APRIL24

1864 - Birth of Alois Wolfmüller, German engineer and aviation pioneer.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alois_Wolfm%C3%BCller

1882 – Birth of Sir Hugh Dowding, commander of RAF Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain.

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

1886 - Birth of Hellmuth Hirth, German engineer who founded the Mahle GmbH and Hirth companies, manufacturing engine components and complete aircraft engines respectively.

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

1887 - Birth of William Devotie Billingsley , Eraly American Naval aviator, 1st Naval aviator killed in a plane crash.

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

1894 - Birth of Walter von Bülow-Bothkamp, German WWI fighter ace.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_von_B%C3%BClow-Bothkamp - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/bulow-bothkamp2.php

1895 - Birth of Allan Runcieman Brown, Australian WWI flying ace and RAAF wing commander during WWII

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Brown_(aviator) - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/australi/brown2.php

1896 - Birth of Rupert Randolph Winter, British WWI flying ace.

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

1897 - Birth of Wilhelm 'Willy' Neuenhofen, German WWI fighter ace and Junker's Chief test pilot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Neuenhofen - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/neuenhofen.php

1898 - Birth of René Leduc, French Engineer and aircraft designer, much acclaimed for his work on ramjets.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Leduc

1899 - Birth of Väinö Elias Bremer, Finnish biathlete and modern pentathlete and also an aviation pioneer.

http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A4in%C3%B6_Bremer

1908 - Birth of Georgiy Nefedovich Zakharov, Soviet spanish war and WWII fighter ace, post war High ranking officer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgi_Zakharov - http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/soviet_zakharov.htm

1908 - Birth of Furio Niclot Doglio, Italian test pilot, Record breaker and WWII fighter pilot.

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

1909 - Wilbur Wright makes 5 flights in Centocelle, Italy with King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy present. During one flight, Federico Valle accompanies him and takes the 1st motion pictures from an airplane in flight.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_Valle

1910 - 1st flight of the Guyot-Verdier N° 3, Early french pusher biplane.

http://www.airmemorialcreusois.fr/docs/2011/VERDIER.pdf

1912 - Billy Stark returned to British Columbia with his pilot's licence and a new Curtis "Flyer." Stark took Daily Province sports editor Jim Hewitt up for a flight. Hewitt, who was British Columbia's 1st air passenger, related his impression of the flight to his readers. Later that same day, Olive Stark became the 1st woman airplane passenger in Canada. She sat beside her husband on the lower wing of his Curtis, bundled up against the cold, looking both proud and apprehensive.

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

1912 - William Lendrum "Billy" Mitchell makes the 1st flight by an American officer over German lines.

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

1913 - Death of Vsevolod Mikhaylovich Abramovich, Russian pioneering aviator and aircraft designer, killed in an aviation accident while instructing a student pilot, Eugenia Mikhailovna Shakhovskaya at Johannisthal, 1st woman to become a military pilot when she flew reconnaissance missions for the Czar in 1914

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vsevolod_Abramovich - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenia_Mikhailovna_Shakhovskaya

1913 - Birth of Dieter Grau, american german-born rocket scientist and member of the "von Braun rocket group", at Peenemünde who was among the scientists to surrender and travel to the United States to provide rocketry expertise.

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

1913 - French Eugene Gilbert flew from Villacoublay to Vittoria, Spain, 513 miles, in 8 hours and 23 minutes.

http://earlyaviators.com/egilbert.htm

1917 – Lt. Col. William “Billy” Mitchell becomes the 1st U.S. Army officer to fly over German lines, flying with a French pilot.

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

1917 - German WWI fighter ace Fritz Otto Bernert scores 5 in 20 minutes.

http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/bernert.php

1919 - Junkers Flugzeug Werke AG. is formed at Dessau.

http://www.aviastar.org/manufacturers/1221.html

1924 - Georges Pelletier d'Oisy and Lucien-Pierre-Alfred Besin departed Paris Villacoublay eastbound in a Breguet 19.A.2 in an attempt to fly around the world.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Pelletier-Doisy

1926 - 1st flight of the Handley Page H.P.31 Harrow two-seat single-engined biplane.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handley_Page_H.P.31_Harrow

1929 - Squadron Leader A G Jones-Williams and Flight Lieutenant N H Jenkins take off for a distance record attempt from RAF Cranwell, Lincolnshire to India in a Fairey Long-range Monoplane.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Long-Range_Monoplane#Operational_history - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_G._Jones-Williams

1931 - 1st flight of the Kellett K-2, american two-seat autogyro.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kellett_K-2

1933 - 1st flight of the Grumman XJF-1, Prototype of the JF2 'Duck', American single-engine amphibious biplane.

