AUG02
1799 - Death of Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier, brother of Joseph-Michel, inventors of the montgolfière-style hot air balloon, globe aérostatique. The brothers succeeded in launching the 1 st manned ascent,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgolfier_brothers
1886 - Birth of John Alexander Douglas McCurdy, Canadian aviation pioneer, 1st Canadian to be issued a pilot's licence and the 19th Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Alexander_Douglas_McCurdy
1889 - Birth of Charles Terres Weymann, French early aeroplane racing pilot and businessman.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Terres_Weymann
1895 - Birth of William Benson Craig, Canadian WWI flying ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Benson_Craig - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/canada/craig2.php
1896 - Birth of Cyril Frank Uwins, British record breaker and test pilot for Bristol Aircraft where he made the 1st flight of 58 different types of aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_Uwins
1907 - Birth of Klaus Riedel, German rocket pioneer who joined Wernher von Braun for the V2 project.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Riedel
1907 - Birth of Stepan Pawlowitsch Suprun, Soviet test pilot and WWII fighter Pilot.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepan_Pawlowitsch_Suprun
1909 - 1st flying machine purchased and put into service by a government is the Wright Flyer. The US Army accepts its 1st airplane (as "Signal Corps (S.C.) No. 1") and pays the Wrights $25,000, plus a $5,000 bonus, because the machine exceeded the speed requirement of 40 mph.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_Model_A
1909 - John McCurdy wrecked the AEA Silver Dart (1st canadian built plane) when one wheel struck a rise in the ground while landing after he had made the 1st passenger fight in Canada.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AEA_Silver_Dart#History
1912 - Birth of Masaaki Iinuma, Japanese navy Aviator, Raid and test pilot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaaki_Iinuma
1915 - 1st time an aircraft takes off from a platform aboard a fully operational British aviation ship (HMS Campania), a Sopwith Schneider floatplane, mounted on a wheeled trolley, used 130 feet (39.6 m) of the flight deck while the ship was steaming into the wind at 17 knots (31 km/h; 20 mph).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Campania_(1914)#Purchase_and_conversion
1916 - Death of Eduard Martynovich Pulpe, Russian WWI flying ace, from wounds received in action in his Nieuport 11.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduard_Pulpe - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/russia/pulpe.php
1916 – 1st interception of an airship by a carrier-based aircraft: A Bristol Scout C from the Royal Navy seaplane carrier HMS Vindex flown by Flt Lt. Freeman unsuccessfully attacks the German Zeppelin L 17.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Scout#Operational_history - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Vindex_(1915)#Service
1917 - 1st pilot to land an airplane on the deck of a moving ship is Squadron leader Edwin Harris Dunning of the British Royal Naval Air Service when he puts a Sopwith Pup down on HMS Furious.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Harris_Dunning
1919 - Italy's 1st commercial aviation disaster : A Caproni Ca.48, Italian airliner converted version of the Ca.42 heavy bomber, crashed at Verona after its wings apparently collapsed in mid-flight at an altitude of 3,000 feet (912 meters), killing all on Board including Caproni's Test pilot Luigi Ridolfi.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caproni_Ca.4#Operational_history - http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Ridolfi
1919 - Death of Otto Kissenberth, German WWI fighter ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Kissenberth - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/kissenberth.php
1920 - Death of Ormer Leslie 'Lock' Locklear, American daredevil stunt flyer during and immediately after WWI, while filming his second movie, The Skywayman. While filming the finale by night, He forewarned the lighting crew to douse their lights when he got near the derricks, but the lights remained full on, blinding him, and he crashed. The movie showed the crash and its aftermath in gruesome detail.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ormer_Locklear
1922 - Death of Alexander Graham Bell, British eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator, credited with inventing the 1st practical telephone, He also made experiments to develop motor-powered heavier-than-air aircrafts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Graham_Bell
1923 - 1st flight of The Wright F2W, American racing biplane aircraft prototype built for the US Navy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_F2W
1929 - Mary Russell, Duchess of Bedford, departed on a record-breaking flight of 10,000 miles from Lympne Airport to Karachi in her single-engined Fokker F.VII 'Spider' pilot C.D.Barnard and mechanic Robert Little.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Russell,_Duchess_of_Bedford#Aviation
1931 - Death of Giovanni Monti, italian soccer player and aviator, on a test run over lake Garda of his Macchi-Castoldi M.C.72 racer when a wing hitted the water during a turn.
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Monti
1934 - Birth of Valery Fyodorovich Bykovsky, Soviet air force pilot and cosmonaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valery_Bykovsky
1934 - 1st flight of the Bloch MB-202, French twin-engined high-wing monoplane with a fixed undercarriage bomber prototype issued from the MB-200.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloch_MB.200#Bloch_MB.202 - http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=4585
1936 - Death of Louis Blériot, French aviator, inventor and engineer. He completed the 1st flight across a large body of water in a heavier-than-air craft. He also is credited as the 1st person to make a working monoplane. Blériot was a pioneer of the sport of air racing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Bl%C3%A9riot
1938 - Death of Captain Frank Sowter Barnwell,aeronautical engineer and aircraft designer, who performed the 1st powered flight in Scotland. Testing his Barnwell B.S.W., teh plane struck a bump when taking off from Bristol (Whitchurch) Airport and stalled crashing onto a nearby road
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Barnwell
1940 - Operation Hurry: 1st delivery of Hawker Hurricane fighters to Malta. 12 aircrafts are flown from the aircraft carrier HMS Argus and all arrived safely.
