2012 – A MAFFS-equipped Air Force Lockheed C-130H Hercules, assigned to the 145th Airlift Wing, North Carolina Air National Guard, crashed in southwest South Dakota while fighting White Draw Fire, killing four crew and seriously injuring two.
2009 – Launch of TerreStar-1, American communications satellite.
2004 – Cassini – Huygens, flagship-class NASA-ESA-ASI spacecraft, enters into orbit around Saturn.
2002 – America West Flight 556, an Airbus A319, is ordered back to the terminal at Miami before take-off after security screeners report that the pilots appear intoxicated; the pilots are eventually given prison sentences.
2002 – In the Überlingen mid-air collision, Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937, a Tupolev Tu-154 with 57 passengers and 14 crew members on board, collides with DHL Flight 611, a Boeing 757 cargo plane with 2 pilots on board near Lake Constance, Germany; all people on both planes perish.
1998 – A MK.51 BAE Hawk, 'HW-324', c/n 312221, of the Finnish Air Force crashes into the forest near Luopioinen due to Engine failure. Both pilots ejected. One of the pilots sustained minor injuries.
1997 – Launch: Space Shuttle Columbia STS-94 at 2:02:02 pm EDT. Mission highlights: Spacelab mission.
1994 – Launch of Soyuz TM-19, Russian mission to the space station Mir.
1993 – STS-57, Shuttle-Spacehab mission of Space Shuttle Endeavour, is back on earth
1993 – Launch of Soyuz TM-17, Russian mission to the space station Mir.
1989 – The crowd at the Paris air show is stunned when the Soviet Sukhoi Su27 performs its 'Cobra' manoeuvre. The Cobra sees the aircraft transfer from level flight to a vertical attitude and back to level flight with negligible changes in altitude.
1988 – CAAC (Civil Aviation Administration of China), the Chinese state airline, changes its name to become Air China.
1978 – Death of Kurt Arthur Benno Student, German WWI Flying ace, Luftwaffe general and commander of German Fallschirmjäger (Paratroopers) during WWII.
1976 – The National Air and Space Museum (NASM) of the Smithsonian Institution opens in Washington, D. C., United States, it is a center for research into the history and science of aviation and spaceflight, as well as planetary science and terrestrial geology and geophysics.
1975 – First flight of the Valmet L-70 Vinka, a Finnish-designed piston-powered military basic trainer aircraft.
1970 – Melbourne opens its new international airport
1965 – The U. S. Army combines the 11th Air Assault Division (Test) with the 2nd Infantry Division to form the first Cavalry Division (Airmobile), a unique division that includes three airborne-qualified battalions and several battalions of helicopters which are integral to its combat elements, allowing it to engage in helicopter assault operations.
1965 – Continental Airlines Flight 12, a Boeing 707, runs off the end of the runway at Kansas City Downtown Airport, breaking into three pieces; all 66 on board survive.
1961 – The Royal Air Force deploys Hawker Hunter combat aircraft to reinforce Kuwait, which is under threat from Iraq. Simultaneously it deploys Canberras and Valiant aircraft to Malta.
1961 – The RAF deploys combat aircraft to reinforce Kuwait, which is under threat from Iraq.
1960 – PVO StranyMiG-19 shoots down an RB-47 H Stratojet (s/n 53-4281) in international airspace with 4 of the crew killed and 2 captured by the Soviets
1957 – Death of August Heinrich Euler, German aviation pioneer and aircraft designer and holder of the first Germany Pilots license
1956 – Death of Patrick Dawson Fleming, US Navy WWII fighter ace and test pilot, Killed in the crash of a B-52.
1955 – South Vietnam’s air force, the Vietnam Air Force, is established.
1954 – Vought becomes an independent company for the first time since 1929, taking the name Chance Vought Incorporated.
1954 – Second of 13 North American X-10s, GM-19308, c/n 2, on Navaho X-10 flight number 7, crashes and burns after 8 minutes of flight out of Edwards AFB, California, when a fire develops on board.
1945 – (1-3) The U. S. Navy escort aircraft carriers USS Suwannee (CVE-27), USS Chenango (CVE-28), and USS Gilbert Islands (CVE-107) with Marine Air Group 2 embarked support Australian Army amphibious landings at Balikpapan, Borneo.
1945 – Death of Edson Fessenden Gallaudet, American pioneer in the field of aviation, first person to experiment with warped wings.
