacific Theater debut for such squadrons, in which pilots trained in artillery observation direct surface ship gunfire from fighters and torpedo bombers, augmenting or replacing the more vulnerable shipboard floatplanes carried for that purpose.

• 1945 – During the U. S. seizure of Corregidor, the United States Army’s 503rd Parachute Regimental Combat Team conducts a paratrooper assault onto the island.

• 1944 – First flight of the Curtiss SC Seahawk, American scout seaplane.

• 1944 – Focke-Wulf Ta 152 V19, Werke Nummer 110019, prototype for the Ta 152B-5/R11 (Ta 152C-3/R11) with 1,750 hp (1,300 kW) Jumo 213A engine, is written off in a crash during test flight out of Langenhagen. Airframe had been damaged in 1943 wheels-up landing during testing but was repaired.

• 1939 – The Spanish Republican Air Force reports that it has only 25 Polikarpov I-15 and I-16 fighters, two squadrons of Tupolev SB-2 bombers, and three squadrons of Polikarpov R-5 bombers.

• 1938 – 16-27 – Six USAAC B-17 Flying Fortresses make a goodwill tour of Latin America, traveling 12,000 miles (19,312 km) to Lima, Buenos Aires, Santiago and back.

• 1937 – Birth of Valentin Vasiliyevich Bondarenko, Soviet fighter pilot and cosmonaut.

• 1936 – (16-19) On February 16, Marshal Pietro Badoglio orders Italian ground forces not to pursue Ethiopian forces after they begin to retreat from Amba Aradam and assigns the task of exploitation of Italy’s victory to the Italian Royal Air Force (Regia Aeronautica), a novel task for an air force. Italian aircraft drop 40 tons (36,288 kg) of bombs on retreating Ethiopian forces over the last four days of the battle with devastating effect, and on February 19 a strafing aircraft mortally wounds the Ethiopian military leader Ras Mulugeta Yeggazu, who dies eight days later.

• 1934 – While on a familiarization flight for impending flights of the U.S. Mail, Lt. J. Y. Eastham is killed in the crash of a Douglas Y1B-7 in fog at night near Jerome, Idaho.

• 1934 – Crash of Curtiss A-12 Shrike, 33-244, in bad weather at Oakley, Utah, kills two crew, 2nd Lt. Jean Donant Grenier and crewmate Lt. E. D. White, while flying an advance route to determine time and distance for carrying the mail between Salt Lake City and Cheyenne, Wyoming. Grenier Army Air Field, Massachusetts, later Grenier Air Force Base, is named in Lt. Grenier's honor on 22 February 1942.

• 1932 – First flight of the Martin B-10, first all-metal monoplane bomber to go into regular use by the United States Army Air Corps and first mass-produced bomber.

• 1922 – Birth of Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer, German Luftwaffe night fighter pilot and highest scoring (121) night fighter ace in the history of aerial warfare.

• 1912 – Frank Coffyn takes aerial views of New York City with a cinema camera while controlling his airplane with his feet and knees.

• 1903 – Traian Vuia presented to the Académie des Sciences of Paris the possibility of flying with a heavier-than-air mechanical machine and his procedure for taking off, but it was rejected for being an utopia, adding the comments: The problem of flight with a machine which weighs more than air cannot be soled and it is only a dream.

• 1899 – Birth of Ronald Cory Berlyn, British WWI flying ace.

• 1897 – Birth of Thomas Frederick Le Mesurier, British WWI flying ace.

• 1895 – Birth of Jean Charles Augustin Dubois de Gennes, French WWI flying ace.

• 1890 – Birth of Francesco De Pinedo, Italian raid aviator.

• 1889 – Birth of John Thompson Guy Murison, British WWI flying ace.

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February 17

• 2006 – Aloha Airlines emerges from 14 months of bankruptcy protection. They would file for Chapter 11 again a little over two years later and cease passenger operations soon after that.

• 2005 – Opening of Chūbu Centrair International Airport in Nagoya, Japan.

• 2005 – Several airlines will have to pay heavy compensation to passengers for flight delays and cancellations under a European regulation.

• 2002 – A USMC McDonnell-Douglas F/A-18D Hornet from VMFA-533 crash lands at Twentynine Palms, California. Both aircrew eject but the WSO, while hospitalized, dies from his injuries.

• 1993 – Death of Johann “Hans” Baur, German WWI flying ace, Airliner pilot and Adolf Hitler’s personal pilot.

• 1988 – Asiana Airlines is established in Seoul, South Korea. Flights begin the following December with flights to Busan.

• 1974 – Robert K. Preston, a US Army private 1st class, stole a US Army UH-1 Iroquois helicopter from Fort Meade, Maryland, flew it to Washington, D. C., and hovered for six minutes over the White House before descending on the south lawn, about 100 yards from the West Wing.

• 1972 – Death of Gilbert Stuart Martin Insall VC MC, British WWI pilot.

• 1970 – 17-18 – US Air Force B-52 Stratofortresses attack Laos.

• 1969 – Death of Albert Victor Tonkin, Australian WWI flying ace.

• 1966 – Launch of Diapason, second French artificial satellite.

• 1965 – Launch of Ranger 8, US spacecraft designed to achieve a lunar impact trajectory and to transmit high-resolution photographs of the lunar surface during the final minutes of flight up to impact.

• 1959 – In the 1959 Turkish Airlines Gatwick crash, a chartered Vickers Viscount 793 carrying the Turkish prime minister and other government officials crashes in heavy fog during its final approach into London Gatwick Airport; five of the eight crew and nine of the sixteen passengers die in the accident; Prime Minister Adnan Menderes is among the ten survivors.

• 1959 – Launch of Vanguard II, US earth-orbiting satellite designed to measure cloud-cover distribution over the daylight portion of its orbit.

• 1956 – Douglas R5D-2 Skymaster, BuNo 39116, 'WC 116', on flight from MCAS El Toro, California to NAS Alameda, in low overcast and drizzle, strikes Sunol Ridge on ranch ~3.5 miles (5.6 km) N of Niles, California at 1345 hrs. Aircraft broke up and burned, killing 35, all but one of them Marines.

• 1951 – Birth of Rashid Minhas or Rashid Minhas Shaheed, NH, Pilot Officer in the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) during the 1971 Pakistan-Bangladesh War.

• 1945 – Luftwaffe ace Jürgen Harder (13 June 1918 – 17 February 1945), recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, (64 claimed victories), is killed in the crash of a Messerschmitt Bf 109G-14, Werk.Nr. 784 738, near Strausberg, Germany, following engine failure. Technical experts that analysed the wreckage came to the conclusion that the piston of cylinder 12 had penetrated the engine block. Escaping toxic fumes thus intoxicated Harder who then lost control of the aircraft.

• 1944 – In Operation Hailstone, carrier aircraft of U. S. Navy Task Force 58 begin two days of strikes against Truk Atoll, Japan’s main base in the South Pacific Ocean; they are the first carrier strikes against Truk. An initial fighter sweep by 72 F6 F Hellcats shoots down 30 Japanese fighters and destroys 45 more aircraft on the ground for the loss of four Hellcats; a follow-up strike by 18 TBF Avengers leaves fewer than 100 of the 365 Japanese aircraft that had been on Truk at daybreak operational. The carriers also launch 30 strikes, each larger than either of the two waves of Japanese aircraft that had attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, against shipping in the harbor during the day. In the evening, a Japanese torpedo bomber damages the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid (CV-11), knocking her out of action for several months.

• 1944 – In Operation Catchpole, American forces invade Eniwetok. Carrier aircraft from USS Saratoga (CV-3), USS Sangamon (CVE-26), USS Suwannee (CVE-27), and USS Chenango (CVE-28) support the landings.

• 1943 – U. S. Army Air Forces Seventh Air Force aircraft on a photographic reconnaissance mission discover a large Japanese seaplane base at Butaritari at Tarawa Atoll.

• 1943 – Consolidated B-24D-53-CO Liberator, 42-40355, c/n 1432, crashes at Tucson Municipal Airport #2, Tucson, Arizona, this date.[183] Six Consolidated Aircraft employees riding as passengers are killed and several others injured, of the 34 on board. The damaged airframe is subsequently modified into the first C-87 Liberator Express.

• 1939 – Death of Kurt Adolf Monnington, German WWI flying ace.

• 1939 – Detachment from No. 1(F) Squadron travelled to Vancouver to accept first RCAF Hurricanes.

• 1934 – The first airmail flight from Australia to New Zealand is flown by Charles T. Ulm in his Avro Ten, a license-built Fokker F. VIIB/3 m registered as VH-UXX.

• 1932 – Mounties enlisted World War I air ace/bush pilot Wop May to help them track Rat River Yukon – Albert Johnson, ‘the Mad Trapper of Rat River,’ killed by RCMP in shoot-out after 48-day 240 km manhunt in 40 below weather; charged with killing one Mountie, Constable Edgar Millen and wounding two others.

• 1928 – Capt. William Millican Randolph, a pioneer aviator, a 1916 graduate of Texas A&M University, and adjutant of the Air Corps Flying School at Kelly Field, Texas, is killed in the crash of a Curtiss AT-4 Hawk, 27-220, three miles NW of Gorman, Texas after take off from Gorman Field. In September 1929, the Army Air Corps names its field north of San Antonio, Texas, Randolph Field for the Austin, Texas native.

• 1926 – Alan Cobham with a de Havilland D. H.50 J complete a 25,749 km flight from Croydon to Cape Town.

• 1919 – Death of Henry “Hank” Robinson Clay, Jr., American WWI flying ace.

• 1916 – Birth of Prince Alexander Sergeevich Obolensky, Russian Rurikid prince and an international rugby union footballer who played for England and RAF WWII pilot.

• 1916 – Zeppelin LZ34 (L3) is stranded and destroyed in a gale at Jutland.

• 1912 – Death of Douglas Graham Gilmour, British early aviator, While testing a new monoplane in a flight from Brooklands to Richmond.

• 1911 – At San Diego, California, Glenn Curtiss flies a prototype seaplane out to the US Navy armored cruiser Pennsylvania in the harbor. Pennsylvania hoists the seaplane aboard, then returns it to the water, and Curtiss flies it back to shore. It is the first demonstration that a ship can handle a seaplane.

• 1909 – Canada’s first African-Canadian pilot, Gerald Bell, was born.

• 1904 – The Wright brothers inspect the grounds where the St. Louis aeronautical exposition will be held in April.

• 1898 – Birth of Hugh Fitzgerald Moore, Scottish WWI flying ace.

• 1898 – Birth of Maxwell Hutcheon Findlay, Scottish WWI fighter ace and air racer.

• 1897 – Birth of Augustus Henry Orlebar AFC & Bar, British WWI pilot, test pilot and air Racer.

• 1896 – Birth of Forde Leathley, Irish WWI flying ace.

• 1893 – Birth of Thomas Cecil Silwood Tuffield, British WWI flying ace.

• 1893 – Birth of Dieter Collin, German WWI flying ace.

• 1869 – Birth of Carlos Viegas Gago Coutinho, GCTE, GCC, generally known simply as Gago Coutinho, Portuguese aviation pioneer.

• 1864 – Birth of Hilda Beatrice Hewlett, first British aviatrix to earn a pilot’s license, successful early aviation entrepreneur. She created and ran the first flying school in the UK.

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February 18

• 2013 – After cutting a hole in a perimeter fence at Brussels Airport outside Brussels, Belgium, eight armed and masked men dressed as police officers drive in two vehicles displaying flashing blue lights onto the tarmac and confront guards loading a cargo of diamonds onto Helvetic Airways Flight LX789, a Fokker 100 passenger jet packed with passengers and preparing for departure for a flight to Zurich, Switzerland. They steal 120 small packages containing a combined $50,000,000 (£32,000,000) worth of diamonds in a three-minute robbery and escape via the same hole in the fence without firing a shot.

• 2011 – A United States Air Force Pilatus U-28A crashed six mile from Djibouti airport, killing all four crew members.

• 2010 – 2010 Austin suicide attack: After setting fire to his house and leaving behind a suicide note expressing displeasure with government and taxation, Andrew Joseph Stack III crashes his Piper Dakota into an office building housing an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) field office in Austin, Texas, killing himself and an IRS manager and injuring 13 others, two of them seriously.

• 2010 – An Indian Air Force Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 fighter jet (8th Squadron, 20th Wing) crashed soon after take-off from Bagdora in West Bengal but the pilot ejected to safety.

• 2010 – A Sikorsky MH-60S Seahawk helicopter of the United States Navy crashed in West Virginia outside of Lewisburg. Passengers and crew sustained unspecified injuries, none of which were life-threatening.

• 2009- N652UA, a Boeing 767-322ER operated by United Airlines, is damaged significantly by the automatic discharge of a sprinkler system in the hangar it is parked in while undergoing maintenance at O’Hare International Airport, Chicago. Eleven cabin windows are knocked out by the force of the discharge, damaging the aircraft's avionics systems.

• 2009 – A Fuerza Aérea Colombiana Douglas AC-47 Spooky intelligence-gathering plane of the Escuadrón de Combate Táctico 113 Avion Fantasma (ghost planes) crashed near the Comando Aéreo de Combate No 1 Airbase at Puerto Salgar, Cundinamarca, Colombia. The aircraft was on a training flight resulting in 5 crew fatalities.

• 2009 – A Eurocopter EC225 Super Puma Helicopter (G-REDU) flying from the heliport at Aberdeen Airport to a BP ETAP Oil Platform located 120 nautical miles (195 km) east of Aberdeen, Scotland is forced to ditch into the North Sea 500m short of its destination. A major maritime rescue operation for the ditched Super Puma owned by Bond Offshore Helicopters was coordinated by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency at the Aberdeen HM Coastguard Rescue Centre involving a RAF Sea King from No. 202 Squadron RAF Lossiemouth and a Nimrod from RAF Kinloss. Three of the passengers were rescued by one of a pair of Bond Helicopters involved in the rescue and the remaining 15 passengers successfully rescued by an oil-rig support vessel. A further Super Puma owned by Bond Helicopters is involved in a second North Sea ditching on 1 April 2009.

• 2007 – A United States Army Boeing-Vertol MH-47E Chinook, 92-00472, of 2-160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, crashes in southeastern Afghanistan due to a sudden, unexplained loss of power and control killing eight and wounding 14.

• 1996 – A Grumman F-14A-110-GR Tomcat, converted to Grumman F-14D(R), BuNo 161158, of VF-11, suffers engine failure, disintegration of airframe, crashes into the Pacific Ocean at ~1230 hrs., ~120 miles off the coast of southern California during routine flight exercises, killing two crew. The fighter was part of a squadron that was taking part in a two-week operation with the USS Carl Vinson, said Doug Sayers, spokesman for NAS Miramar, California.[338] Kenneth Bacon, chief spokesman for Secretary of Defense William Perry, said Perry met Tuesday, 20 February, with Adm. Mike Boorda, the chief of naval operations, to hear how the Navy is approaching its investigation of the latest crash, the Associated Press reported on 21 February. The Navy sees no accident pattern in two fatal crashes of F-14 fighter jets in the past month that would call for special safety measures, officials said Tuesday. The pilot was Lt. Terence Lee Clark, 27, of Hemet, California.

• 1991 – A U. S. Air Force F-16 goes down in Kuwait 40 miles (64 km) north of the Saudi border.

• 1981 – Aircraft industrialist Jack Northrop, co-founder of Lockheed Corporation and, later, founder of Northrop Corporation, dies at the age of 85.

