AUG25
1784 - James Tytler, son of a Scottish minister, James Tytler, makes the 1st manned balloon hop in England when his hot-air device makes a brief uncontrolled ascent with Tytler in the basket to an altitude of a few hundred feet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tytler#Aviation
1850 - Birth of Charles Robert Richet, French physiologist (Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1913), aviation pioneer and early gyroplane designer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Richet
1891 - Birth of Bruno Rodschinka, German aviator, Siemens test pilot and airliner pilot.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Rodschinka
1892 - Birth of Wilhelm Niemann, German Navigator of the famous Dornier DO-X.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Niemann_(Offizier)
1893 - Birth of Oskar von Boenigk, German WWI fighter ace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Freiherr_von_Boenigk - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/boenigk.php
1893 - Birth of Frederick Sowrey, british WWI fighter ace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Sowrey - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/sowrey.php
1894 - Birth of Max Gossner, German WWI fighter pilot and WWII luftwaffe co-founder.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Gossner - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/gossner.php
1895 - Birth of Albert James Enstone, British WWI fighter ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Enstone - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/england/enstone.php
1895 - Birth of Howard Clayton Knotts, American WWI flying ace, noted aviation lawyer, he served as general counsel of the American Aeronautical Association.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Knotts - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/usa/knotts.php
1911 - Birth of Armando Boetto, Italian WWII bomber pilot
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armando_Boetto
1912 – Royal Navy aviator Wilfred Parke becomes the 1st pilot ever to recover from a spin, regaining control of his Avro Type G biplane 50 feet from the ground at Larkhill, England.
http://flyingmachines.ru/Site2/Crafts/Craft28666.htm
1914 - 1st British aerial victory of WWI: a German Taube aircraft is forced to land by 3 aircrafts of No.2 Squadron. One of the British aircraft also landed, and the crew chased the German crew into nearby woods. They then set fire to the German aircraft before taking off again.
1916 - Birth of Saburo Sakai, Japanese naval aviator and WWII fighter ace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabur%C5%8D_Sakai - http://cieldegloire.com/010_sakai_s.php
1916 - 1st American ace of WWI : Frederick Libby downs an Aviatik C as gunner of a F.E.2b, scoring his 5th victory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Libby - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/usa/libby.php
1917 - Death of Harold Barnwell, brother of Frank S. Barnwell, early british aircraft designer who worked for Bristol Aeroplane company, test pilot at Vickers Limited, killed while test flying the prototype Vickers FB26 Vampire night fighter (fitted with a 200hp Hispano Suiza engine) at Joyce Green, Kent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Barnwell - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickers_F.B.26_Vampire
1919 – 1st daily international flights begin, with the Aircraft Transport and Travel company flying a de Havilland DH.16 between London (Hounslow Heath Aerodrome) and Paris – Le Bourget Airport.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Transport_and_Travel
1924 - The SIAI S.58 (or Savoia-Marchetti S.M.58), Italian flying boat fighter prototype, set a world altitude record for aircraft of its type by reaching 5,831 meters (19,130 feet) with a payload of 250 kilograms (551 pounds).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIAI_S.58#S.58
1927 - Rigid Airship USS Los Angeles (ZR-3, Originally LZ-126) was tethered at the Lakehurst high mast when a gust of wind caught her tail and lifted it into colder, denser air that was just above the airship. This caused the tail to lift higher. The crew on board tried to compensate by climbing up the keel toward the rising tail, but could not stop the ship from reaching an angle of 85 degrees, before it finally descended. Amazingly, the ship suffered only slight damage and was able to fly the next day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Los_Angeles_(ZR-3)#Operational_history
1928 - The crash of a B.C. Airways Ford Trimotor in Puget Sound, Washington, during bad weather kills 7 people and is called Canada’s 1st major air disaster.
1929 - 1st flight of The Gloster VI, British racing seaplane developed as a contestant for the 1929 Schneider Trophy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloster_VI#Operational_history
1930 - Eddie August Henry Schneider, American pilot, Lands his Cessna Model AW in New York after a 57 hours and 14 minutes flight from Westfield, New Jersey to Los Angeles, California and back, Setting a New transcontinental air speed record for pilots under the age of 21 years. On that same trip he lowered both East to West and West to east record.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_August_Schneider#Transcontinental_air_speed_record
1932 - Amelia Earhart becomes the 1st woman to fly non-stop across USA. She flew coast to coast, Los Angeles to Newark, in 19 hours 5 minutes in a Lockheed Vega 5B
http://www.lib.purdue.edu/spcol/aearhart/timeline.php
1939 - Death of Yoshihiko Yajima, Japanese Soviet-Japanese war fighter ace, killed in action.
http://www.cieldegloire.com/010_yajima_y.php
1942 - Death of the Prince George, Duke of Kent (George Edward Alexander Edmund), member of the British Royal Family, killed when the Short Sunderland flying boat in which he was a passenger crashed into a hillside near Dunbeath, Caithness, in bad weather.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_George,_Duke_of_Kent#Death
1943 - 1st successful use of the radio-controlled Henschel Hs 293 anti-ship missile striking the sloop HMS Bideford.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henschel_Hs_293#Combat_performance
1944 - Death of Teresio Martinoli, Italian WWII flying ace, during flying training on a Bell P-39 Airacobra.
