APRIL07

1809 - Birth of James Glaisher, English meteorologist and aeronaut.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Glaisher

1823 - Death of Jacques Alexandre César Charles, French inventor, scientist, mathematician, and balloonist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Charles

1893 - Birth of Hermann Juhnke, German WWI flying ace

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Juhnke - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/juhnke.php

1895 - Birth of Matthew Brown 'Bunty'Frew, Scottish WWI fighter ace.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Frew - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/scotland/frew.php

1897 - Birth of Erich Löwenhardt, 3rd highest German fighter ace with 54 victories during WWI, behind only Manfred von Richthofen and Ernst Udet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Loewenhardt - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/lowenhardt.php

1897 - Birth of Horace George Eldon, British WWI flying ace

http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/eldon.php

1900 - Birth of Mario Amaru, Italian aviation pioneer who flew with Italo Balbo.

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Aramu

1906 - Charles Rolls, in his new balloon, races Frank Hedges Butler and friends aboard the Aero Club III. Rolls outdistances his opponents, who come down at Wimbledon, while he lands at Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, England.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Aviation/Historical_anniversaries/April_in_aviation/April_7

1908 - The members of the Aerial Experiment Association enter a competition sponsored by the Scientific American, which has offered $25,000 for a flight of over 0.62 miles. The Wrights refuse to enter because the rules state the airplane must take off without help.

http://www.centennialofflight.gov/user/fact_apr.htm

1911 - Birth of Bozidar 'Bosko' Petrovich, Yugoslavian flying ace of the spanish civil war

http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/yugoslavia_petrovich.htm

1916 - Flying his new fighter Nieuport 11, WWI Italian ace Francesco Baracca scored his 1st victory, holing the fuel tank of an Austrian Hansa-Brandenburg C.I, wounding its two-man crew. This was also the 1st aerial victory for Italy in the war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Baracca

1916 - 1st flight of the Royal Aircraft Factory F.E.2d, evolution of the british pusher biplane fighter fitted with a 250hp Rolls-Royce Mk I (later, Eagle I) 12-cylinder water-cooled V-type engine

http://www.aviastar.org/air/england/raf_fe-2d.php

1918 - Death of Guy Borthwick Moore, Canadian WWI flying ace, killed in his S.E.5a by anti-aircraft fire.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Borthwick_Moore - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/canada/moore2.php

1918 - Death of Edward Borgfeldt Booth, Canadian WWI flying ace, killed in a crash while performing stunts.

http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/canada/booth.php

1922 - A Daimler Airways de Havilland DH.18 collides with a Cie des grands Express Aériens Farman Goliath over France. A total of seven people - everyone aboard the two aircraft - is killed in the 1st mid-air collision of two airliners.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_mid-air_collision_of_airliners - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farman_Goliath#Accidents_and_incidents

1922 - Birth of Lothar Sieber, German test pilot

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lothar_Sieber

1924 – Portuguese Commander Brito António Jacinto da Silva Paes and Captain José Manuel Sarmento de Beires depart Lisbon eastbound in the Breguet 16.Bn2 'Patria', beginning an attempt to fly around the world.

http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brito_Paes

1936 - Transcontinental and Western Airways Flight 1 (TWA 1) Douglas DC-2 crashed into Cheat Mountain, near Uniontown, Pennsylvania, afer a navigation error in thick fog, killing 12 over 14.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_1

1939 - 1st flight of the Potez 220, french 3 seat twin engine reconnaissance monoplane prototype.

http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=924

1945 - The Japanese battleship Yamato, the largest battleship ever constructed, is sunk by American planes 200 miles north of Okinawa while en-route to a suicide mission in Operation Ten-Go.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ten-Go

1945 – Accompanying B-29 Superfortresses, P-51 Mustangs of the U. S. Army Air Forces’ 15th, 21st, and 506th Fighter Groups based on Iwo Jima become the 1st Allied fighters to escort bombers all the way to Tokyo, Japan, and back. The escort flights last 7 to 8 hours. 54 B-29 s land on Iwo Jima during the day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15th_Wing#World_War_II - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21st_Operations_Group#World_War_II

1947 - Death of Henry Ford, American industrialist, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production who entered the aviation business during WWI and seigned the famous Ford Trimotor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford

1948 - The Royal Canadian Navy's aircraft carrier, HMCS Magnificent, was commissioned to replace HMCS Warrior.

http://canadianaviationhistory.pbworks.com/w/page/13801114/On-this-day-in-Canadian-Aviation-History-April

1949 - Death of Biagio Guarnaccio, WWII Italian pilot

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biagio_Guarnaccio

1950 - The sole SNAC NC-1080, French single-engine naval jet fighter, is completely destroyed in a flight accident killing test Pilot Pierre Gallay.

http://www.aviafrance.com/s-n-c-a-c-nc-1080-aviation-france-1036.htm

1952 - Death of Sydney MacGillvary Brown, American WWI flying ace, author and associate professor of medieval history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Brown - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/usa/brown6.php

1957 - Varig Curtiss C-46A-45-CU Commando operating a flight from Bagé to Porto Alegre crashed during takeoff from Bagé, following a fire developed in the left main gear wheel well and consequent technical difficulties. All 40 passengers and crew died.