• 1979 – The CG-1432 Crash was an aviation accident which involved five crewmembers responding to a distress call from the Japanese fishing vessel Kaisei Maru #18. The weather that morning was stormy and conditions were not ideal for flight. On the way there, the helicopter was forced to ditch into the sea after losing power. It remained stable for a brief time before it was flipped by the heavy seas. This most likely caused the death of fellow crew members: Canadian Forces Captain G. Richard Burge, Lieutenant Commander James Stiles, Petty Officer 2nd Class John Tait, and Petty Officer 2nd Class Bruce Kaehler. Lone survivor Petty Officer 2nd Class Mark Torr remembers the flipping of the helicopter and swimming out, holding onto the nose wheel to stay near the aircraft.

• 1977 – First flight of Space Shuttle Enterprise atop a Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) to measure structural loads and ground handling and braking characteristics of the mated system.

• 1973 – Daniel Bouchart and Didier Potelle land 19,568 feet up on the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania in an SA 319 B Alouette II helicopter.

• 1969 – El Al Flight 432 attack: Four members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine attack a Boeing 720-058 B with 28 people on board, with AK-47 assault rifles and hand grenades while it is preparing for takeoff at Zurich Airport in Zurich, Switzerland, mortally wounding the first officer and injuring six other people. An Israeli undercover security guard on the plane opens fire on the attackers from a cockpit window, then gets off the plane and continues to fire on them, killing their leader before Swiss police arrive and arrest him and the three surviving attackers. The incident reveals for the first time that armed security personnel ride aboard Israeli airliners.

• 1969 – Hawthorne Nevada Airlines Flight 708, a Douglas DC-3, crashes near Lone Pine, California, killing all 35 people on board.

• 1968 – Douglas C-47D, 43-48471, of the USAF crashes on take-off from Tan Song Nhut Air Base, Vietnam. All three people on board survive.

• 1967 – Second crash of a Blue Angels demonstration team jet in three weeks kills the newest team member, U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Ronald F. Thomsen, 28, when his Grumman F-11A Tiger impacts just 250 yards from the site of the accident on 1 February 1967. The Navy opened a crash investigation on 19 February into the crash ~16 miles NW of NAS El Centro, California, which killed the pilot only four days after he joined the demonstration team.

• 1966 – Death of Grigori Grigoyevich Nelyubov, Soviet cosmonaut.

• 1964 – Death of Joseph-Armand Bombardier, Canadian inventor and businessman, and founder of Bombardier.

• 1963 – Death of Cosimo Rizzotto, Italian WWI flying ace.

• 1959 – Death of Carlos Viegas Gago Coutinho, GCTE, GCC, generally known simply as Gago Coutinho, Portuguese aviation pioneer.

• 1958 – A Martin RB-57 A Canberra operated by the Republic of China Air Force is shot down over Shandong by a Chinese Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17.

• 1957 – After 12 years of production, Douglas delivers the last of 3,180 AD Skyraiders to the Navy.

• 1956 – The 1956 Scottish Airlines Malta air disaster: a Scottish Airlines Avro York crashes near Żurrieq, Malta due to pilot error, killing all 50 on board.

• 1947 – The USS Cusk becomes the world's first submarine to launch a guided missile when it fires a Republic-Ford JB-2 Loon, which then crashes after flying only 6,000 yards, due to an apparent control malfunction.

• 1945 – Luftwaffe pilot Leutnant Erwin Ziller runs into problems 45 minutes into the third flight of Horten H.IX V2 when he suffers a failure of one of the jet engines, aircraft spins to starboard and crashes just outside the airfield perimeter. The pilot dies in hospital a fortnight later. This second prototype was the only powered Horten IX to fly. The incomplete V3 prototype was shipped to the U.S. and is now in the collection of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

• 1944 – Task Force 58 aircraft complete their two days of strikes against Truk, starting in the early morning hours with the first carrier-based night bombing attack in U. S. Navy history, a raid by 12 TBF-1 C Avengers, which demonstrates the value of such raids by scoring 13 direct bomb hits and seven near misses on Japanese ships in the harbor. During the rest of the morning, U. S. Navy aircraft work over Japanese shore facilities on Truk; no Japanese aircraft rise to oppose the attacks. By the time Task Force 58 retires, its aircraft have flown a total of 1,250 combat sorties over the two days of strikes, dropping 400 tons (164,600 kg) of bombs and torpedoes against shipping and 94 tons (85,276 kg) of bombs against airfields and shore facilities, sinking two auxiliary cruisers, two destroyers, two submarine tenders, an aircraft ferry, and 23 merchant ships including six tankers and 17 cargo ships totalling 200,000 gross register tons of shipping, and destroying or damaging 250 to 275 Japanese aircraft, in exchange for the loss of 17 American aircraft in combat and eight to other causes.

• 1944 – Operation Jericho: de Havilland Mosquitos of No. 487 Squadron, Royal New Zealand Air Force and No. 464 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, breach the prison walls at Amiens, France, allowing captured members of the French Resistance to escape.

• 1944 – Curtiss C-46A-10-CU Commando, 41-12339, c/n 26466, of the 3d OTU, Henry F. Harvey piloting,[247] departs McClellan Field, California, at 0045 hrs. on a flight to homebase at Reno Army Air Base, Nevada. Some 15 minutes after takeoff arcing wiring ignites hydraulic fluid. The fire burns though oxygen lines and de-icer lines, airframe impacting in American River Canyon, California. Five crew members bailed out, ~0100 hrs., but two died when exiting the plane.

• 1944 – Douglas SBD-2 Dauntless, BuNo 2173, of the Carrier Qualification Training Unit, NAS Glenview, Illinois, piloted by LTJG. John Lendo, suffers engine failure, probably due to caburetor icing, while on approach to a Type IX training carrier on Lake Michigan. Pilot ditches dive bomber and is rescued. On 19 June 2009, the airframe was retrieved from the lake bottom and will go to the Pacific Aviation Museum on Ford Island, Oahu, Hawaii.

• 1943 – The North Western African Air Force (NAAF) is formed.

• 1943 – The second completed Boeing B-29 Superfortress heavy bomber catches fire in the air and crashes into a building just north of Boeing Field in Seattle, Washington, killing all ten aboard the plane – Including famed Boeing test pilot Edmund “Eddie” Allen – and 19 or 20 people on the ground. The following year the company will invest $750,000 in the largest and fastest wind tunnel ever built and will name it after Eddie Allen.

• 1943 – Japanese aircraft raid Amchitka in the Aleutian Islands for the last time.

• 1941 – First flight of the Grumman XP-50, an American twin engine fighter prototype, land-based development of the shipboard F5 F-1 Skyrocket fighter.

• 1939 – First flight of the Martin PBM Mariner

• 1937 – Nationalist ace Joaquín García Morato plays a major role in an air-to-air engagement in which a Nationalist force of Fiat CR.32 fighters defeats a Republican (loyalist) one of Polikarpov I-15 s, shooting down eight I-15 s. The battle gives the Nationalists temporary air superiority during the Battle of Jarama and demonstrates that the CR.32 s could defeat the I-15 s – which previously had dominated the CR.32 s over Spain – If handled courageously and imaginatively.

• 1936 – First flight of the Caudron C.690 M, a single-seat training aircraft developed in France to train fighter pilots to handle high-performance aircraft. It was a conventional low-wing cantilever monoplane that bore a strong resemblance to designer Marcel Riffard's racer

• 1934 – The American World War I ace Eddie Rickenbacker and a Transcontinental & Western Air team including Jack Frye, “Tommy” Tomlinson, Larry Fritz, Paul E. Richter, Si Morehouse, Harlan Hull, John Collings, and Andy Andrews, set a new record for a transcontinental flight across the United States, flying the Douglas DC-1 from Burbank, California, to Newark, New Jersey, in 13 hours 4 min.

• 1931 – Birth of Marat Nikolayevich Tishchenko, Russian Helicopter designer for MIL.

• 1930 – Birth of Theodore Cordy Freeman, NASA astronaut and captain in the USAF.

• 1930 – Elm Farm Ollie (“Nellie Jay” and post-flight as “Sky Queen”) becomes the first cow to fly in a fixed-wing aircraft and also the first cow to be milked in an aircraft.

• 1923 – The Canadian Air Force is granted the prefix ‘Royal’.

• 1923 – First flight of the Graz VL-1 Maulwurf I

• 1921 – First successful flight with a helicopter by Étienne Oehmichen.

• 1920 – Formation of a Canadian Air Force was authorized by Order-in-Council as a non-professional, non-permanent force under the Air Board.

• 1919 – Death of Leonard Allen Payne, South African WWI flying ace, killed in a plane crash while serving in the Army of Occupation in Germany.

• 1919 – Death of Herbert Andrew Patey, British WWI flying ace.

• 1918 – Death of Guy William Price, Irish WWI flying ace, killed in his Sopwith Camel by German ace Theodor Rumpel.

• 1916 – Death of Alfredo Barbieri, Italian WWI pilot, killed in action.

• 1914 – Birth of Mario D’Agostini, Italian WWII Pilot.

• 1911 – The first airmail is carried by an aeroplane. Henri Pequet carries mail across the Jumna River, from Allahabad to Naini Junction, India.

• 1896 – Birth of Edmond Eugene Henri Caillaux, French WWI flying ace.

• 1895 – Birth of William Howard “Hank” Stovall, American WWI flying ace, Businessman and High Ranking officer in WWII.

• 1895 – Birth of Jean-Paul Jacques Favre de Thierrens, French WWI flying ace.

• 1891 – Birth of Julius Busa, Austro Hungarian WWI flying ace.

• 1889 – Birth of Kurt-Bertram von Döring, German WWI flying ace, advisor with the Argentinian Air Force and the Peruvian Air Force between the Wars and Officer in WWII.

• 1882 – Birth of Adolf Heyrowsky, Austro Hungarian WWI flying ace who also served in WWII Luftwaffe.

• 1838 – Birth of Ernst Mach, Austrian physicist and philosopher, noted for his contributions to physics such as the Mach number and the study of shock waves.

• 1832 – Birth of Octave Chanute, French-born American railway engineer and aviation pioneer. He provided the Wright brothers with help and advice, and helped to publicize their flying experiments. At his death he was hailed as the father of aviation and the heavier-than-air flying machine.

References

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February 19

• 2003 – 2003 Iran Ilyushin Il-76 crash; an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Ilyushin Il-76MD, 15-2280, c/n 0063471155, formerly registered YI-AND, crashes into a mountain in poor weather near Shahdad, Iran. All 18 crew and 284 passengers on board were killed.

• 2002 – First flight of the Embraer E-170, a Brazilian narrow-body, twin-engine, medium-range, jet airliner.

• 2002 – NASA’s Mars Odyssey space probe begins to map the surface of Mars using its thermal emission imaging system.

• 1991 – Iraqi antiaircraft artillery shoots down a U. S. Air Force OA-10 A Thunderbolt II airborne forward air control aircraft over Kuwait.

• 1990 – First flight of the Scaled Composites ARES, an American demonstrator aircraft built by the company Scaled Composites. ARES is an acronym for Agile Responsive Effective Support.

• 1989 – Flying Tiger Line Flight 66, a Boeing 747-247 F cargo aircraft, crashes near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, killing the entire crew of four.

• 1988 – First flight of the Boeing 737-400

• 1986 – Launch: Mir, a Soviet and later Russian space station.

• 1985 – China Airlines Flight 006, a Boeing 747SP, suffers an engine flameout off the coast of California and dives 30,000 feet (9,100 m) before regaining control and landing safely in San Francisco.

• 1985 – Iberia Airlines Flight 610, a Boeing 727, crashed into a television antenna installed on the summit of Monte Oiz while landing in Bilbao, Spain. All 141 passengers and 7 crew died in the crash.

• 1982 – First flight of the Boeing 757

• 1978 – Egyptian forces raid Larnaca International Airport in an attempt to intervene in a hijacking, without authorization from the Republic of Cyprus authorities. The Cypriot National Guard and Police forces kill 15 Egyptian commandos and destroy the Egyptian C-130 transport plane in open combat.

• 1977 – Death of George Montague Cox, British WWI flying ace.

• 1972 – Lockheed C-130E Hercules 62-1813, c.n. 3775, of the 16th Tactical Airlift Training Squadron, mid-air collision with Cessna T-37 from Biggs AFB, Texas, 6 km NE of Little Rock, Arkansas – four killed on Hercules. Two Tweet pilots eject safely.

• 1965 – Lufthansa signs up as the first customer for the forthcoming Boeing 737

• 1965 – U. S. Air Force B-57 Canberra bombers become the first American aircraft to provide direct support to South Vietnamese Army ground units in combat.

• 1965 – First flight of the Cessna 188, an American light agricultural aircraft.

• 1964 – French troops are airlifted to Gabon to put down a coup by the army.

• 1959 – Last flight of Arrow 201 and the end of the Arrow Program which was ended the next day.

• 1957 – First Flights: Bell X-14

• 1956 – Birth of George David Low, American aerospace executive and NASA astronaut.

• 1955 – TWA Flight 260, a Martin 4-0-4, crashes into the Sandia Mountains near Albuquerque, New Mexico, killing all 16 on board.

• 1952 – Rodolfo Neri Vela, Mexican astronaut, was born. Vela became the first Mexican to fly in space when he was a Payload Specialist aboard the STS-61-B Atlantis mission, from November 26 to December 3, 1985.

• 1952 – A Fairey Firefly of 816 Squadron RAN goes missing, and is believed to have crashed into the sea near Moruya, New South Wales. Lieutenant Brian Wall and Sub Lieutenant Douglas Saunders are both lost.

• 1949 – A British European Airways Douglas Dakota collides with a RAF Avro Anson over Exhall, Warwickshire, killing all 14 on board both aircraft.

• 1948 – Birth of Byron Kurt Lichtenberg, Sc. D., American engineer, fighter pilot and Nasa Astronaut.

• 1945 – U. S. Marine Corps forces invade Iwo Jima, beginning the Iwo Jima campaign

• 1944 – (19–20) In support of a U. S. Army offensive at the Anzio beachhead, Allied tactical aircraft drop 972 tons (881,793 kg) of bombs, and Allied strategic bombers attack Grottaferrata, Albano Laziale, Genzano di Roma, and Velletri, Italy.

• 1943 – Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Ernest J. King places the responsibility for the development of the helicopter in the United States Department of the Navy under the United States Coast Guard.

• 1942 – “Pearl Harbor of Australia”, largest attack ever mounted by a foreign power against Australia. Nearly 250 Japanese warplanes attack the northern Australian city of Darwin killing 243 people.

• 1941 – First flight of the Airspeed Cambridge

• 1936 – Death of William Lendrum “Billy” Mitchell, US Army general who is regarded as the father of the U. S. Air Force.

• 1936 – Death of Malcolm Charles McGregor, New Zealand WWI flying ace, Aviation Pioneer and air racer, director of Union Airlines of New Zealand, Killed in a crash at the Wellington airport whilst trying to land during a gale.

• 1936 – Billy Mitchell, American general and military aviation pioneer, dies (b. 1879). William Lendrum “Billy” Mitchell was an American general who is regarded as the father of the U. S. Air Force.

• 1934 – First flight of the Supermarine Type 224, a British prototype fighter, open-cockpit monoplane with bulky gull-wings and a large fixed, spatted undercarriage issued from Supermarine seaplane racers.

• 1934 – The Douglas DC-1 makes record coast-to-coast flight, Los Angeles to Newark, N. J., 13 hours, 4 min.

• 1934 – The United States Army Air Corps begins flying US airmail after the government cancels all existing airmail contracts due to alleged improprieties by the previous administration during the negotiations of those contracts.

• 1933 – First flight of the Vultee V-1.

• 1932 – Birth of Joseph Peter Kerwin, M. D., American physician and former NASA astronaut.

• 1926 – First flight of the Kawasaki Ka 87.

• 1930 – Ralph O’Neil starts the first mail service of America airline New York, Rio and Buenos Aires Line (NYRBA) between Buenos Aires and New York. He takes off for the inaugural flight with a Sikorsky S-38 From Buenos Aires to Miami.