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teresio_Martinoli
1946 - The United States Navy's Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron 'Blue Angels' upgraded their aircraft to the F8F-1 Bearcat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Angels#1940s
1947 - 1st flight of the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-9UTI (version FT-2 or I-301T), tandem two-seat version of the soviet turbojet fighter and attack aircraft.
http://www.aviastar.org/air/russia/mig-9.php
1947 - Marion Carl flies the Douglas Skystreak D-558-1 #2 to an airspeed record of 650 mph (1,047 km/h).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Skystreak
1948 - 1st flight of the Hurel-Dubois HD-10, French experimental single seat research aircraft to investigate Maurice Hurel's ideas about high-aspect ratio wings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurel-Dubois_HD.10 - http://aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=8262
1951 - 1st flight of the Fouga CM-101R, French twin engine high wing transport aircraft prototype, evolution of the CM-100.
http://aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=9667
1954 - Death of Joseph Christopher McConnell Jr., 1st American triple jet-on-jet fighter ace and top American flying ace during the Korean War, killed in a crash following a control malfunction of a new F-86H.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_C._McConnell - http://www.cieldegloire.com/014_mc_connell_j.php
1955 - 1st flight of the prototype Handley Page HPR-3 Herald, British turboprop passenger aircraft which led to the production Dart Herald.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handley_Page_Dart_Herald#Design_and_development
1960 - Birth of Lee Joseph "Bru" Archambault, American test pilot and NASA astronaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Archambault
1962 - Launch of Venera 2MV-1 No.1 (also known as Sputnik 19 in the West), Soviet spacecraft, part of the Venera programme, which was intended to become the 1st spacecraft to land on Venus but failed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera_2MV-1_No.1
1965 - Birth of Andrew J. 'Drew' Feustel, American Geophysicist and NASA astronaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_J._Feustel
1965 - 1st Curtiss-Wright X-19 (American experimental VTOL tiltrotor airplane) crashes during his 1st full transition flight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtiss-Wright_X-19
1969 - Death of Gregory Hamilton Blaxland, Australian WWI flying ace
http://www.southsearepublic.org/2002_1999/afc_aces_blaxland.htm - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/australi/blaxland.php
1971 - The Northrop M2-F3 Lifting Body made its 1st supersonic flight, achieving Mach 1.1 with test pilot Bill Dana at controls
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_M2-F3#M2-F3_flights
1974 - 1st flight of The Skycycle X-2, American steam-powered rocket designed by Robert C. Truax, owned by Evel Knievel and flown during his Snake River Canyon jump.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skycycle_X-2
1982 - Death of Forde Leathley, Irish WWI flying ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forde_Leathley - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/ireland/leathley.php
1985 - Bar Harbor Airlines Flight 1808 Beech BE-99 crashed short of the runway on final approach to Auburn/Lewiston Municipal Airport, killing all 8 including Samantha Smith, a 13-year-old American school girl who had become famous as a "Goodwill Ambassador" to the Soviet Union.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Harbor_Airlines_Flight_1808
1988 - 1st flight of The FFV Aerotech BA-14 Starling, Swedish two-seat light monoplane.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FFV_Aerotech_BA-14_Starling
1989 – Voyager 2 spacecraft makes its closest approach to Neptune, the outermost planet in the Solar System.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_2#Encounter_with_Neptune
1998 - Soyuz TM-27, Russian space mission to MIR, is back on earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_TM-27
2000 - Death of Frederick C. Bock, American WWII pilot who took part in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in 1945.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_C._Bock
2001 - Death of Robert Kenneth "Ken" Tyrrell, British WWII flying mechanic, Formula 2 racing driver and founder of the Tyrrell Formula One constructor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Tyrrell
2001 - American R&B singer Aaliyah Dana Haughton died along with the pilot and 7 others, including make up artists and record label executives in a Cessna 402B that crashed just 200 feet beyond the end of the runway at Marsh Harbour, Abaco Islands, The Bahamas. Plane was overloaded , pilot was unlicensed at the time of the accident and had traces of cocaine and alcohol in his system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_402#Accident
2003 - 1st flight of The PAC JF-17 Thunder (also designated CAC FC-1 Xiaolong) , light-weight, single-engine, multi-role combat aircraft developed jointly by the Chengdu Aircraft Industries Corporation (CAC) of China, the Pakistan Air Force and the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAC/PAC_JF-17_Thunder
2003 - Launch of The Spitzer Space Telescope (SST), formerly the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF), NASA infrared space observatory, 4th and final of the NASA Great Observatories program.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spitzer_Space_Telescope
2010 - Filair Let L-410UVP-E20C crashed on approach to Bandundu Airport in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing 20 over 21. The lone survivor of the crash claimed that a crocodile hidden in a duffel bag had escaped. The frightened passengers then moved towards the front of the aircraft away from the crocodile. This affected the aircraft weight and balance leading to a loss of control.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Bandundu_Filair_Let_L-410_crash
2012 - Death of Neil Alden Armstrong, American aviator, NASA astronaut, test pilot, aerospace engineer, university professor, and USN Aviator, 1st person to set foot on the Moon.