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

1940 - Death of Konstantin Alekseevic Kalinin, Russian engineer, pilot and aircraft designer. Killed during the Russian Great Purge.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin_Alexejewitsch_Kalinin

1940 - HMS Glorious launch Gloster Gladiators of Squadron 263 to operate during the Norway Campaign.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Glorious#Norwegian_Campaign - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._263_Squadron_RAF#Gloster_Gladiator_and_Norway

1942 - 1st flight of the Miles Martinet, target tug aircraft of the Royal Air Force and Fleet Air Arm

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

1945 - Death of Günther Lützow, German fighter ace of the spanish war and WWII, while attempting to intercept a USAAF B-26 Marauder raid near Donauwörth with his Me-262.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCnther_L%C3%BCtzow - http://www.luftwaffe.cz/lutzow.html

1946 - 1st flight of the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-9, 1st-generation Soviet turbojet fighter and attack aircraft developed by Mikoyan-Gurevich in the years immediately after World War II.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-9

1946 - 1st flight of the Yakovlev Yak-15, one of the 1st Soviet jet fighter aircraft to be tested and go into production. Along with the Swedish Saab 21R, it was one of very few jets to be successfully converted from a piston-powered production aircraft. A Yak-15 was also the 1st Soviet jet aircraft to be successfully refueled inflight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakovlev_Yak-15

1946 - Winged Cargo Inc. opens an unusual freight service in which goods are carried in a Waco CG-4A glider towed by a DC-3.

http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/history-of-aviation-timeline/interactive-aviation-timeline/world-aviation/1946.aspx

1950 - Group Captain John Cunningham flies a de Havilland Comet jet airliner from Hatfield in Hertfordshire to Khartoum and Nairobi and sets up two new point-to-point records.

http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/history-of-aviation-timeline/interactive-aviation-timeline/british-civil-aviation/1950.aspx

1953 - 1 EB-29 and 2 EF-84B flying as part of Project MX-1016 (aka Tip Tow) crash with no survivors. (the left-hand F-84 hooked up and the automatic system was activated. The F-84 immediately flipped over onto the wing of the B-29 and both crashed with loss of all on board.)

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

1957 - Wes Lemmatta establishes Columbia Helicopters in Portland, Oregon

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

1958 - 1st flight of the SIPA S-1100, French 3 seat twin engine aircraft prototype for counter-insurgency (COIN) combat.

http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=968

1962 - 1st flight of the PZL-104 Wilga STOL Civil Aviation utility aircraft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PZL-104_Wilga

1963 - Death of Rino Corso Fougier Italian Pilot and General of the Regia Aeronautica.

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

1964 - 1st XB-70 structure was completed.

http://aircraft.wikia.com/wiki/XB-70_Valkyrie

1965 - Death of Alan Duncan Bell-Irving, Canadian WWI flying ace.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Duncan_Bell-Irving - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/canada/bell-irving.php

1967 – Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies in Soyuz 1 when its parachute fails to open. He is the first human to die during a space mission. Komarov's name also appears on a plaque left at Hadley Rille on the Moon by the commander of Apollo 15,David Scott, along with a small sculpture representing the "Fallen Astronaut"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Mikhaylovich_Komarov - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_1

1967 - 1st flight of the production Britten-Norman Islander.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britten-Norman_Islander

1969 - 1st flight of The Anderson EA-1 Kingfisher, American two-seat amphibious aircraft designed and marketed for homebuilding, shoulder-wing monoplane with a flying boat hull and outrigger pontoons.

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

1970 – 1st Chinese satellite, Dong Fang Hong I, is launched.

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

1971 - Soyuz 10, world's 1st mission to the world's 1st space station, the Soviet Salyut 1, is back on earth. The docking was not successful and the crew returned to Earth without having entered the station.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_10

1972 - 1st flight of The Partenavia P.70 Alpha, Italian two-seat light aerobatic trainer prototype.

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

1974 - Death of Kenneth Malise St. Clair Graeme Leask, British WWI flying ace and later a high ranking officer in the RAF.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Leask - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/leask.php

1980 – 8 U.S. servicemen die in Operation Eagle Claw as they attempt to end the Iran hostage crisis.

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

1981 - 1st flight of the Shenyang J-8I, high-speed, high-altitude Chinese-built single-seat interceptor fighter aircraft, Improved all-weather version.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenyang_J-8

1984 - Death of Philip Fletcher Fullard, British WWI fighter ace who served until the end of WWII

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_F._Fullard - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/fullard.php

1987 - 1st flight of the second prototype Dornier Seastar, german turboprop-powered amphibious aircraft built largely of composite materials, representing the definitive design.

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

1990 – STS-31: The Hubble Space Telescope is launched from the Space Shuttle Discovery.

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

1992 - A USAF C-130H Hercules carrying out an anti-narcotics mission over Peru is attacked by Peruvian Air Force Sukhoi Su-22s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-22#Peru

1997 - 1st flight of the second prototype An-70, after the 1st was lost in a mid-air collision.

http://www.theaviationzone.com/factsheets/an70.asp

2001 - 1st pilotless aircraft to cross the Pacific Ocean, a Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk flew non-stop from Edwards in the US to RAAF Base Edinburgh in Australia, in 22 hours, setting a world record for absolute distance flown by a UAV, 13,219.86 kilometers (8,214.44 mi)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_RQ-4_Global_Hawk#Records

2002 - 1st production example of the Eurocopter EC-145 formally handed over at Nimes-Garons to the French Securite Civile.

http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/eurocopter_ec-145.php

2005 - Soyuz TMA-5, Soyuz mission to the International Space Station (ISS), is back on earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_TMA-5

2005 - Death of Ezer Weizman, 7th President of Israel, commander of the Israeli Air Force and Minister of Defense, WWII and Arab-Israeli War fighter pilot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezer_Weizman - http://cieldegloire.com/016_weizman_e.php

2006 - The 1st of 4 Super Lynx 300 helicopters for South Africa took to the air for the 1st time at Agusta-Westland’s Yeovil factory in the UK

http://www.helis.com/news/2006/za_lynx_ff.htm

2009 - Air Sénégal International, Senegalese airline, Cease operations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_S%C3%A9n%C3%A9gal_International