• 1919 – Death of Arthur Frederick Britton, British WWI flying ace.

• 1918 – The Dornier Rs.III, German large four-engined monoplane flying boat set off for 7-hour non-stop delivery flight from Friedrichshafen to Norderney.

• 1917 – First recorded casualty evacuation flight is carried out by the Royal Flying Corps (RFC), when a wounded trooper of the Imperial Camel Corps is flown from Bir-el-Hassana in the Sinai Desert to the airfield at Kilo 143 in an Royal Flying Corps aircraft. This would have been a three-day journey by the available surface transport, but the flight took 45 min.

• 1916 – Death of Ernst Mach, Austrian physicist and philosopher, noted for his contributions to physics such as the Mach number and the study of shock waves.

• 1916 – First flight of the Mann & Grimmer M.1, a British two-seat biplane fighter.

• 1912 – One of the most successful pre-World War I airship operations begins with the first flight of the Zeppelin LZ II, Victoria Louise, and its introduction into service with the German airship company DELAG.

• 1906 – Birth of Louis Massotte, French aviator, Blériot chief pilot and record setter.

• 1901 – Birth of John Nelson Boothman KCB KBE DFC AFC RAF, WWII Royal Air Force officer and Schneider trophy winner.

• 1899 – Birth of Cecil Frederick King, British WWI fighter ace.

• 1897 – Birth of John Geoffrey Sadler Candy, British WWI flying ace who also served during WWII.

• 1891 – Birth of Auguste Joseph Marie Lahoulle, French WWI flying ace, WWII French Air force high-ranking officer.

References

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20 February

• 2011 – Death of Barbara Harmer, British airliner pilot, first qualified female Concorde pilot.

• 2009 – Aerolift Flight 1015, an Antonov AN-12, registration S9-SVN, crashes shortly after take-off from Luxor International Airport, Egypt, killing all five crew. The aircraft is destroyed.

• 2009 – 2 Tamil Tigers aircraft (Zlín Z 143 – single engine, low-winged monoplane, mainly used for training purposes) packed with C4 explosives en route to the national airforce headquarters are shot down by the Sri Lankan military before reaching their target, in a kamikaze style attack.

• 2008 – Two McDonnell-Douglas F-15C Eagles of the 58th Fighter Squadron, 33d Fighter Wing, Eglin AFB, Florida, collide over the Gulf of Mexico ~50 miles (80 km) S of Tyndall AFB, Florida, killing 1st Lt. Ali Jivanjee. Capt. Tucker Hamilton ejected from the other fighter and survived. Airframes involved were F-15C-26-MC, 79-0075, c/n 0624/C144, and F-15C-32-MC, 81-0043, c/n 0793/C226. Both pilots ejected and one was rescued from the Gulf by the fishing boat Niña, owned by Bart Niquet of Lynn Haven, Florida, which was guided to the pilot by an HC-144A Ocean Sentry aircraft. A 1st SOW AC-130H and an MV-22 Osprey were also diverted to the scene to help search as were five Coast Guard aircraft and two vessels. An HH-60 Jayhawk from Coast Guard Aviation Training Center Mobile lifted the pilot from the fishing boat and evacuated him to the Eglin Hospital. The second pilot was rescued from the Gulf by an HH-60 Jayhawk from CGAS Clearwater and also taken to the Eglin Hospital. One pilot subsequently died several hours later from his injuries. An accident investigation released 25 August 2008 found that the accident was the result of pilot error and not mechanical failure. Both pilots failed to clear their flight paths and anticipate their impending high-aspect, midair impact, according to Brig. Gen. Joseph Reynes, Jr., Air Combat Command's inspector general who led the investigation. This was the first crash involving an Eglin F-15 since a fatal crash on 30 April 2002.

• 2005 – British Airways Flight 268, a Boeing 747-400, taking off from Los Angeles to London suffers fire in engine 2. The plane flies on three engines to Manchester, where it performs an emergency landing. None of the people on board are harmed.

• 2003 – A Pakistan Air Force Fokker F-27-200, 10254, of 12 Squadron, crashes near Kohat, Pakistan when it strikes a ridge at the 3,000-foot (910 m) level (915 m) AMSL, obscured by clouds. All 17 people on board died, including Air Chief Marshal Mushaf Ali Mir. PAF spokespersons said on 22 May that pilot error was to blame.

• 1998 – TWA retires the last of its Boeing 747 “jumbo jets” The newer and more efficient Boeing 767 is now the airline’s main intercontinental aircraft.

• 1996 – Death of Jeffrey Kindersley Quill OBE AFC FRAeS, British WWII RAF officer, RNVR officer and Test pilot. He test-flew every mark of Spitfire.

• 1992 – Seventy-six passengers fall ill and one dies after consuming contaminated shrimp served on board Aerolíneas Argentinas Flight 386, leading to improvements in aircraft disinfection procedures.

• 1991 – Petty Officer J. D. Bridges is sucked into the port intake of a Grumman A-6 Intruder in a 0341.11 hrs. flight deck accident on board the USS Theodore Roosevelt as the attack jet powers up to move onto the catapult. He is saved when the pilot hears the crewman's helmet and safety goggles ingest into the engine and shuts down immediately. Bridges, who was caught momentarily in the intake, is saved by the pilot's quick reaction and is able to crawl out suffering various minor injuries. The US Navy now uses film of this incident as a training tool and revised deck procedures to avoid a recurrence.

• 1989 – Lockheed C-141B Starlifter, 66-0150, c/n 300-6176, of the 63rd MAW, Norton AFB, California, crashed in stormy weather four miles N of Hurlburt Field, Florida while trying to land, killing seven crew and one military retiree. The plane's crewmen were identified as Capt. Mark J. Chambers, 30; Capt. John F. Young, 30; Master Sgt. Robert E. Wright Jr., 37; Tech. Sgt. Ronald D. Grubbs, 29; Staff Sgt. Karl M. Kohler, 32; Airman 1st Class Scott D. Craig, 22; Staff Sgt. John W. Remerscheid, 33. Remerscheid was assigned to the 14th Military Airlift Squadron at Norton. The others were assigned to the 52nd Military Airlift Squadron. The eighth man on board was identified by Hurlburt Field spokeswoman as retired Air Force Capt. John G. Galvin of Jacksonville, Florida.

• 1986 – Launch: Mir, Soviet (later Russian) space station, first modular space station.

• 1981 – A Bell UH-1 of the Royal Thai Army crashed in southern Thailand, all 11 on board killed.

• 1981 – An Indian Army Cheetah helicopter collided with a HAL Pushpak near Patiala airfield in India. Four crew killed (two in each aircraft) and a woman on the ground.

• 1977 – Death of Cristoffel Johannes “Boetie” Venter, South African WWI fighter ace, Director-General of the SAAF durin WWI and later, director of South African Airways.

• 1975 – U. S. Air Force Major R. Smith sets a new world absolute time-to-height speed record, flying a McDonnell Douglas F-15 A Eagle to 30,000 m (98,425 feet) in 207.80 seconds.

• 1972 – A USAF Lockheed HC-130 H Hercules piloted by a crew commanded by Lt. Comdr. Ed Allison sets a new world record for unrefuelled flight by turboprop aircraft. It flies a distance of 14,052.94 km (8,732.5 mi.) between the Taiwanese base of Ching Chuan Kang AB and Scott AFB, Illinois.

• 1972 – Birth of Anton Nikolaevich Shkaplerov, Russian air force pilot and cosmonaut.

• 1971 – Last round-the-world flight for the CC-106 Yukon departed Trenton in support of Canadian Outposts. It returned to Trenton after 17 days having logged 91.5 hours in the air.

• 1968 – A standard Learjet 25 sets a new “time-to-climb” record by climbing to 40,000 feet in 6 min 29 seconds.

• 1967 – Death of Cecil Guelph Brock, Canadian WWI flying ace who participated at the dogfight which conducted to Manfred Von Richtofen’s death.

• 1965 – Ranger 8 crashes on the moon. The spacecraft was designed to achieve a lunar impact trajectory and to transmit high-resolution photographs of the lunar surface during the final minutes of flight up to impact.

• 1963 – Austrian Airlines receives the first of five Sud-Aviation SE.210-VIR Caravelles, their first jet aircraft.

• 1963 – Death of Harold Koch Boysen, American WWI flying ace.

• 1962 – Piedmont retires the last of its DC-3 aircraft on the 15th anniversary of its first scheduled flight.

• 1959 – The Canadian government cancels the Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow.

• 1958 – Death of Charles Alexander Holcombe Longcroft KCB, CMG, DSO, AFC, Britsh WWI pilot and squadron commander in the Royal Flying Corps who went on to become a senior commander in the Royal Air Force.

• 1958 – Introduction: Lockheed F-104 Starfighter.

• 1957 – First Fiat G.91 prototype, NC.1, suffers serious problem was the elimination of aeroelastic vibrations, leads to its destruction on this date in a high-speed run at low altitude over Cavour, near Turin, Italy. Test pilot Riccardo Bignamini ejected successfully in a Martin-Baker seat. Although NC.1 was completely destroyed, all the recording equipment which Fiat had installed was salvaged from the crash site. The re-engineering work to cure the problem was very extensive and resulted in the second prototype being fitted with a larger tail, a 6 cm (2 in) higher canopy, a ventral fin and some other modifications.

• 1954 – Birth of Vasily Vasiliyevich Tsibliyev, Ukrainian-Russian cosmonaut.

• 1949 – Birth of Vladimir Yevgeniyevich Turovets, Russian test pilot.

• 1945 – 25 German Junkers Ju 88 s attack Convoy RA 64 with torpedoes as it steams from the Kola Inlet to the River Clyde. Wildcats from the British aircraft carriers HMS Campania and HMS Nairana shoot down at least three of them.

• 1945 – (Overnight) – 13 Japanese air raids strike at U. S. Fifth Fleet ships off Iwo Jima.

• 1944 – The “Big Week” begins with American bomber raids on German aircraft manufacturing centers.

• 1943 – Birth of Aleksandr Pavlovich Aleksandrov, Soviet cosmonaut.

• 1942 – Flight to Arras (French: Pilote de guerre), memoir by French author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, is published in the USA. It recounts his role in the French air force as pilot of a reconnaissance plane during the Battle of France in 1940.

• 1942 – The first combat between carrier-type aircraft of the Japanese and U. S. navies takes place between Rabaul-based Japanese aircraft and fighters from the aircraft carrier USS Lexington (CV-2) north of the Solomon Islands. The Americans lose two planes and one pilot, but claim to have shot down most of the 18 Japanese attackers; Lieutenant Edward H. “Butch” O’Hare shoots down five bombers to become the second U. S. Navy ace in history and the first in World War II.

• 1941 – Death of Alfredo Fusco, Italian WWI & WWII pilot, Killed in action in his Fiat G.50 “Freccia” aver Albania.

• 1941 – Death of Athos Ammannato, Italian WWII bomber pilot, missing in action over the Mediterranean sea.

• 1940 – First flight of the Yakovlev Yak-4, a Soviet twin engine light bomber.

• 1939 – First flight of the Douglas DC-5, the least known of the famous DC airliner series, 16-22 seat, twin-propeller aircraft intended for shorter routes than the DC-3 or DC-4.

• 1939 – A squadron of twelve U.S. Navy aircraft, types not identified, but described as "fast combat ships", returning to NAS Pensacola, Florida, from a routine training trip on a Monday night, find the Gulf Coast socked in by a fog described as one of the heaviest ever witnessed in the region, and eight planes are lost with two pilots killed. Three aircraft piloted by instructors, and one other plane, are diverted by radio and outrun the fogbank to land safely at Atmore and Greenville, Alabama. "Six of the Navy's flying students bailed out in the darkness and reached ground safely in their first parachute jumps. Their planes were wrecked beyond repair. Lt. G. F. Presser, Brazilian Navy flyer, in training at the Naval Air Station, crashed and was killed at Corry Field. His plane burned. The fog was so dense that the intense glow of the burning plane could not be seen by attendants on the field. Lt. N. M. Ostergren, U. S. Navy, was found dead at his crashed plane near McDavid the next morning. Both men were married. Officers said the wreckage of the eight planes - they declined to estimate their worth, but aviation circles here said the fast combat ships would cost from $18,000 to $20,000 each - was the air station's second heaviest loss. In 1926 a hurricane wrecked planes on the ground, hangars and other equipment for a total damage of about $1,000,000."

• 1924 – Three French Army officers make the first two-way aerial crossing of the Sahara Desert in a Breguet 14.

• 1921 – Birth of Joseph Albert “Joe” Walker, American NASA test pilot and Astronaut.

• 1919 – Birth of Squadron Leader James Joseph “Orange” O’Meara DSO, DFC & Bar, British Battle of Britain Spitfire Ace.

• 1918 – Death of Wolfgang Güttler, German WWI flying ace colliding with another pilot of his squadron.

• 1916 – During the Panama-Pacific Exhibition, Allan Loughead is allowed to launch an air service and flies 600 passengers across the bay during 50 days. The 10-minute flight costs $10 per passenger.

• 1912 – Birth of John “Johnny” Milne Checketts, New Zealand WWII fighter ace, responsible for introducing the de Havilland Vampire to form the RNZAF’s first jet squadron.

• 1908 – Birth of Grigorij Jakowlewicz Bachcziwandzé (Baratchivadzi), Soviet WWII flying ace.

• 1892] – Birth of Paul Montange, French WWI flying ace.

• 1888 – Birth of Benjamin Thomas ‘Ben’ Epps, American aviation pioneer and aircraft designer.

• 1888 – Birth of Fred Parkinson Holliday, Australian WWI fighter ace who also served with Canada in WWII.

• 1875 – Birth of Marie Marvingt, French athlete, mountaineer, and aviator, and the most decorated woman in the history of France. First woman to fly combat missions as a bomber pilot during WWI, a qualified surgical nurse, first trained and certified Flight Nurse in the world. She worked for the establishment of air ambulance services throughout the world.

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February 21

• 2011 – As violence in the Libyan Civil War grows, Libyan Air Force warplanes and attack helicopters launch airstrikes on protesters, reportedly targeting a funeral procession and a group of protesters trying to reach a military base.

• 2011 – Two senior Libyan Air Force pilots fly their Dassault Mirage F1 fighters to Malta and request political asylum after defying orders to bomb protesters. Two civilian helicopters also land in Malta after a flight from Libya, carrying seven passengers who claim to be French oil workers.

• 2011 – A Royal Canadian Air Force Lockheed CC-130H Hercules is badly damaged by fire at Key West Naval Air Station in the United States.

• 2010 – A Thomas Cook Airlines Boeing 757 begins gushing fuel out of its right wing after takeoff from Turin, Italy.

• 2010 –OH-58 Kiowa helicopter crashes in northern Iraq killing the two pilots on board.

• 2008 – Santa Bárbara Airlines Flight 518, an ATR 42-300, crashes shortly after taking off from Mérida, Venezuela, killing all 46 on board in the worst ever accident involving the ATR 42.

• 2008 – Continental adds 27 aircraft to its firm order positions at Boeing, including eight new 777 s and 19 new 737NGs.

• 2007 – Adam Air Flight 172, a Boeing 737-300 (PK-KKV), experiences a hard landing that results in a bent and cracked fuselage in Surabaya, Indonesia. This led to the grounding of all Adam Air 737 s, especially after the fatal crash of Flight 574 the previous month. All aboard survived with minor injuries.

• 2007 – A UH-60 Black Hawk is hit by RPG and small arms fire north of Baghdad and makes a hard landing; all nine military personnel on board were rescued.