1943 - A C-87 Liberator Express aircraft (transport derivative of the B-24 Liberator heavy bomber), owned by the USAAF and operated by United Airlines, transferring Japanese men, women and children of the Consular Corps, to exchange for Allied POWs, crashed soon after takeoff from Whenuapai Aerodrome in fog and cloudy conditions as gyro horizon had inadvertently been left caged, killing 16 over 30.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1943_Liberator_crash_at_Whenuapai
1943 - The Sole Piaggio P.119, Italian experimental fighter with a "buried" radial engine mounted mid-fuselage, crashed on landing. One month later, the armistice with the Allies brought an end to the project.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaggio_P.119
1944 - The Mikoyan/Gurevich I-225, Soviet Piston engined fighter prototype, attained 707km/h at 8500m.
http://www.aviastar.org/air/russia/mig_i-225.php
1944 - The Republic Thunderbolt XP-47J (fitted with a GE CH-5 turbosupercharger) achieved a top speed of 505 mph (440 kn, 813 km/h) in level flight, making it one of the fastest piston engine fighters ever built.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_P-47_Thunderbolt#XP-47H_.2F_XP-47J
1945 – A U. S. Navy PV-1 Ventura patrol plane discovers survivors of the heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis (CA-35), the first indication that Indianapolis is even missing, 84 hours after she had been sunk by the Japanese submarine I-58 in the Philippine Sea. A large air-sea rescue operation begins but will save only 316 of her crew of 1,199.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Indianapolis_(CA-35)#Loss
1947 - British South American Airways Avro Lancastrian 'Stardust' disappeared in mysterious circumstances (included conspiracy theories such as inter-corporate sabotage and abduction by aliens) while crossing the Andes mountain range in South America. It remained unlocated for fifty years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Dust_(aircraft)
1949 - Birth of Bertalan Farkas, Hungarian Air force pilot, 1st Hungarian cosmonaut and 1st Esperantist in space.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertalan_Farkas
1956 - 1st flight of the Wassmer WA-20 'Javelot', French single seat competition glider.
http://aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=9705
1960 - 1st flight of the Bennett Airtruck, New Zealand agricultural aircraft, developed from the Kingsford Smith PL.7, high-wing monoplane with a steel stub wing and V lift struts, cockpit (made from shortened Harvard glazing) being mounted directly over the radial engine, completed by twin booms each supporting unconnected tail units.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bennett_Airtruck
1961 - 1st flight of The Wallis WA-116 Agile , British singleseat small autogyro (one nicknamed Little Nellie, was flown in the James Bond film You Only Live Twice).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallis_WA-116_Agile
1963 - Death of Pavel Fedorovich Zhigarev, commander of the Soviet Air Forces (VVS) and later Chief Marshal of Aviation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Zhigarev
1964 - US Navy aircraft are involved in skirmishes in the Gulf of Tonkin. F-8 Crusaders sink a North Vietnamese torpedo boat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_Incident#First_attack
1966 - 1st flight of The Sukhoi Su-17 'Fitter', Soviet attack aircraft developed from the Sukhoi Su-7 fighter-bomber.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-17
1968 - 1st flight of the pre-production Aérospatiale SA-341 Gazelle, French 5-seat helicopter, commonly used for light transport, scouting and light attack duties.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%C3%A9rospatiale_Gazelle#Variants
1973 - Death of Albert John ‘Ajax’ Baumler, American flying ace during the Spanish Civil War and WWII, 1st American pilot credited with destroying aircraft of all three Axis Powers. Ground Controlled Approach (GCA) operator during the Korean war, it is said that he identified some of the Russian pilots as his former wingmen in Spain from the way some Migs were manoeuvering. He used to refer to them, laughingly, as 'My Boys'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Baumler - http://www.cieldegloire.com/014_baumler_a_j.php - http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/us_baumler.htm
1978 - Death of Ronald Burns Bannerman, New-Zealand flying ace during WWI, as well as high level administrator for the NZAF during WWII.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Bannerman - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/nzealand/bannerman.php
1985 - Delta Air Lines Flight 191 Lockheed L-1011-385-1 TriStar, crashes within inches of the runway at Dallas-Ft. Worth International Airport, exploding and killing 133 persons, including a car driver who had been struck by the plane just before it exploded.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Air_Lines_Flight_191
1991 - Launch of STS-43, space shuttle Atlantis mission.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-43
2000 - 1st flight of the Kaman SH-2G (NZ) Super Seasprite, upgraded former US Navy SH-2F version for export to New-zeland of the american ship-based helicopter with anti-submarine, anti-surface threat capability, including over-the-horizon targeting.
http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/kaman_sea.php - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaman_SH-2G_Super_Seasprite
2005 - Air France Flight 358 Airbus A340-313X bursts into flames after skidding off the end of a runway after landing at Toronto Pearson International Airport. All 309 people aboard survive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_358
2009 - Merpati Nusantara Airlines Flight 9760 de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter 300 crashed into a mountainside despite good weather, killing all 16 on board.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merpati_Nusantara_Airlines_Flight_9760
2010 – 1st successful flight of a human-powered, flapping-wing aircraft. Todd Reichert of the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies pilots a human-powered ornithopter, Snowbird, in Ontario, sustaining 19.3 seconds of flight, covering a distance of 145 metres (475 ft). The 42.6 kg (92.59 lb) craft has 32 metre-span flapping wings.