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.
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 – 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.
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.