• 2002 – A Russian Navy Antonov An-26, 07 Red, crashes one mile (1.5 km.) short of runway at Lakhta Airfield, near Archangelsk, northern Russia, during an emergency landing. Of the 20 people on board, 17 were killed.

• 2001 – A General Atomics RQ1 Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) test fires a laser guided AGM114 Hellfire missile.

• 1999 – Death of Eino Ilmari Juutilainen, fighter pilot of the Ilmavoimat (Finnish Air Force), and the top scoring non-German fighter pilot of all time. This makes him the top flying ace of the Finnish Air Force, leading all Finnish pilots in score against Soviet aircraft in WWII.

• 1998 – A Sudan Air Force Antonov An-32 overshoots the runway and crashes into a river near Nasir, Sudan killing 27 of the 57 people on board.

• 1995 – Steve Fossett lands in Leader, Saskatchewan, Canada, after taking off from South Korea, becoming the first person to make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon.

• 1994 – Death of Johannes “Macky” Steinhoff, German Luftwaffe fighter ace of WWII, and later a senior West German air force officer and military commander of NATO.

• 1991 – Iraqi forces shoot down a U. S. Army Bell OH-58 Kiowa helicopter as it returns from a border reconnaissance mission, and U. S. military forces lose three other helicopters and an F-16 fighter in non-combat crashes. In five weeks of air strikes against Iraq and Iraqi forces in Kuwait, Coalition aircraft have flown over 88,000 sorties, with the loss of 22 American and nine other aircraft, all to enemy ground fire.

• 1986 – USAir Flight 499, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-31 with 23 people on board, slides off a snow-covered runway while landing at Erie International Airport in Erie County, Pennsylvania, injuring one person.

• 1980 – Rockwell’s Sabreliner Model 80 sets a long-range flight record for its class, flying 2,653 miles from Boston, Mass., to Paris at 528 mph.

• 1980 – A Beechcraft Super King Air, registered VH-AAV, crashes at Sydney Airport, killing all 13 on board.

• 1979 – Former astronaut Neil Armstrong climbs to 50,000 feet in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina in just over 12 min in a Gates Learjet Longhorn 28, breaking five world records for business jets.

• 1973 – Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114, a Boeing 727, strays off course and is shot down by Israeli jets in the Sinai war zone, killing 108 of 113 people on board.

• 1972 – The Soviet unmanned spaceship Luna 20 lands on the Moon.

• 1971 – Death of James Knowles, Jr., American WWI flying ace.

• 1971 – All Nippon Airways operates their first international flight, a 727 charter from Tokyo to Hong Kong.

• 1970 – A bomb in the cargo hold of Swissair Flight 330, a Convair CV-990, detonates nine minutes after takeoff from Zurich International Airport, Switzerland; all 38 passengers and nine crew perish.

• 1967 – McDonnell Aircraft completes the 2,000th F-4 Phantom II.

• 1967 – A U.S. Navy Douglas A-4 Skyhawk from the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt, newly returned from a tour off Vietnam, crashes into the home of Mr. and Mrs. Truxton Basnight near Virginia Beach, Virginia after the pilot ejects. The delta-winged attack jet cut a swath through trees and impacted the frame house, cartwheeled over the structure, throwing burning fuel into the home. Five civilians are injured, two critically.

• 1964 – Birth of Twin Brothers Scott Joseph Kelly, American astronaut, and Mark Edward Kelly, American astronaut, U. S. Navy captain and naval aviator. First twin brothers in space.

• 1964 – A Philippine Airlines Douglas DC-3 crashes on approach to Marawi City. The accident is blamed on pilot error.

• 1962 – First flight of the Piasecki 16H, a US Experimental high-speed helicopter.

• 1960 – Death of Edwin Arnold Clear, British WWI flying ace.

• 1953 – First flight of the Brantly B-2, an American two-seat light helicopter.

• 1952 – First flight of the Saab 210, a Swedish called-down testbed for the double-delta concept in the development of the Saab 35 Draken fighter.

• 1951 – An English Electric Canberra becomes the first jet to make an un-refuelled crossing of the Atlantic, taking 4 hours 37 min.

• 1947 – United States Army Air Force Boeing B-29-95-BW Superfortress, 45-21768, "Kee Bird", modified to F-13 reconnaissance role, of the 46th/72d Reconnaissance Squadrons, on mission out of Ladd Field, Alaska, runs out of fuel due to a navigational error and is forced to land in a remote area of northern Greenland. The aircrew is rescued unharmed 3 days later, but the plane is abandoned in place. The accident achieves continuing notability for the exceptionally fortuitous rescue and later for a well-publicized and ultimately disastrous 1994 recovery attempt.

• 1945 – Birth of Matiur Rahman, Flight Lieutenant in the Pakistan Air Force.

• 1945 – First flight of the Hawker Sea Fury, a British fighter aircraft developed for the Royal Navy by Hawker, last propeller-driven fighter to serve with the Royal Navy, it was also one of the fastest production single piston-engined aircraft ever built.

• 1945 – aircraft carrier USS Saratoga is badly damaged by a kamikaze attack

• 1944 – The British aircraft carrier HMS Chaser joins the escort of the Arctic convoy JW 57 bound from Loch Ewe, Scotland, to the Kola Inlet in the Soviet Union. It is the first time an aircraft carrier has escorted an Arctic convoy since February 1943. By the time Chaser returns to Scapa Flow on March 9 after escorting the returning Convoy RA 57, her aircraft have sunk or assisted in the sinking of three German submarines, with only one merchant ship lost.

• 1942 – Air Marshal Arthur T. Harris assumes command of Royal Air Force Bomber Command. Known to the press as “Bomber” Harris, he will command Bomber Command for the remainder of World War II.

• 1941 – The co-inventor of insulin, Canadian Nobel laureate Sir Fredrick Banting was killed in a war-mission flight in Newfoundland.

• 1938 – First flight of the Miles Monarch, a British, light, touring aeroplane, Single-engine, three-seat, cabin monoplane with a fixed, tail-wheel undercarriage.

• 1938 – Death of Carlos de Haya González de Ubieta, his Fiat CR-32 crashing in mid air with a Republican Spanish Polikarpov I-15 during the Spanish war.

• 1935 – Sisters Jane and Elizabeth Du Bois, daughters of the American consul at Naples, Italy, Coert du Bois, force open the door of a Hillman Airways de Havilland Dragon Rapide airliner in flight and jump to their deaths. Both women had been engaged to be married to pilots killed in the crash of a Royal Air Force flying boat off Sicily on February 15.

• 1933 – Death of Alférez Alfredo Rodríguez Ballón, Peruvian raid pilot, crashing his Douglas O-38-P during Peruvian-Colombia war.

• 1930 – Death of Henrich Claudius Kroll, German WWI fighter ace.

• 1922 – U.S. Army semi-rigid (blimp with a keel) Roma, bought from Italy, formerly T34, suffers control box failure at stern in flight, nosed into the ground, struck power lines at Army supply base, Norfolk, Virginia, and burst into flames, killing 34 of 45 on board, including Capt. Dale Mabry, its commander. This would remain the worst American aviation accident until the loss of the USS Akron in 1933. Accident spurs American lighter-than-air operations to switch to helium, less buoyant than hydrogen, but non-inflammable. Dale Mabry Municipal Airport in Tallahassee, Florida, that city's first airport, was named after Mabry, a Tallahassee native.

• 1922 – U.S. Marine Corps Naval Aircraft Factory F-5-L, A-3591, of VS-1M, crashed during a night flight.

• 1921 – Birth of Franz Schiess, WWII German fighter ace.

• 1920 – Birth of Robert Samuel Johnson, American WWII flying ace.

• 1920 – Death of Croye Rothes Pithey, South African WWI flying ace, Bomber pilot and Balloon buster, killed in a crash, flying a Bristol Fighter.

• 1919 – The prototype of the first US-designed fighter to enter large-scale production, the Thomas-Morse MB-3 (to be made by Boeing), makes its maiden flight.

• 1917 – Birth of Otto “Bruno” Kittel, WWII German Luftwaffe flying ace.

• 1916 – Zeppelin LZ47 (LZ77) is attacked and destroyed during a raid in the Battle of Verdun.

• 1916 – Birth of Fritz Wendel, German Messerschmitt test pilot during WWII.

• 1914 – Birth of Eino Ilmari Juutilainen, fighter pilot of the Ilmavoimat (Finnish Air Force), and the top scoring non-German fighter pilot of all time. This makes him the top flying ace of the Finnish Air Force, leading all Finnish pilots in score against Soviet aircraft in WWII.

• 1911 – A new 1910 Wright Type B Flyer owned by Collier’s magazine publisher Robert F. Collier, arrives at San Antonio, Texas on rent to the U. S. Army for $1.00 per month to supplement the aging Wright biplane first accepted on August 2, 1909.

• 1910 – Birth of Group Captain Sir Douglas Robert Steuart ‘Dogsbody’ Bader, WWII Royal Air Force legless fighter ace.

• 1906 – Birth of Moye Wicks Stephens, American aviation pioneer, businessman and co-founder of Northrop Aircraft, Inc.

• 1895 – Birth of Leslie Jacob “Rummy” Rummell, American WWI flying ace.

• 1895 – Birth of Friedrich “Fritz” Friedrichs, German WWI fighter ace.

• 1893 – Birth of Owen Morgan Baldwin, British WWI fighter ace.

• 1893 – Birth of Friedrich Manschott, German WWI flying ace.

• 1892 – Birth of Edmund Leonard Zink, British WWI flying ace.

• 1889 – Birth of Victor François Marie Alexis Regnier, French WWI flying ace who served in WWII.

References

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February 22

• 2013 – The United States Department of Defense grounds all 51 United States Air Force, United States Navy, and United States Marine Corps F-35 Lightning II aircraft after an inspection of a U.S. Air Force F-35A at Edwards Air Force Base, California, discovers a cracked engine blade.

• 2011 – Christchurch International Airport is closed after a magnitude 6.3 earthquake rocks the city center, causing extensive damage, deaths and injuries.

• 2011 – Former Libyan Ambassador to India Ali Abd-al-Aziz al-Isawi confirms that Libyan Air Force jets have bombed civilians.

• 2009 – Australian airline SkyAirWorld suspends operations pending a restructure of its business.

• 2007 – A UH-60 Black Hawk crashed in an area north of Baquba City. The helicopter went down in a clash between gunmen and U.S. troops.

• 1996 – Launch: Space Shuttle Columbia STS-75 at 20:18:00 UTC. Mission highlights: Hubble Space Telescope servicing.

• 1995 – The CIA’s Corona reconnaissance satellite program, run in secret with help from the US Air Force from 1959 through 1972, is declassified. Corona satellites were launched aboard rockets, took photos of the Soviet Union and China, then parachuted back into the atmosphere where they would be retrieved in the air by specially equipped US Air Force C-119 Flying Boxcar transport planes.

• 1995 – Slingsby T-3A Firefly, 93-0555, N3092K, 'RA', of the 557th FTS, crashes when it fails to recover from a spin, killing instructor Capt. Dan Fischer, 29, and Cadet Mark Dostal, 20, of Moraga, California. Trainer made 17 tight spirals as it dropped one mile in 30 seconds before impacting ~50 miles E of the Air Force Academy in Colorado. This was the first of three Firefly fatal accidents before the type was withdrawn from operation and the surviving airframes scrapped.

• 1993 – First flight of the McDonnell Douglas MD-90

• 1987 – First flight of the Airbus A320

• 1986 – Launch: Spot-1 satellite, with 10 panchromatic and 20 m multispectral picture resolution capability. Withdrawn December 31, 1990.

• 1978 – Launch: OPS 5111 (also known as Navstar-1), first satellite in the Global Positioning System (GPS).

• 1975 – First flight of the Sukhoi Su-25, a Soviet single-seat, twin-engine jet aircraft designed to provide close air support.

• 1974 – An unemployed tire salesman named Samuel Byck attempts to hijack a Delta Air Lines DC-9 at Baltimore/Washington International Airport using a .22 caliber handgun and a suitcase filled with gasoline bombs. Byck’s objective – To crash the plane into the White House and assassinate President Richard Nixon. The plane never leaves the gate, though he does shoot and kill a police officer and one of the pilots and wounds the other pilot before being wounded by police and then committing suicide.

• 1974 – U. S. Navy Lieutenant, junior grade, Barbara Ann Allen is designated a naval aviator, becoming the first female aviator in the United States Armed Forces.

• 1973 – A ceasefire in Laos immediately ends all U. S. Air Force strikes there by tactical aircraft. B-52 Stratofortress strikes will end two months later.

• 1969 – The Mil V-12, Russian helicopter, lifted a payload of 31,030 kg to 2951 m (9,682 feet), breaking the records for maximum payload carried to 2000m.

• 1967 – 845 of the 173rd Airborne Brigade take part in Operation Junction City, the only paratrooper assault of the Vietnam War

• 1959 – Death of Robert B. C. Noorduyn, Dutch engineer, businessman, aircraft designer and manufacturer.

• 1959 – A US Navy McDonnell F2H-4 Banshee, 127614, of VAW-11, NAS North Island, California, crashes during bad weather en route to NAS Alameda, California, killing the pilot, Lt.(jg) James F. Wyley. Wreckage can still be found at the crash site in a rugged area of California's Santa Cruz Mountains at [37.26894,-122.13096], in the Saratoga Gap Open Space Preserve.

• 1958 – On the occasion of the departure of G/C Ralph Weston as RCAF Comox Commanding Officer, 407 Squadron had all 12 of its Lancasters in the air for a ceremonial flypast.

• 1955 – Fifth of 13 North American X-10s, GM-19311, c/n 5, on X-10 flight number 13, out of Edwards AFB, California, has supersonic flight aborted when afterburners fail. Automated landing fails when chute deploys during radio-controlled approach, causing the vehicle to plunge into the desert and be destroyed.

• 1954 – First flight of the Convair R3Y Tradewind - There is conflicting information in Wikipedia's own article about the R3Y stating in one place the first flight was 22 Feb and in another 25 Feb.

• 1952 – Birth of James Philip Bagian, M. D., P. E. American engineer and NASA scientific astronaut.

• 1952 – Second accident in three days for 816 Squadron RAN occurs when a Fairey Firefly carrying Sub Lieutenant Durrant Small and Observer J. G. Sharp crashes into the sea near Seven Mile Beach, New South Wales. Both Small and Sharp are killed.

• 1950 – AOn its 102nd flight, the USAF Northrop XF-89 Scorpion, 46-678, crashed on Rosecrans Avenue in Manhattan Beach, California after making a high-speed low pass for Air Force officials at Hawthorne Airport (Northrop Field). Right horizontal stabilizer peeled off, aircraft disintegrated, throwing pilot Charles Tucker clear, parachuted safely, but flight engineer Arthur Turton died in mishap. Aircraft impacted five miles (8 km) from factory, setting alight a Standard Oil below-ground storage tank. Cause was found to be high-frequency, low-amplitude aeroelastic flutter of both the vertical and horizontal stabilizers.

• 1948 – First flight of the LWD Junak, a Polish trainer aircraft.

• 1944 – The U. S. Army Air Forces create the United States Strategic Air Forces in Europe.

• 1944 – (Overnight)—Japanese aircraft conduct four raids against ships of U. S. Navy Task Force 58 as they approach Truk Atoll, inflicting no damage.

• 1944 – Japanese resistance on Eniwetok ends.

• 1943 – Boeing 314, Pan American "Yankee Clipper", NC18603, c/n 1990, (U.S. Navy BuNo 48224), crashes into the Tagus River near Lisbon, while on approach to Portugal by way of the Azores. Caught in a storm, the flying boat hooked a wingtip in a turn while attempting an emergency landing. 25 of 39 on board die. Among those killed are actress Tamara Drasin and international journalist Ben Robertson, en route to his new job, chief of the New York Herald-Tribune's London bureau. Actress Jane Froman is seriously injured. Her story of survival will be made into the 1952 film "With a Song in My Heart" starring Susan Hayward.