1944 – Orenda Engines, Canadian aircraft engine manufacturer and parts supplier, is incorporated
1943 – US Navy Consolidated PBY-5 Catalina, BuNo 04447, returning to NAS Pensacola, Florida, after anti-submarine patrol flight over the Gulf of Mexico, attempts ill-advised landing in a storm brought on by a passing weather front, hits swell, bounces twice and overturns in Pensacola Bay. Nose section breaks away right at the wing tower and sinks, taking with it U.S. Coast Guard Motor Machinists Mate Chief Dana W. Heckart, in the co-pilot's seat as a pilot trainee. Rest of crew, all U.S. Navy personnel, pilot Ltjg. John W. Nichols, Lt. Norman Bennett, Ens. Francis R. Young, AMM3c Van C. Hardin, AM3c William E. Mutch, AMM2c Robert H. Ovink, ASM3c Albert W. Smith, and ARM3c Ralph E. Stuckey, survive as rest of airframe floats. Hardin, Mutch, Ovink and Smith suffer minor injuries, rest of crew more seriously injured. A seaplane wrecking derrick (YSD) retrieves floating section the following day. Heckart's body never recovered. Investigation finds pilot Nichols at fault for trying to land in storm conditions.
1943 – Municipal authorities in Hamburg, Germany, have logged 137 air attacks on the city and the deaths of 1,387 people and injuries to 4,496 in air raids since the beginning of World War II.
1942 – The United States Army Air Forces establish the Air Transport Command, a centralized, strategic air transport service directed by the United States Department of War.
1941 – No. 413 (Coastal) Squadron was formed in England.
1933 – First flight of the Douglas DC-1, an American prototype and first model of the famous United States DC (Douglas Commercial) commercial transport aircraft series
1933 – Start of the 2nd and ultimate air raid of Italo Balbo with 25 SIAI-Marchetti S.55X seaplanes (Air cruise of the decade) from Orbetello, Italy
1931 – The first mail delivered by rocket in the United States is claimed by three Struthers, Ohio high school students led by philatelist, John Kiktavi. He sends mail from Struthers to Poland, Ohio.
1929 – C. H. (“Punch”) Dickens was the first airman to reach any point on the western Canadian Arctic shore by air when he arrived at Aklavick, NWT 01 July 1929.
1929 – Death of Wilmer Lower Stultz, American pioneering aviator, test pilot and raid pilot, killed in a crash during a test flight.
1928 – The first aviation weather reports were sent through teletype from Washington, D. C. to stations in Cleveland, Ohio, and Chicago, Illinois.
1927 – Richard Evelyn Byrd with crew (Balchen, Acosta, and Noville) with their Fokker F.VIIa/3m "America" arrive from Roosevelt Field East Garden City, New York over Paris. Cloud cover prevented a landing in Paris; they returned to the coast of Normandy, crash-landing near the beach at Ver-sur-Mer without fatalities
1916 – Roland Robert Tuck, British fighter ace during World War II was born.
1916 – beginning of the Battle of the Somme. In the five months of the battle, the British lose 782 aircraft and 576 pilots but maintain air superiority over the battlefield.
1915 – The United States Department of the Navy establishes an Office of Naval Aeronautics, the first formal recognition of naval aviation within the United States Navy bureaucracy.
1915 – Leutnant Kurt Wintgens achieves the first aerial victory by a true fighter plane in history, flying his Fokker M.5K/MG production prototype E.5/15 of the Fokker Eindecker, forcing down a Morane-Saulnier Type L two-seat “parasol” observation aircraft near Lunéville, as the earliest known successful use of a synchronized machine-gun armed aircraft.
1915 – The French Navy seaplane carrier Pas-de-Calais is commissioned. She is the first paddle steamer to serve as an aviation vessel.
1914 – The Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps is separated from the RFC and established it as a separate service, the Royal Naval Air Service, under the control of the Royal Navy.
1914 – The United States Navy establishes its first air department, the Bureau of Aeronautics.
1912 – Harriet Quimby, the first licensed female pilot in the United States, as part of an Air Show spectacular flew around the Boston Light. During the flight, her Berliot plane was caught in turbulent air and nose-dived, plummeting both Quimby and a meet organizer passenger to their deaths in Dorchester Bay.
1911 – First US Navy airplane. Curtiss D Triad as Navy A-1, first flown by Lt T G Ellyson. This was followed by a Curtiss A-2 and Wright B-1.
1893 – Birth of Mario de Bernardi, Italian WWI fighter pilot, seaplane air racer of the 1920s, and test pilot of early Italian experimental jets.
1887 – Birth of Leighton Wilson Hazelhurst Jr., American aviation pioneer.
1884 – Birth of René Caudron, French aviation pioneer and aircraft designer along with his brother Gaston.
1872 – Louis Blériot, the pioneer aviator who made the world’s first airplane flight across the English Channel, is born in Cambrai, France. After experimenting first with gliders, he designed and built his own monoplane with a 25-hp engine, which took him across the channel.
1862 – (1-2) The Confederate States Navy steamer Teaser operates a coal-gas silk observation balloon to reconnoitre Union Army positions along the James River in Virginia, the only use of a balloon by the Confederate States Navy. Her capture on July 4 by the steamer USS Maratanza ends Confederate naval balloon operations.
1859 – July 1 and 2, John Wise (balloonist) and three companions complete a Montgolfière flight over a distance of 1,292 km (St. Louis – Henderson, USA).