http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19570407-0

1958 - AREA Ecuador Flight 222 Douglas C-47A-80-DL flew into Mount Illiniza in the Chugchilan mountain range (Ecuador) killing all 32 on board.

http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19580407-0&lang=en

1959 - 1st flight of The Tsybin RSR (Reactivnyi Strategicheskii Razvedchik) NM-1, Soviet simplified, full sized aerodynamic prototype for an advanced, long-range, Mach 3 strategic reconnaissance aircraft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsybin_RSR#Development_and_design

1966 - After 80 searching days, a bomb H lost in flight after a B-52 crash while refueling in air is located by a mini-submarine in 2,850 feet of water, eight miles offshore spain coasts (Palomares) where it rests to this day.

http://www.alternet.org/environment/140060/the_case_of_the_missing_h-bomb:_the_pentagon_has_lost_the_mother_of_all_weapons/?page=3

1966 - Robert Ferry set the long distance world record for helicopters. He flew a Hughes OH-6 Cayuse (nicknamed "Loach"), single-engine light helicopterfrom Culver City, California to Ormond Beach, Florida, covering a total of 1,923.08 nm (2,213.04 mi, 3,561.55 km)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughes_OH-6_Cayuse

1967 - 1st flight of The Aérospatiale SA 340 Gazelle , French-designed five-seat light helicopter, powered by a single turbine engine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%C3%A9rospatiale_Gazelle

1967 - 1st flight of the Aerospatiale SA 321F 'Super Frelon' in Commercial version, airline helicopter, powered by three Turbomeca IIIC-3 turboshaft engines, accommodation for 34 to 37 passengers.

http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/snias_super_frelon.php - http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=2530

1967 - 1st flight of The Found Centennial 100, Canadian four/five-seat cabin high-wing monoplane.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Found_Centennial

1968 - Launch of Luna 14 (Lunik 14), Soviet unmanned spacecraft to orbit the moon to test communications systems in support of the N1-L3 piloted lunar landing project, final flight of the second generation of the Luna series.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_14

1978 - Launch of Yuri 1, Japanese communications technology satellite for experimental purposes.

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/yuri.htm

1982 - Death of Harald Ertl, Austrian racing driver and motorsport journalist (Famous for being one of the 4 drivers who helped pull Niki Lauda from his burning Ferrari after Lauda's infamous crash), Killed in the crash of a a Beechcraft Bonanza flown by his brother-in-law.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harald_Ertl

1983 – During STS-6, astronauts Story Musgrave and Don Peterson perform the 1st space shuttle spacewalk.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-6

1987 - Death of Noel Francis Parrish, USAF pilot, commander of the Tuskegee Airmen in WWII, and Brigadier General after the korean war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noel_F._Parrish

1990 - Launch of Asiasat 1, Chinese Civilian communications satellite. Launched primarly as Westar 6 on Space Shuttle mission STS-41B, it became stranded in orbit. Retrieved by Space Shuttle mission STS-51A in November 1984, it was sold to AsiaSat for re-use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AsiaSat

1990 - Death of Ronald Ellwin Evans, Jr. , NASA astronaut and one of only 24 people to have flown to the Moon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Evans

1992 - Azerbaijan Airlines, flag carrier of Azerbaijan, is founded.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azerbaijan_Airlines

1994 – Auburn Calloway attempts to hijack FedEx Express Flight 705 McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30 and crash it to insure his family with his life insurance policy. The crew subdues him and lands the aircraft safely.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FedEx_Express_Flight_705

1995 - The Agusta Westland AW101 (PP4 variant), Westland-built British naval medium-lift helicopter prototype, is lost in an accident after a drive train control rod failure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AgustaWestland_AW101#Variants

1997 - Death of Georgi Stepanovich Shonin, Soviet cosmonaut.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgi_Shonin

1999 - Turkish Airlines Flight 5904 Boeing 737-4Q8 crashed on take off in Ceyhan, Adana Province in southern Turkey due to bad weather.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Airlines_Flight_5904

2001 - Launch of 2001 Mars Odyssey, a robotic spacecraft orbiting the planet Mars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Mars_Odyssey

2004 - Investigators from the French Underwater Archaeological Department confirmed that the P-38 Lightning crashed in the seabed off the coast of Marseille, was indeed, Saint-Exupéry's F-5B reconnaissance Aircraft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_de_Saint-Exup%C3%A9ry

2006 - 1st free glide flight of The Boeing X-37 (also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle), American unmanned vertical-takeoff, horizontal-landing (VTHL) spaceplane.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37

2007 - Launch of Soyuz TMA-10, russian space mission to the ISS, carrying also the Billionaire Charles Simonyi as a Tourist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_TMA-10

2007 - Death of Neville Frederick Duke , British WWII fighter pilot, top Allied flying ace in the Mediterranean Theatre and test pilot. Flying his private aircraft he suddenly became ill. He landed safely at Popham Airfield, but collapsed as he left the aircraft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neville_Duke#Test_pilot - http://cieldegloire.com/002_raf_duke_n_f.php

2007 - Death of Leeon D. Davis, American aircraft designer, noted for his homebuilt aircrafts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leeon_D._Davis

2010 - Solar Impulse ( European long-range solar powered plane) HB-SIA underwent an extended 87 minute test flight piloted by Markus Scherdel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Impulse