• 1942 – Death of August von Parseval, German airship designer.

• 1942 – Air Marshal Arthur “Bomber” Harris was appointed Commander-in-Chief to the RAF Bomber Command.

• 1941 – Saro Lerwick flying boat, L7263, of 209 Squadron, piloted by Plt. Off. Fyfe, goes missing. Extensive air and sea searches turn up no trace, nor any of 14 on board, including Wing Commander Bainbridge. A new C.O., Wing Commander MacDermott, is appointed a few days later.

• 1938 – First flight of the Fleet 50 Freighter was a twin-engine biplane Canadian general utility aircraft.

• 1935 – Leland Andrews breaks Doolittle’s January record, completing a transcontinental transport flight in 11 hours 34 min.

• 1934 – First flight of the Fairey S.9/30, a British two-seat, single-engined biplane built to an Air Ministry call for a fleet reconnaissance aircraft. Although only one was built, it was the progenitor of the Fairey Swordfish.

• 1932 – During the Shanghai Incident, three Imperial Japanese Navy Nakajima A1 N2 fighters from the aircraft carrier Kaga score the first air-to-air kill in Japanese history, shooting down a Nationalist Chinese Boeing fighter piloted by an American volunteer.

• 1928 – Australian Bert Hinkler lands at Fanny Bay in Darwin, Australia after 11,000-mile solo flight from England. He is the first to make such a trip, setting four other new records – Longest solo flight, longest light plane flight, first nonstop flight from London to Rome and fastest journey from Britain to India.

• 1925 – First flight of the Gloster Gamecock, a British biplane fighter.

• 1925 – First flight of the de Havilland DH.60 Moth

• 1922 – Death of Dmitri Dmitrijewitsch Fjodorow, Soviet Aircraft designer.

• 1921 – The first coast to coast airmail flight was flown by Jack Knight in a DeHavillard Dh-4. The flight from San Francisco to Roosevelt Field, New York took 33 hours and 20 min.

• 1917 – The prototype Curtiss JN-4 (Can.) was accepted by the RFC Canada at Long Branch Aerodrome, near Toronto, Ontario.

• 1913 – French aviator Jules Védrines becomes the first pilot to fly over 100 mph, behind the controls of a Deperdussin Monocoque near Pau, France.

• 1912 – The Fokker Aviatik G. m. b. H. company is entered in the trade register at Berlin, Germany with a quoted capital of 20,000 marks. The company’s Holland-born founder, Anthony Herman Gerard Fokker, was brought up in Haarlem, the Netherlands and moved to Germany where he developed a passion for aviation before designing his first airplane – The Spider No. 1 – In late 1910.

• 1912 – Jules Vedrines becomes the first pilot to exceed 100 miles per hour (161 km/h). He makes his flight in a Deperdussin monoplane near Pau, France.

• 1900 – Birth of Paul Kollsman, American inventor who invented barometers and instruments for instrument flight in airplanes.

• 1899 – Birth of Ronald Malcolm Fletcher, British WWI observer/gunner ace in two-seater fighters in conjunction with his pilot, Lt. S. F. H. Thompson.

• 1899 – Birth of Joseph Marie Le Brix, French raid aviator.

• 1893 – Birth of Wolfgang Güttler, German WWI flying ace.

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February 23

• 2011 – Two United States Marine Corps helicopters, a Bell UH-1Y and a Bell AH-1W, collide at night on the Yuma training range, Arizona, United States. All seven crew members were killed.

• 2010 – A house cat escapes from its carrier as its owner is traversing a TSA search at Newark Liberty Airport. The 25-lb cat proceeds to wedge itself under a baggage screening machine, forcing a temporary closure of the Terminal A checkpoint.

• 2010 – Kingfisher Airlines formally submits its application to join the oneworld alliance.

• 2009 – Lion Air Flight 972, a McDonnell Douglas MD-90-30, registration PK-LIO, lands at Hang Nadim Airport, Indonesia, with the nosewheel stuck in the raised position. The aircraft is damaged significantly.

• 2008 – Andersen Air Force Base B-2 crash: A Northrop-Grumman B-2A Spirit, 89-0127, 'WM', "Spirit of Kansas", of the 393rd Bomb Squadron, 509th Bomb Wing, Whiteman AFB, Missouri, crashed shortly after takeoff from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. Both pilots ejected from the plane before it crashed, the aircraft was destroyed. Moisture in flight sensors caused steep pitch-up and stall to port.

• 2008 – Andersen Air Force Base Northrop Grumman B-2 Spririt accident: A United States Air Force B-2 Spirit crashes at Anderson Air Force Base in Guam. It is the first operational loss of a B-2. The crew of two ejects safely, but the aircraft would be the most expensive write-off in history, as each B-2 rings up to around $1.2 billion. The cause of the crash is later determined to have been moisture in the air-data pressure sensors, producing inaccurate speed readings and then an early rotation and subsequent stall.

• 1997 – A small fire occurs on the Russian Space station, Mir, when a solid-fuel, oxygen-generating canister bursts into flames. There are no injuries.

• 1991 – Iraqi antiaircraft artillery downs a U. S. Marine Corps AV-8 B Harrier II near Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait.

• 1990 – A Marine Corps student pilot and his U.S. Navy instructor from Whiting Field, Florida, were killed after two Beechcraft T-34C Turbo Mentors collided in mid-air, near Summerdale, Alabama. One plane crashed near the edge of the field, killing the instructor pilot, Lt. Gordon Bruce Wulf, 29, a Wichita, Kansas, native who lived in Cantonment, Florida, and his student, Marine 1st Lt. Cary K. Smith Jr., 25, of Columbia, South Carolina. The second plane made an emergency landing at another outlying field about 15 miles away near Silverhill, Alabama, with only slight damage and without injury to the instructor pilot or his student.

• 1981 – Death of Chester Stairs Duffus, Canadian WWI flying ace.

• 1976 – Death of Pjotr Michailowitsch Stefanowski, Soviet WWII test pilot.

• 1972 – First flight of the PAC CT/4 Airtrainer, an all-metal construction, single-engine, two place side-by-side seating, fully aerobatic, piston engined, basic training aircraft built in New-Zealand.

• 1959 – First flight of the Dornier Do 28D Skyservant, a German twin-engine STOL utility aircraft evolution of the Do-28. Redesigned aircraft with box fuselage, larger wing, new tail.

• 1959 – EWR (Entwicklungsring Süd GmbH) was formed of a Bölkow, Heinkel, and Messerschmitt design consortium to develop a Mach 2 VTOL intercepter.

• 1959 – Birth of Clayton Conrad Anderson, American engineer and NASA astronaut.

• 1955 – First flight of the CAC Winjeel, an Australian Two-seat basic trainer aircraft for the RAAF.

• 1954 – Flying a Douglas XF4D-1, Robert Rahm climbs to 10,000 ft (3,000 m) in 56 seconds.

• 1951 – First flight of the Dassault Mystère, a French fighter-bomber prototype with a 30-degree swept wing.

• 1949 – Death of Thomas Neville Stack AFC, British test pilot, air racer and aviation pioneer. He served in WWI and WWII and was managing director of Pakistan-Orient airways.

• 1949 – Birth of Joseph Jean-Pierre Marc Garneau, CC CD FCASI MP, Canadian retired military officer, astronaut, engineer and politician. First Canadian in space.

• 1945 – (February 23-March 2) The night fighter squadron aboard USS Enterprise (CV-6), operating off Iwo Jima, keeps planes airborne for a record 174 consecutive hours.

• 1945 – Last allied ship sunk by the Luftwaffe in WWII is the Liberty ship SS Henry Bacon, torpedoed in the Barents Sea.

• 1944 – Aircraft from six aircraft carriers of Task Force 58 make the first Allied strike against Japanese forces in the Mariana Islands, attacking Guam, Rota, and Tinian, discovering the location of Japanese airfields in the islands for the first time, destroying 168 Japanese aircraft, sinking two cargo ships and several smaller craft, and conducting the first Allied photographic reconnaissance missions ever flown over the Marianas.

• 1942 – First flight of the Polikarpov ITP, a Soviet fighter prototype.

• 1937 – Douglas delivers its first production B-18 Bolo bomber.

• 1935 – Leland Andrews breaks Doolittle's January record, completing a transcontinental transport flight in 11 hours 34 min.

• 1934 – First flight of the Lockheed Model 10 Electra, a twin-engine, all-metal monoplane airliner. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Model_10_Electra

• 1932 – First flight of the Gloster TC.33, a British large four-engined biplane designed for troop carrying and medical evacuation.

• 1929 – First flight of the Breguet 27, a French two-seat biplane all-metal observation aircraft.

• 1928 – Birth of Vasily Grigoryevich Lazarev, a Soviet cosmonaut.

• 1924 – Lt. John S. Ansley of the 111th Observation Squadron, Texas National Guard, crashes in Curtiss JN-4H, 24-158, (one source gives the type as a Curtiss JN-6) at Ellington Field, Texas, when he enters a tailspin during practice, but at insufficient altitude to recover, the airframe smashing into a pile of stacked lumber. The pilot dies later in hospital.

• 1921 – A team of pilots completes an experimental coast-to-coast mail flight; flying by day and night, they have linked San Francisco and Long Island in a day and half’s flying time.

• 1916 – Birth of Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr., brigadier general in the USAF, best known for being the pilot of the B-29 ‘Enola Gay’, the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb in the history of warfare.

• 1914 – First flight of the Bristol Scout, a simple, single seat, rotary-engined biplane originally intended as a civilian racing aircraft.Like other similar fast, light aircraft of the period – It was acquired by the RNAS and the RFC as a “scout”, or fast reconnaissance type. In the event it was one of the first single-seaters to be used as fighter aircraft.

• 1909 – First flight of the AEA Silver Dart

• 1901 – Birth of Ruth Rowland Nichols, American aviation pioneer, who was the only woman to hold simultaneous world records for speed, altitude, and distance for a female pilot.

• 1899 – Birth of George Raby Riley, British WWI fighter ace.

• 1896 – Birth of Maurice Leblanc-Smith, British WWI flying ace.

• 1886 – Birth of Didier Masson, pioneering French aviator, barnstormer, second flier in history to bomb a surface warship, WWI fighter pilot and early manager of Pan American World Airways.

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February 24

• 2012 – A United States Navy F/A-18F on a training flight crashed into a dry lake bed 30 miles from Naval Air Station Fallon. The crew was recovered by helicopter.

• 2011 – Launch: Space Shuttle Discovery STS-133 at (21:53:24 UTC. Mission highlights: ISS assembly flight ULF5, PMM Leonardo (to be left permanently attached), ELC 4. Final flight of Discovery.

• 2010 – The fourth Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner test plane (N7874) makes its first flight.

• 2010 – A Philippine Air Force North American OV-10 Bronco crashed during training at 1455 hrs. Two Philippine Air Force pilots were killed.

• 2010 – A Fuerza Aérea Mexicana Cessna 182S Skylane crashed during take off near San Diego de Alcalá, Chihuahua resulting in 3 injured and 2 fatalities.

• 2003 – The 777-300ER completes its first flight.

• 1999 – China Southwest Airlines Flight 4509, a Tupolev Tu-154, crashes while on approach to Wenzhou Airport, killing all 61 passengers and crew on board.

• 1996 – Brothers to the Rescue shoot-down: A Cuban Air Force MiG-29UB fighter shoots down two Cessna Skymasters of the Cuban exile activist group Brothers to the Rescue off Havana, Cuba, killing four members of the group, including pilot Carlos Costa. A third Skymaster escapes.

• 1991 – The U. S.-led Coalition's ground attack against Iraqi forces in Kuwait begins. In its first hours, 60 United States Army UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters carry the 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) 75 miles (120 km) inside Iraq, where the brigade seizes a forward operating base. The brigade's sudden appearance unnerves Iraqi defenders so badly that they surrender quickly, with some surrendering to helicopters before American troops begin to land.

• 1989 – United Airlines Flight 811, a Boeing 747, suffers an explosive decompression shortly after takeoff from Honolulu, Hawaii, United States caused by a cargo door that burst open during flight. Of 355 people on board, nine passengers are sucked out of the plane, but the crew manages to land safely at Honolulu.

• 1985 – Dornier Do 228 "Polar 3″: Polar 3 was a Dornier Do 228 airplane of the Alfred Wegener Institute that was shot down south of Dakhla by guerrillas of the Polisario Front over Western Sahara on 24 February 1985.

• 1984 – First flight of the Boeing 737-300

• 1983 – Cody Locke becomes the youngest pilot known to have made a solo flight in a powered, heavier-than-air, flying machine at age of 9 years 316 days. The flight takes place near Mexicali, Mexico and the aircraft the boy pilots is a Cessna 150. His record is broken in 1988 when Tony Aliengena of Oceanside, California, soloed at age 9 years 295 days in an Eipper Quicksilver GT ultralight.

• 1973 – United States Marine Corps helicopters begin clearing mines from North Vietnamese harbors

• 1970 – HMS Ark Royal is recommissioned after a £UK 30 million refit.

• 1969 – Far Eastern Air Transport Flight 104, a Handley Page Dart Herald, suffers engine failure and crashes while on approach to Tainan Airport, Taiwan; all 36 on board die.

• 1965 – U. S. Air Force aircraft fly a massive number of tactical air sorties to break up a Communist ambush of South Vietnamese ground forces in Vietnam's Central Highlands.

• 1957 – Scandinavian Airline Services (SAS) opens the first regular scheduled service from Europe to the Far East over the North Pole, with departure from Copenhagen, Denmark and Tokyo, Japan; the DC-7 C aircraft will circle the pole en route.

• 1956 – Entered Service: Gloster Javelin with No. 46 Squadron RAF

• 1956 – USAF Douglas C-124C Globemaster II, 53-021, en route from Goose Bay, Labrador to Upper Heyford in the United Kingdom, lost power in number one and four engines (port and starboard outer). Restricted data cargo was jettisoned over the North Atlantic, including nuclear weapon firing and maintenance sets from an altitude of 8,000 to 9,000 feet (2,700 m). The Air Force assumed that the cargo packaging ruptured and sank after impact with the sea. Impact area searched, nothing recovered. On its return flight to the Warner-Robins AFB, Georgia, in the U.S. on 2 March, the aircraft crashed in the Atlantic ~225 nmi (417 km). SW of Keflavik, Iceland. The aircraft and 17 crew were lost in 3,000 feet (910 m) of water. "The plane ran into difficulty on the northbound trip when two motors failed and it was thought that the ship would have to be ditched. However, it was shepherded into a safe landing with the assistance of the air-sea rescue planes from Keflavik base in Iceland. The two motors were replaced and the ship thoroughly inspected before starting the return trip. Just after midnight of Friday the plane radioed three of its four engines were dead and it was losing altitude rapidly. Then the radio went dead. Later Saturday morning [3 March] search planes found only two bits of wreckage - a flame-scarred oxygen bottle and a shattered piece of plywood - picked up near the position from which the final message had been radioed." One of the victims was T/Sgt. Joseph Kaltner, 32, of Crestview, Florida, a 14-year veteran of the Air Force who had seen action as a gunner in WW II and in the Korean campaign. He was assigned at Warner-Robins AFB. He is survived by his widow, the former Roslyn Clary, of Crestview; one child, Keitha, 1; his mother, Mrs. Anna Kaltner, and two sisters, Mrs. Theresa Lampman and Mrs. Anna Sapp, all of Trenton, New Jersey, Sgt. Kaltner's home prior to his marriage.

• 1955 – First flight of the BOMARC surface-to-air missile

• 1943 – The second of three top German night fighter aces to die during the month, Paul Gildner, is killed in a crash after an electrical failure aboard his Messerschmitt Bf 110. Like Reinhold Knacke, who died earlier in the month, he has 44 night victories when he dies; his overall score is 48 kills.

• 1941 – (Overnight) – The Avro Manchester bomber makes its combat debut in a Royal Air Force Bomber Command raid on Brest, France.

• 1940 – The 2,000-hp prototype Hawker Typhoon prototype P5212 fighter makes its first flight in England.

• 1935 – First flight of the Heinkel He 111

• 1931 – John Lankester Parker makes the first flight of the prototype Short S.17 Kent flying boat, from the river Medway in Kent, England.

• 1930 – Replacement second prototype Parnall Pipit, N233, also suffers failure of tail unit in flight, this time losing both fin and rudder, Martlesham test pilot Sqn. Ldr. Sydney Leo Gregory Pope (DFC, AFC) bails out at under 1,000 feet over the Parnall Yate airfield, successfully parachuting down. Flutter of rudder due to heavy tail lamp in its trailing edge which both counteracted the large horn balance as well as substantially increased the moment of inertia about an unsupported hinge tube is cause, exacerbated by a lack of rigidity in the rear fuselage. Air Ministry regards the Pipit as wholly unacceptable, and this will represent the Parnall firm's last attempt to produce an effective fighter design.

• 1921 – First flight of the Douglas Cloudster. It is the first airplane to lift a useful load exceeding its own weight.

• 1921 – Lieutenant William D. Coney completes a solo flight from Rockwell Field, San Diego to Jacksonville, in 22 hours and 27 min flying time.

• 1898 – Kurt Tank, German aeronautical engineer and test pilot, was born (d. 1983). Kurt Waldemar Tank was a resourceful German aeronautical engineer and test pilot, heading the design department at Focke-Wulf from 1931-45. He designed several important aircraft of World War II, including the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter aircraft.

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February 25

• 2011 – A Brazilian Air Force Super Tucano crashed close to Porto Velho Air Force Base. The pilot, First Lieutenant Marcelino Aparecido Feitosa, ejected. He was rescued by a FAB's UH-60 (Black Hawk). He was talking during the rescue and he was kept under observation at the Army hospital.

• 2010 – A United States Air Force General Dynamics F-16C Fighting Falcon crashed during landing at Osan Air Base, South Korea. The plane became uncontrollable and the pilot bailed out. The jet was heavily damaged and crashed within Osan's boundaries.

• 2009 – Turkish Airlines Flight Flight 1951 crashes short of the runway while on approach to Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. A faulty altimeter on the Boeing 737-800 (TC-JGE) led to a decrease in the autothrottle to idle. Noticing too late, the crew was unable to recover, and the aircraft broke apart while landing in the mud. Among the 135 people on board, 85 are injured, 9 die, including the two pilots.

• 2004 – OH-58D(R) Kiowa 97-0124 crashes in Iraq with 4th Squadron, 3d ACR, after striking electrical wires west of Baghdad, killing the two pilots.

• 1991 – 63 U. S. Army Blackhawk helicopters lift the 3rd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) 155 miles (250 km) behind Iraqi ground forces attempting to retreat from Kuwait, cutting them off. This will allow Coalition aircraft and ground forces to annihilate the trapped Iraqi units on Highway 8 between Basra and Baghdad. Iraqi antiaircraft artillery shoots down a U. S. Marine Corps AV-8 B Harrier II southeast of Kuwait City, and also claims an American OV-10D Bronco and an American attack helicopter.

• 1990 – Smoke-free flights become mandatory throughout North America for all US airlines.

• 1988 – A US Army Boeing-Vertol CH-47D Chinook helicopter, 86-01643, of 2nd Platoon, Company A, 2nd Battalion, 158th Aviation Regiment, 47th Hospital, 214th Field Artillery Brigade, 3rd Corps, Forces Command (FORSCOM), located at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, crashes outside Chico, Texas, killing 10 soldiers and injuring 8, most with burns. The helicopter caught fire mid-flight due to the failure and disintegration of the number two transmission and driveshaft, and the brave pilots attempted an emergency landing, but the billowing smoke and passenger movements made it impossible. The helicopter hit the ground at 150 mph, breaking apart in a sheet of fire. This was originally the first B-model Chinook, 66-19121, which was converted in 1986 to D-model status.

• 1986 – A small fleet of American military helicopters evacuates deposed President of the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos and his entourage from Manila to Clark Air Force Base. The following day, he goes into exile in Hawaii.

• 1984 – Retired: Republic F-105 Thunderchief

• 1982 – American Airlines announces it will cancel its orders for 15 Boeing 757s.

• 1975 – Brig. General Chuck Yeager, the first pilot to break the sound barrier, flies his final US Air Force sortie.

• 1971 – Chapin Scott Paterson, an American citizen, hijacked a Seattle-bound US Boeing 747 from San Francisco, to Vancouver; he was turned over to FBI the same day.

• 1970 – TWA becomes the first airline to fly a “Jumbo Jet” within the US, when it inaugurates a Boeing 747 service between Los Angeles and New York.

• 1966 – First flight of the Alon A-4

• 1965 – First flight of the McDonnell Douglas DC-9

• 1964 – Eastern Air Lines Flight 304, a Douglas DC-8 flying from New Orleans International Airport to Washington National Airport, crashes into Lake Pontchartrain, killing all 51 passengers and seven crew aboard.

• 1963 – First flight of the Transall C-160

• 1962 – In the 1962 Avensa Fairchild F-27 accident, the plane crashes into San Juan mountain on Margarita Island, killing all 23 on board.

• 1960 – The 1960 Rio de Janeiro air crash was an aerial collision between two aircraft over Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In the crash, a United States Navy (USN) Douglas R6D-1, BuNo 131582, flying from Buenos Aires - Ezeiza to Galeão International Airport/Galeão Air Force Base collided with a Real Transportes Aéreos Douglas DC-3 registration PP-AXD, which was flying from Campos dos Goytacazes to Rio de Janeiro - Santos Dumont Airport, over Guanabara Bay, close to the Sugarloaf Mountain. Of the 38 occupants of the American aircraft, 3 survived. All 26 passengers and crew of the Brazilian aircraft died.

• 1958 – United Airlines sets a record commercial Honolulu, Hawaii-to-San Francisco, California, flight time of 5 hours 43 min.

• 1958 – During joint exercises with the US Navy at Naval Station Mayport, Duval County, Florida, a flight of four Royal Canadian Navy McDonnell F2H-3 Banshee fighters performs a formation takeoff but immediately flies into a dense fog bank; the rearmost aircraft, BuNo 126428 of VF-871, drops out of formation and vanishes. The airplane's nosewheel and pilot Lt. Barry Troy's helmet are later found floating in the ocean nearby, but no other signs of the missing aircraft or pilot are ever found.

• 1945 – First flight of the Bell XP-83

• 1945 – Carrier aircraft of the U. S. Navy’s Task Force 58 strike targets around Tokyo, but bad weather forces the cancellation of many strikes.

• 1944 – German guided bombs sink the British destroyer HMS Inglefield off Anzio with heavy loss of life.

• 1943 – (25-26) German aircraft attack Convoy JW 53 during its voyage from Loch Ewe, Scotland, to Molotovsk in the Soviet Union via the Barents Sea, causing no damage.

• 1941 – First flight of the Messerschmitt Me 321

• 1941 – Douglas B-18 Bolo, 36-446, c/n 1747, formerly of the 11th Bomb Group, crashes due to main bearing failure on port engine. The crew was rescued three days later. Since then, the aircraft has been sitting in a gulch on Laupahoehoe Nui LLC property, Hamakua, Hawaii. Acquired by Pacific Aviation Museum, the plan is to recover and restore the aircraft.

• 1940 – The first RCAF unit, 110 Army Co-op Squadron, arrived in England.

• 1935 – A Curtiss Y1O-40B Raven, 32-416, of the 1st Observation Squadron, 9th Observation Group, Mitchel Field, Long Island, New York, piloted by Don W. Smith, suffers major damage when it force lands due to engine failure at Floyd Bennett Field, New York City, New York.

• 1933 – USS Ranger, the US Navy's first ship designed from the outset as an aircraft carrier, is launched.

• 1932 – Russia’s civil airline changes its name to “Aeroflot” as we know it today.

• 1930 – Ralph O’Neil lands in Miami on the first mail service of America airline New York, Rio and Buenos Aires Line (NYRBA) between Buenos Aires and New York after a difficult 6-day flight from Argentina.

• 1929 – Curtiss XP-6 Hawk (fourth P-2, 25-423, converted with Curtiss V-1570-1 engine), of the 27th Pursuit Squadron, is destroyed in crash at Selfridge Field, Michigan, after structural failure in a spin/stall with only 80 flying hours, killing pilot Andrew D. Knox. This airframe had won the Pursuit Plane Race in the 1927 National Air Races with a speed of 189.608 mph.

• 1929 – The world’s first major air evacuation comes to an end when Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF) flies out the last of 586 civilians from Kabul to the safety to India. The airlift involves nationals of about 20 countries.

• 1910 – Crew training begins for the Royal Navy’s first rigid airship, HMA No. 1, also known as Mayfly.

• 1784 – The first balloon flight made in Italy takes place from the grounds of a villa owned by Chevalier Paul Andreani near Milanand uses a modified hot air design built by the brothers Charles and Augustin Gerli.

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February 26

• 2013 – A fire starts aboard the Ultramagic N-425 hot-air balloon SU-283 while it is attempting to land near Luxor, Egypt, carrying 19 tourists, a tour guide, and its pilot. The pilot and one tourist leap from the balloon and suffer serious injuries before the balloon, with the other 19 people still aboard, rises rapidly to an altitude of about 300 meters (984 feet), experiences an explosion heard several kilometers away, collapses, crashes to the ground, and suffers another explosion. The 19 people still aboard, seven of whom jump to their deaths to escape the fire, are killed. It is the deadliest hot-air balloon accident in history, exceeding the death toll in a 1989 accident in Australia.

• 2010 – The Twitter account of United Airlines gets hacked and begins posting links to “male-enhancement” pills.

• 2007 – United Airlines Flight 955, a Boeing 777–222, was on a scheduled flight from London Heathrow Airport to San Francisco. It had just pushed back from the gate at London Heathrow Airport and started its right engine when an electrical contactor failed, spraying molten metal on a polyethylene terphthalate covered insulation blanket and igniting it. The crew shut down the engine and the fire was successfully contained without injuries to the 205 aboard.

• 2005 – Continental begins codesharing with Air France

• 2004 – Macedonia Government Beechcraft 200 Super King Air, Z3-BAB, c/n BB-652, crashes into mountains while attempting to land in poor weather at Mostar International Airport, Bosnia - Herzegovina . All 9 aboard killed including Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski. Pilot error. The two-man crew misinterpreted crucial flight data in stormy weather.

• 1981 – First flight of the Aerotec A-132 Tangará

• 1981 – A variable-angle ski jump (7-15°), of the type fitted to the Royal Navy's aircraft carriers, becomes operational at Royal Naval Air Station Yeovilton in Somerset.

• 1979 – Production of the A-4 Skyhawk ends after 26 years, with the delivery of the 2,690th and final aircraft to the United States Marine Corps.

• 1975 – First flight of the Cessna 404 Titan

• 1973 – A private Learjet 24 crashed shortly after take-off from DeKalb-Peachtree Airport in Chamblee, Georgia, United States. The aircraft, registration N454RN, owned by a private corporation, struck birds shortly after lifting off. Air traffic control advised the flight crew of smoke trailing from their left engine; the crew said they would not be able to return to the airport. The aircraft impacted the roof of an apartment building and came to rest in a ravine. All five passengers and two crew members aboard the aircraft were killed; a person in the apartment building suffered severe burns.

• 1971 – Death of Yves Felix Barbaza, French WWI flying ace

• 1971 – First flight of the Saab Safari, also known as the Saab MFI-17 Supporter, Swedish prop-powered basic trainer aircraft used by several air forces.

• 1971 – A Luftwaffe Lockheed F-104G Starfighter, 22+64, c/n 7145, of Detachment Deci, crashes during a gunnery training flight on the Fransca range over the Italian island of Sardinia after its pilot parachutes to safety, the defense ministry said, making it the 128th crash of the type since entering German service in 1961. Engine failure due to FOD.

• 1967 – US Navy A-6 Intruders of VA-35 drop sea mines in the mouth of the Song Ca and Song Giang rivers

• 1966 – Launch: Saturn IB rocket, launching AS-201, test flight for the Apollo program

• 1966 – Death of Richard Bell Davies VC, CB, DSO, AFC, British WWI fighter pilot and Royal Navy officer.

• 1965 – USAF Boeing B-47E-25-DT Stratojet, 52-0171, collides with KC-135A-BN Stratotanker, 63-8882, during midair refuelling 410 mi. SSE of Harmon Air Base, Newfoundland, both aircraft lost.

• 1962 – Death of Riccardo Moizo, Italian military pilot durin WWI and high-ranking officer in WWII

• 1960 – An Alitalia DC-7 C crashed at Shannon Airport, Ireland, shortly after takeoff.

• 1958 – Birth of Susan Jane Helms, Lieutenant General in the US Air Force and NASA astronaut

• 1958 – Death of William Charles Campbell, Scottish WWI fighter ace, notable balloon buster and instructor.

• 1958 – The RCAF accepted the first Avro CF-105 Arrow.

• 1955 – George F. Smith becomes the first person to survive a supersonic ejection, from a North American F-100 Super Sabre travelling (Mach 1.05).

• 1954 – Piedmont Airlines carries its one millionth passenger after 6 years of scheduled service.

• 1949 – Feb 26-Mar 2 – B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II of the 43rd Bombardment Group, completed the first non-stop around-the-world flight from and to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Tucson, Arizona. The 23,452 mile (37,742 km) journey takes 94 hours 1 min.

• 1946 – Finnish observers report the first of many thousands of sightings of ghost rockets.

• 1945 – A B-24 Liberator carrying General Millard Fillmore Harmon Jr., and Brigadier General James R. Andersen disappeared the next day after taking off for Hawaii. The aircraft was never found and there were no survivors.

• 1945 – First flight of the Sud-Ouest Bretagne, a French twin engine airliner.

• 1945 – Beautiful Betsy was the name of an American Liberator Bomber. The wreckage of the plane was discovered in what is now Kroombit Tops National Park, located in The Boyne Valley in central Queensland, Australia. The Beautiful Betsy had suffered combat fatigue and was only being used for short supply runs. It had been retired from combat. Its final mission was a Fat Cat run from Darwin to Brisbane – Transporting men and supplies as part of a regular flight. It disappeared in stormy weather.

• 1944 – Death of Charles de Lambert, early French aviator, first person in France to be taught to fly by Wilbur Wright and first person to fly around the Eiffel tower.

• 1943 – German night fighter ace Ludwig Becker is shot down and killed over the North Sea during a daytime mission against U. S. Army Eighth Air Force B-17 Flying Fortress bombers, the third of three top German night aces to die during the month. Like Reinhold Knacke and Paul Gildner, his night score stands at 44 when he dies; he is credited with 46 kills overall. The three men had been the second-, third-, and fourth-ranking German night aces.

• 1942 – The luxurious Boeing Stratoliners are stripped of their civilian finery and pressed into military service as C-75 s. The first flights carry antitank ammunition and medical supplies to British forces in Libya.

• 1942 – (Overnight) 49 British bombers attack Kiel, Germany, with the loss of three aircraft. They score two hits on the German battlecruiser Gneisenau, killing 116 of her crew and damaging her so badly that she never is seaworthy again.

• 1941 – A Douglas DC-3 airliner operating as Eastern Airlines Flight 21 crashes outside of Atlanta, Georgia. Among the eight dead is Maryland Congressman William D. Byron. Eight people survive, including the U. S. top-scoring ace of World War I and Eastern Airlines president Eddie Rickenbacker, who is gravely injured but eventually recovers.

• 1941 – Philippine Airlines is founded, making it Asia’s first and oldest carrier, still to this day operating under its original name.

• 1940 – The US Air Defense Command is formed at Mitchell Field, New York.

• 1937 – First flight of the Fiat G.50 ("Arrow"), a WWII Italian fighter aircraft. Italy’s first single-seat, all-metal monoplane with an enclosed cockpit and retractable landing gear to go into production.

• 1935 – Adolf Hitler orders the Luftwaffe to be re-formed, violating the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles.

• 1935 – Robert Watson-Watt carries out a demonstration near Daventry which leads directly to the development of RADAR in the United Kingdom.

• 1935 – In Germany, Adolf Hitler orders Hermann Göring to secretly establish the Luftwaffe, violating the provision of the Treaty of Versailles of 1919 that Germany never again possess armed aircraft.

• 1934 – First flight of the Armstrong Whitworth A.W.19, a British two/three-seat single-engine biplane, built as a general-purpose military aircraft

• [[1931 in aviation|1931] – Imperial Airways begins scheduled services between England and Africa using Armstrong Whitworth Argosys

• 1931 – French Lucien Bossoutrot and Maurice Rossi takes off in the Blériot Bl-110 'Joseph Le Brix' for a world distance record on closed circuit

• 1928 – Birth of Anatoly Vasilyevich Filipchenko, Soviet cosmonaut

• 1928 – First flight of the BFW M.20 (also known as the Messerschmitt M 20 after the designer), a German single-engine, high-wing monoplane 10-seat passenger transport aircraft, but was lost when pilot Hans Hackmack bailed out at low altitude and was killed after the surface stripped from part of the wing.

• 1926 – Death of Geoffrey William Hemming, British WWI flying ace, in a flying accident with a Fairey III. D at RAF Calshot.

• 1922 – Death of Léon Levavasseur, French powerplant engineer, aircraft designer and inventor. His innovations included the V8 engine, direct fuel injection, and evaporative engine cooling.

• 1918 – Death of Giuseppe Ghislanzoni WWI Italian pilot

• 1906 – Birth of Hans Bertram, German aviator, film-maker and author. During the late 1920s, he assisted in organising the Republic of China naval air service. Bertram twice visited Australia: firstly in 1932, when he was rescued following a forced landing during an around the world flight and secondly, during 1941–45, as a prisoner of war.

• 1896 – Birth of Saint Cyprian Churchill Tayler, British WWI flying ace

• 1894 – Birth of Wilhelm Bittrich, German WWI Fighter pilot, SS-Obergruppenführer and Waffen-SS General during WWII.

• 1893 – Birth of Otto Kissenberth, German WWI fighter ace

• 1890 – Birth of Chauncey Milton Vought, American aviation pioneer and engineer.

• 1888 – Birth of Mario Castoldi, Italian aircraft engineer and designer.

• 1873 – Birth of Johann Heinrich Karl "Jan" Schütte, German early Dirigible Airship designer.

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February 27

• 2009 – A Polish Army Mil Mi-24 Hind Helicopter crashes in bad weather into a forest near Toruń, Kuyavian-Pomeranian Province, Poland. The aircraft from the 49 Regiment combat helicopters Pruszcz Gdański was on a night training flight for service in Afghanistan resulting in 2 crew injured and 1 fatality.

• 2007 – First flight of the Bell 429

• 2006 – Death of Robert Lee Scott Jr., Brigadier General in the United States Air Force. Scott is best known for his autobiography 'God is My Co-Pilot' about his exploits in WWII with the Flying Tigers and the United States Army Air Forces in China and Burma.

• 2003 – A Canadian Forces Air Command Sikorsky CH-124B Sea King helicopter, 12401, of 12 Wing, crashes on the deck of HMCS Iroquois in the Persian Gulf. No one was killed, but the ship's mission in the Gulf was postponed.

• 2002 – Ryanair Flight 296 catches fire in London Stansted Airport. Subsequent investigations criticize Ryanair’s handling of the evacuation.

• 1993 – The USAF begins supply drops into Bosnia

• 1991 – An American OV-10D Bronco becomes the last Coalition aircraft lost in combat during the Gulf War.

• 1987 – Royal Air Force Boeing Chinook HC.1 ZA721 crashed in the Falkland Islands, all seven on board killed.

• 1980 – A China Air Lines Boeing 707 originating from Taipei crash landed in Manila, Philippines and was destroyed by fire. All 124 passengers and 11 crew members exited the plane and survived.

• 1970 – Hawker Siddeley begins buying back surplus Hawker Hunters from the Royal Air Force to remanufacture for new customers.

• 1969 – Beagle Aircraft Limited, British light aircraft manufacturer gets into voluntary liquidation.

• 1965 – First flight of the Antonov An-22

• 1963 – First flight of the Hughes OH-6 Cayuse

• 1961 – Max Conrad takes off from Miami in a PA-23 Aztec named New Frontiers (registration N4445P) for an Around-the-world record.

• 1958 – In the Winter Hill air disaster, a Silver City Airways Bristol 170 Freighter travelling from the Isle of Man to Manchester Ringway Airport crashes into Winter Hill, Lancashire, killing 35 people and injuring seven.

• 1945 – First flight of the Curtiss XF15C, a US mixed-propulsion (propellor and turbojet engines) fighter prototype.

• 1945 – Off Iwo Jima, the U. S. Navy tank landing ship USS LST-776, specially equipped with booms and cables for launching light aircraft, achieves the first successful launch of a Piper OY-1 Cub observation plane.

• 1943 – USAAF bomber aircraft made their first raid on Germany.

• 1942 – The aircraft tender USS Langley (AV-3), which once had been the U. S. Navy’s first aircraft carrier as USS Langley (CV-1), is sunk by Japanese aircraft in the Indian Ocean while trying to deliver Curtiss P-40 fighters from Australia to Java.

• 1942 – First flight of the Blackburn Firebrand.

• 1938 – 6 USAAC B-17 Flying Fortresses lands after a goodwill tour of Latin America, traveling 12,000 miles (19,312 km) to Lima, Buenos Aires, Santiago and back.

• 1936 – During the Second Battle of Tembien, Italian aircraft drop 200 tons (181,439 kg) of high-explosive bombs on forming-up areas for Ethiopian troops and kill many Ethiopians fleeing the battlefield as they ford the Takkaze River.

• 1935 – Latècoère’s giant seaplane Santos Dumont lands with a cargo of mail after a record flight of 53 hours 4 min from Natal, Brazil to Paris, with two stops en route.

• 1928 – Commander Theodore Gordon Ellyson, the first Naval Aviator, Lieutenant Commander Hugo Schmidt and Lieutenant Rogers Ransehounsen, crash to their deaths in the sole Loening XOL-7 amphibian, A7335, (an OL-6 modified with an experimental thicker wing), in the lower Chesapeake Bay while on a night flight from Norfolk, Virginia, to Annapolis, Maryland. The Navy searches for the lost aircraft for a month without success. On 11 March the office of the Secretary of the Navy cables Helen Ellyson, "Very reluctantly yesterday the Secretary came to the conclusion that it was necessary for us to declare the officers who were lost in the plane with your husband officially dead. We had hoped against hope that something might be found of those officers living but it does not seem now that there is any hope left." On 11 April, Ellyson’s body washed ashore in the lower Chesapeake Bay.

• 1924 – Death of Hans Georg Friedrich Groß, German balloonist and airship constructor.

• 1921 – Birth of Theodore Van Kirk, American navigator of the Enola Gay when it dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

• 1920 – Piloting a United States Army Air Service Packard-Le Peré LUSAC-11 fighter equipped with one of the first turbochargers, Major Rudolf Schroeder sets a new world altitude record of 10,099 m (33,113 feet). His oxygen system fails and he passes out; he regains consciousness only very near the ground and lands safely, but is hospitalized.

• 1918 – Birth of Harold Brownlow Morgan "Micky" Martin, Australian WWII bomber pilot (who flew with the 'Dambusters' 617 Squadron) and RAF post-war High-ranking officer.

• 1917 – The first military flying in Canada took place when the RFC Canada began training with three Curtiss JN-4 aircraft at Long Beach Aerodrome near Toronto.

• 1916 – Birth of Giuseppe Cenni, Italian Spanish war and WWII pilot

• 1910 – Birth of Clarence Leonard "Kelly" Johnson, American aircraft engineer and aeronautical innovator, member of the Lockheed Skunk Works. While at Lockheed, Johnson designed the P-38 Lightning fighter, made Fowler flaps work on the Model 14 Super Electra, and played a major role in converting the type into the Royal Air Force's Lockheed Hudson on short notice in 1938. He worked on the development of the Constellation for Howard Hughes' TWA airline.

• 1906 – Death of Samuel Pierpont Langley, American astronomer, physicist, inventor of the bolometer and pioneer of aviation.

• 1898 – Birth of Maryse Bastié, French aviatrix. Born Marie-Louise Bombec. Aerobatic, raid and record Pilot.

• 1890 – Birth of Arthur Roy 'Art' Smith, early American aviator, aircraft designer who also perfected the art of night time sky writing, WWI Instructor, and Airmail pilot.

• 1887 – Birth of Pyotr Nikolayevich Nesterov, Russian WWI pilot, aircraft technical designer and aerobatics pioneer.1

• 1885 – Birth of Theodore Gordon 'Spuds' Ellyson, USN pilot, first United States Navy officer designated as an aviator ("Naval Aviator No. 1").

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February 28

• 2013 – The United States Department of Defense announces that its F-35 Lightning II fleet, grounded since 22 February, will resume flying after an investigation determines that a cracked engine blade found in a U.S. Air Force F-35A was due to unique circumstances and is not a fleetwide problem.

• 2012 – A Russian Sukhoi Su-30Mk2 crashed in the far east of Russia on a test flight prior to delivery to Vietnamese People's Air Force. Both pilots ejected.

• 2012 – A United States Coast Guard HH-65C crashed during a training flight in Alabama. All four crew were killed.

• 2012 – A Guatemala Air Force Bell UH-1H crashed in bad weather near Chacalte killing all ten on board.

• 2011 – Libyan rebels reportedly shoot down a Libyan Air Force warplane during the Battle of Misrata.

• 2009 – Carpatair Flight 128, a Saab 2000, registration YR-SBI, lands at Traian Vuia International Airport, Romania, with the nosewheel stuck in the raised position. An emergency landing is successfully made on a partially foamed runway. The nose area of the aircraft is damaged.

• 2009 – Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight 5563, a Canadair CRJ-200ER, registration N830AS, suffers a fire on the ground at Tallahassee Regional Airport, United States. The crew evacuate, and the fire is extinguished after burning through the cockpit wall, the flight deck being significantly damaged.

• 2008 – Boston-Maine Airways, operating as Pan Am Clipper Connection, ceased operations.

• 2005 – February 28-March 3 – Steve Fossett completes the first solo, nonstop, non-refueled aerial circumnavigation of the globe by airplane in a jet-propelled airplane specially designed for this event.

• 1998 – First flight of the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk, the first unmanned aerial vehicle certified to file its own flight plans and fly regularly in U. S. civilian airspace.

• 1991 – The US calls a ceasefire in Iraq, with airpower having neutralized practically all of the country's ability to make war.

• 1990 – Launch: Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-36 at 2:50:22 EST. Mission highlights: Sixth classified DoD mission; Misty reconnaissance satellite deployment.

• 1983 – The final episode of M*A*S*H is broadcast in the US, becoming the most watched television episode in history, with 106–125 million viewers in the U. S. (estimate varies by source).

• 1983 – W. O. John Croker became the first service man in the Canadian Forces to exceed 10,000 hours on a C 130 Hercules.

• 1980 – An military Ka-27 helicopter on a ferry flight from the manufacturer runs out of fuel and crash lands on a busy intersection in the city of Kazan, damaging a tram. In the Post-Soviet states the crash is known as The Collapse of the Kamov-27 in Kazan. While no one was killed in the crash, rumors circulated in the Soviet Union that supposedly numerous people in the tram had been killed by the rotor blades and that the Soviet government would want to hide the alleged disaster.

• 1979 – Since, Tanzania has shot down 19 Ugandan aircraft during the Uganda-Tanzania War. The losses drive the Ugandan Air Force out of the war.

• 1979 – First flight of the PAC Cresco.

• 1966 – NASA astronauts Elliot See and Charles Bassett, original Gemini 9 crew, are killed when their Northrop T-38A-50-NO Talon, 63-8181, N901NA, crashes into a building while attempting to land in fog at Lambert Field, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 1964 – The Toronto International Airport terminal building opened.

• 1961 – Model Was KC-97 .. Mount Clemens, Mich. (AP) -- A loaded Air Force tanker plane smashed in a flaming smear across a busy highway late Tuesday, destroying two buildings and narrowly missing a tavern and a tulip farm house. The pilot had just veered his stricken ship, loaded with 9,500 gallons of fuel, away from a crowded housing project. The pilot, LT. JOHN C. BIBBLE, 24, Urbana, Ill., and the four other airmen aboard lost their lives. A housewife, RUTH KING, 32, said the four-engine, prop-driven KC97 from nearby Selfridge Air Force base struck "in a great big billow of flame and smoke." The big pot-bellied ship, crashing moments after takeoff, left a wake of burning wreckage. Pieces hung from overhead power lines and clogged U.S. 25, the highway leading from nearby Detroit. An Air Force spokesman said the ship was on a routine refueling mission when it apparently suffered a power failure on target. The ship veered away from a Selfridge Base housing project of 380.

• 1959 – First flight of the Aérospatiale Alouette III

• 1949 – First flight of the Dassault Ouragan

• 1948 – Two Army Air Force crew are killed in the crash of an North American T-6C-NT Texan, 41-32589, near Cowan, Tennessee when their aircraft impacts in mountainous terrain while flying from Hot Springs, Arkansas to Murphy, North Carolina. A search was begun when they were reported overdue on Sunday, 29 February. Rescuers labored for several hours to reach the wreckage which had been spotted earlier by a search plane. Capt. R. M. Howard of the Air Forces rescue service identified the victims as Frank Dreher, of West Columbia, South Carolina, a February 1948 Pre-med graduate of Clemson College; and Hubert Wells, of Murphy, North Carolina

• 1946 – First flight of the Republic F-84 Thunderjet

• 1947 – U. S. Army Air Forces Captain Robert E. Thacker (pilot) and Lieutenant John M. Ard (co-pilot) in the North American P-82 B Twin Mustang fighter Betty Jo on a single flight make both the longest nonstop flight without aerial refueling by a fighter aircraft, about 4,968 statute miles (7,994 km) from Hickam Field in Hawaii to La Guardia Field in New York City, and the fastest flight between Hawaii and New York City up to that time, 14 hours 31 min 50 seconds at an average speed of 342 mph (550 km/hr). It remains both the longest non-stop flight by a piston-engined fighter and the fastest Hawaii-to-New York City flight by a piston-engined aircraft in history.

• 1943 – Aircraft of the U. S. Army Air Forces’ Eleventh Air Force have dropped 150 tons (136,079 kg) of bombs on Japanese bases in the Aleutian Islands during the month, although half of their sorties have suffered from icy and corroded bomb racks that fail to release bombs.

• 1942 – Since February 1, the Luftwaffe's Fliegerkorps II has flown 2,497 sorties against Malta, including 222 attacks against airfields alone.

• 1940 – Germany begins the scrapping of the second Graf Zeppelin-class aircraft carrier, Flugzeugträger B, while she still is incomplete on the building ways. Scrapping is completed four months later.

• 1937 – First flight of the Mitsubishi Ki-30 (Allied reporting name “Ann”)

• 1929 – An amendment to the Air Commerce Act, effective in June, provides for the federal licensing of flying schools.

• 1927 – First flight of the Curtiss F7C Seahawk

• 1921 – Pierre Clostermann, French World War II pilot, was born (d. 2006). Colstermann was a French flying ace, author, engineer and politician.

• 1919 – The first international air passenger by heavier than air machine arrived in Canada. W. E. Boeing was flown to Vancouver, BC from Seattle Washington, in a Boeing C-700 seaplane by Edward Hubbard.

• 1918 – Regulation of the airways begins as US President Woodrow Wilson issues an order requiring licenses for civilian pilots and owners. Over 800 licenses are issued.

• 1907 – Cabinet-maker Charles Voisin begins tests of the airplane made by his company for Lèon Delagrange. He takes off for a hop of several feet, but the fuselage breaks up.

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February 29

• 2008 – Death of Kenji Yanagiya, Japanese Navy WWII Flying ace, only escort fighter pilot of the Yamamoto mission to survive the war.

• 2000 – First flight of the Mikoyan MiG-35

• 1996 – Faucett Flight 251, a Boeing 737, crashes into a hill while attempting to land at Arequipa, Peru. All 123 people on board die.

• 1996 – First flight of the Cessna Citation Excel

• 1996 – WestJet, a Canadian airline, begins operations.

• 1984 – First flight of the Eurocopter AS565 Panther, a military version of the Eurocopter AS365 Dauphin medium-weight multi-purpose twin-engine helicopter.

• 1984 – American Airlines sets an industry record by ordering 67 McDonnell Douglas MD-80 airliners, with options to order 100 more in the future.

• 1976 – Death of Grover Cleveland Loening, American aircraft manufacturer.

• 1964 – US President Lyndon Johnson reveals the existence of the CIA's Lockheed A-12 reconnaissance aircraft

• 1964 – British Eagle International Airlines Flight 802, a Bristol Britannia, crashed into a mountain near Innsbruck, Austria. All 75 passengers and 8 crew are killed in the crash.

• 1960 – First flight of the Beechcraft Baron, an American light, twin-engined piston aircraft

• 1956 – Introduction: Gloster Javelin

• 1948 – Introduction: Convair CV-240 family

• 1944 – During February, aircraft of the U. S. Army Air Forces‘ Seventh Air Force have flown about 1,000 sorties against Japanese forces on Jaluit, Maloelap, Wotje, and Nauru. No Japanese aircraft have intercepted them, but Japanese antiaircraft guns have shot down seven bombers and two fighters.

• 1940 – An attack by 40 Polikarpov I-153 and Polikarpov I-16 fighters on the Finnish Air Force airfield at Ruokalahti is the most successful Soviet Air Force strike of the Winter War. Surprising the Finns on the ground, the Soviets shoot down three Gloster Gladiators as they try to get airborne and shoot down two more Gladiators and a Fokker D.XXI in an ensuring dogfight, losing only one I-16 in exchange.

• 1940 – The Finnish government asks the United Kingdom and France to send 100 bombers with crews and bombs to Finland at once to assist in the war with the Soviet Union.

• 1936 – Birth of Jack R. Lousma, NASA astronaut and politician.

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 |February 1

• 2008 – Mauricio Delfabro wins the first FAI South American Gliding Championships and 55th National Gliding Championships of Argentina in Adolfo Gonzales Chaves in the mixed Open, 18 m, 15 m and Standard Class, Carlos Adrover became South American Club Class Champion.

• 2008 – A United States Air Force McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle from the 199th Fighter Squadron, 154th Wing of the Hawaii Air National Guard flying on a routine training flight crashes into the Pacific Ocean near Oahu, Hawaii. After losing control at low altitude simulating air-to-air combat the pilot ejected about 60 miles (97 km) south of the Honolulu International Airport and was rescued by a United States Coast Guard helicopter.

• 2006 – UAL. Corp, United Airlines' parent company emerges from bankruptcy after being in such position since December 9, 2002, the longest such filing in history..

• 2003 – The Space Shuttle Columbia, OV-102, is lost as it reenters after a two-week mission, STS-107. Damage to the shuttle's thermal protection system (TPS) leads to structural failure in the shuttle's left wing and, ultimately, the spacecraft breaking apart as it decelerated over Texas. Investigations after the tragedy reveal the damage to the reinforced carbon-carbon leading edge wing panel had resulted from a piece of insulation foam breaking away from the external tank during the launch and hitting shuttle's wing. Rick Husband, William McCool, Michael P. Anderson, David M. Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel B. Clark and Ilan Ramon were killed. See Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.

• 1992 – British Aerospace’s latest Hawk demonstrator, Hawk Mk 102D, ZJ 100, takes to the skies for the first time. It is an enhanced two-seater ground-attack version with a modified wing and incorporates many improvements to its onboard sensors and weapons system.

• 1991 – USAir Flight 1493, a Boeing 737, strikes SkyWest Airlines Flight 5569, a Fairchild Metro commuter plane waiting to take off from the same runway on which the Boeing 737 was landing at Los Angeles International Airport. Of the 101 people on both aircraft, 34 people, including all 12 aboard the Metro and 22 of the Boeing 737 passengers, are killed.

• 1991 – In the Gulf War, a U. S. Navy A-6E Intruder hits an Iraqi Navy patrol boat near Min-al-Bakr oil terminal, leaving it burning.

• 1987 – People Express Airline ceased operations. It is merged with Continental Airlines.

• 1983 – Boeing announces it will stop producing Boeing 727 airliners.

• 1982 – Death of Richard B. Kershner, American Chief Designer. Developer of the Transit navigation satellite system.

• 1981 – Donald Wills Douglas, Sr., founder of the Douglas Aircraft Company, dies at age 88 (b. 1892]).

• 1979 – Pakistani Air Force Lockheed C-130B Hercules 23488, c/n 3698, former USAF 62-3488, coded 'P', registered AQ-ACP, then AS-HFP, jumped chocks during night engine test run, collided with C-130E 10687, c/n 4117, former USAF 65-10687, coded 'D'. Both written off, hulls at Lahore, June 1981.

• 1975 – In the previous 16 days all 8 world time-to-height records have been captured by a specially modified McDonnell Douglas F15 Streak Eagle. The final record sets a time of 3 min 27 seconds from standstill on the runway to a height of 30,000 m (98,425 feet).

• 1973 – Death of George Clapham Dixon, Canadian WWI flying ace.

• 1971 – Death of Amet-khan Sultan, WWII Soviet fighter ace and test pilot, while making a test flight on Tu-16 test-bed.

• 1971 – The 4,000th McDonnell Phantom II, an F-4E for the Air Force, is delivered.

• 1970 – Captain Raymond Munro makes the first hot air balloon crossing of the Irish Sea from Brittis Bay in Cop Wicklow to Ennerdale in Cumberland.

• 1968 – The Royal Canadian Air Force and Royal Canadian Navy are disestablished as they merge with the Canadian Army to form the unified Canadian Armed Forces.

• 1967 – Rookie member of the Blue Angels U.S. Navy flight demonstration team, Lt. Frank Gallagher, of Flushing, New York, is KWF when his Grumman F-11A Tiger crashes during a practice flight ~16 miles NW of NAS El Centro, California. Fighter impacts in rugged desert terrain on a Navy test range. Assigned to the team only six weeks before, he is the fourth Blue Angels team member to die in an accident. Gallagher flew as the solo in the four-man formation and as number 6 in the full formation.

• 1964 – Entered Service: Boeing 727 with Eastern Air Lines.

• 1964 – President Lyndon Johnson publicly acknowledges the existence of the Lockheed A-12 Mach 3+ spy plane program and shows a picture that is actually a YF-12 A.

• 1963 – The United States Army activates the 11th Air Assault Division (Test) to test the concept of helicopter assault by ground forces.

• 1963 – Over 200 are injured and 73 killed when a Turkish Air Force Douglas C-47 Skytrain, CBK28, and a Middle East Airlines Vickers 745D Viscount turboprop airliner, OD-ADE, c/n 244, collide in a cloud bank in the afternoon over Ankara, Turkey, the press initially reports. Most of the victims were pedestrians and occupants of buildings lining Ulus Square in the Turkish capital. Eleven passengers and three crew aboard the commercial flight, and three crew aboard the Dakota were included in the fatalities. The C-47 was on a training flight. The body of one its crew was found on top of a building near the square with a partially opened parachute. Later description of the accident reported that the Viscount, Flight Number 265, from Cyprus to Ankara, was descending into Ankara-Esenboga Airport (ESB/LTAC), when it overtook the Dakota, which was returning to Etesmigut Airport. The airliner's number 3 (starboard inner) prop sliced off the Dakota's port horizontal stabilizer, while the starboard side of the Viscount was torn open with some passengers sucked out of the fuselage. An attempt to avoid the Dakota by the Viscount crew at the last moment was unsuccessful. This account gives ground fatalities as 87, and reports conditions as clear.

• 1961 – The Vickers Vanguard entered service with Trans Canada Airlines. Delivery of the first C-130 Navigation Trainer to 429 Squadron Winnipeg.

• 1961 – First launch of a LGM-30 Minuteman, U. S. nuclear missile, land-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

• 1961 – Birth of Daniel Tani, American engineer and NASA astronaut.

• 1960 – Pilot Officer Noel H Lokuge of Royal Ceylon Air Force bailed out at 700 feet when his Jet Provost Mk2 suffered an engine failure during a formation flying training near Katunayake AFB and became the first Sri Lankan (Then Ceylon) ejectee.He suffered no injuries and resumed flying the next day. His Martin-Baker Mk4 seat earned him the No 57 of Martin Baker Tie Club.

• 1958 – Launch of Explorer 1, first US Earth satellite.

• 1958 – United Airlines sets a record commercial Honolulu, Hawaii-to-Los Angeles, California, flight time of 6 hours 21 min.

• 1958 – A USAF Douglas C-118A Liftmaster military transport, 53-3277, of the 1611th ATW, and a United States Navy Lockheed P2V-5F Neptune patrol bomber, BuNo 127723, collided over Norwalk, California (a suburb of Los Angeles) at night. 47 servicemen were killed as well as a 23-year-old civilian woman on the ground who was hit by falling debris. Two crew on P2V-5F survive. A plaque commemorating the disaster was erected by the American Legion in 1961 at the location of the accident, the corner of Firestone Boulevard and Pioneer Boulevard.[citation needed]

• 1957 – Northeast Airlines Flight 823, a Douglas DC-6, crashes during a snowstorm shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport; twenty of the 101 occupants die.

• 1956 – Vought F8U-1 Crusader, BuNo 140444, crashes N of Edwards AFB, California, Vought test pilot Harry T. Brackett killed.

• 1954 – USAF Curtiss C-46D-15-CU Commando, 44-78027, c/n 33423, suffered an in-flight fire. Pilot attempted a ditching in the Tsugaru Straits, but aircraft crashed off Hokkaido, 35 killed.

• 1950 – Eight Grumman F9 F Panthers land on the USS Valley Forge to complete the first aircraft carrier night landing trials by jets.

• 1949 – Women's Royal Air Force (WRAF) revives, offering women a full professional career in the air force for the first time.

• 1945 – First flight of the Kawasaki Ki-100, Japanese fighter aircraft.

• 1944 – The U. S. Navy orders two Piasecki XHRP-1 helicopters. They are the first American helicopters to be developed under a military contract.

• 1944 – Death of James Alexander Connelly, Jr., American WWI flying ace and businessman.

• 1942 – The U. S. Navy aircraft carriers USS Enterprise (CV-6) and USS Yorktown (CV-5) launch air strikes against Japanese bases in the Marshall Islands. It is the first offensive operation by American forces in World War II.

• 1941 – Birth of Enzo Venturini, Italian Air force pilot.

• 1940 – The Soviets begin a new ground offensive in Finland, supported by about 500 bombers.

• 1940 – Death of George de Bothezat, Russian American engineer, businessman and pioneer of helicopter flight.

• 1940 – The Southern Rhodesian government forms Southern Rhodesian Air Services.

• 1939 – Reserve Command is formed under the command of Air Marshal C. L. Courtney.

• 1935 – Birth of Vladimir Viktorovich Aksyonov, Soviet pilot and cosmonaut.

• 1933 – First flight of the Boeing XF6 B, Boeing's last biplane design for the USN, carrier based fighter/bomber.

• 1932 – The Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carrier Hōshō joins the carrier Kaga in Chinese territorial waters during the Shanghai Incident.

• 1930 – San Francisco’s first air ferry service starts to operate, cutting journey time across the Bay to 6 min. The ferry flies from San Francisco to Alameda, and from Oakland to Vallejo.

• 1929 – First flight of the Lublin R-X.

• 1929 – The aviation and space operations of Boeing and Pratt & Whitney were merged to form the United Aircraft & Transport Corp.

• 1927 – The first NCO pilots Began training at Borden. They were A. Anderson, R. Marshall, A. J. Horner. They received their wings 30 April 1927.

• 1923 – 1923 – The Danish Army Flying Corps is established

• 1920 – World War I American ace (twelve victories) Field Eugene Kindley is killed in a crash at Kelly Field near San Antonio, Texas, during a demonstration flight for General John J. Pershing. A control cable snaps on the Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5 biplane Kindley is flying, AS-8137, of the 96th Aero Squadron, he stalls, falls from an altitude of 100 feet. Kindley Air Force Base, Bermuda, is later named for him. Other sources give his crash date as both 2 February and 3 February.

• 1920 – The first interisland commercial flight in the Hawaiian Islands takes place when pilot Charles Fern carries a paying passenger from Honolulu to Maui and back. The outbound flight requires an emergency stop on Molokai.

• 1920 – The South African Air Force is established as an independent air arm.

• 1913 – Birth of Jeffrey Kindersley Quill OBE AFC FRAeS, British WWII RAF officer, RNVR officer and Test pilot. He test-flew every mark of Spitfire.

• 1912 – First flight of the Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2 (Blériot Experimental), a British single-engine two-seat biplane.

• 1911 – Burgess and Curtiss becomes the US's first licensed aircraft manufacturer, receiving a license to build Wright aircraft from the Wright Brothers, who held several key aeronautical patents.

• 1902 – Death of Rudolf Max Wilhelm Hans Bartsch von Sigsfeld, German airship designer and pilot.

• 1898 – Birth of Francis Jefferies Williams, British WWI flying ace.

• 1898 – Birth of John Carbery Preston, British WWI flying ace.

• 1896 – Birth of James Henry Forman, Canadian WWI flying ace.

• 1893 – Birth of Loudoun James MacLean, British WWI flying ace.

• 1891 – Birth of Corradino D'Ascanio, Italian aeronautical engineer who designed the first production helicopter, for Agusta, and designed the first motor scooter for Ferdinando Innocenti.

• 1891 – Birth of Mario Fucini, Italian WWI flying ace.

• 1888 – Birth of Henri Péquet, French pioneer aviator, WWI pilot and test pilot.

• 1887 – Birth of Henry Meyrick Cave-Browne-Cave CB, DSO, DFC, RAF, British engineering officer in the Royal Naval Air Service during WWI and senior commander in the RAF.

• 1885 – Death of Stanislas Charles Henri Dupuy de Lôme, French naval architect and Navigable balloons designer.

• 1876 – Birth of Francis Kennedy 'Frank' McClean AFC, English civil engineer and pioneer aviator, One of the founding members of the Royal Aero Club and one of the founders of naval aviation and amateur flying.

• 1858 – First flight in Australia in a Balloon is made by William Dean at Cremourne Gardens near Richmond.

References

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