DEC02

1945 - 1st flight of the Handley Page HP 81 Hermes, British low-wing civilian airliner monoplane powered by four piston engines.

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

1945 - 1st flight of The Bristol Type 170 Freighter, British twin-engine freighter and airliner, best known as an air ferry to carry cars and their passengers over relatively short distances.

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

1948 - 1st flight of The Beechcraft T-34 Mentor, American propeller-driven, single-engined, military trainer aircraft derived from the Beechcraft Model 35 Bonanza.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_T-34_Mentor

1952 - 1st flight of The Short SB5 (serial WG768), "highly unorthodox, adjustable wing" British research aircraft .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_SB5

1960 - Korabl-Sputnik 3 (or Vostok-1K No.3, also known as Sputnik 6), Soviet spacecraft carrying two dogs; Pcholka and Mushka ("little bee" and "little fly"; affectionate diminutives of "pchela" and "mukha", respectively), a television camera and scientific instruments, reentered the atmosphere at a steep angle, and disintegrated. Both Pcholka and Mushka were killed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korabl-Sputnik_3 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_space_dogs#Pchyolka_and_Mushka

1963 - Death of George Howard Brett, Early USAAF pilot and WWII high ranking officer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Brett_(general)

1965 - 1st nuclear-powered ship to engage combat is the USS Enterprise CVN-65, launching aircraft against the Viet Cong near Bien Hoa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_(CVN-65)#Southeast_Asia_deployments

1965 - Death of Hugh Latimer Dryden, American aeronautical scientist and civil servant.

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

1968 - Wien Consolidated Airlines Flight 55 Fairchild F-27B suffered a structural failure after encountering "severe-to-extreme" air turbulence and crashed into Pedro Bay, Alaska, killing all 39 on board

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wien_Consolidated_Airlines_Flight_55

1971 - Mars 3, unmanned Soviet space probe becomes the 1st spacecraft to touch down on Mars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_3

1972 - Death of General Sir Hesperus Andrias 'Pierre' van Ryneveld, South African military commander, WWI Fighter ace, raid pilot and WWII high ranking officer.

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

1974 - Launch of Soyuz 16, manned Soviet test flight to test a docking ring and other systems to be used for the joint Soviet-US space flight Apollo-Soyuz.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_16

1974 - Pioneer 11, NASA robotic space probe, reached closest approach to Jupiter, passing 42,828 kilometers (26,612 mi) above the cloud tops.[20] The probe obtained detailed images of the Great Red Spot, transmitted the 1st images of the immense polar regions, and determined the mass of Jupiter's moon Callisto.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_11#Encounter_with_Jupiter

1976 - 1st flight of the Westland Wisp, British remotely piloted observation helicopter powered by two Korba 2-stroke 2-cylinder piston engines

http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/west_wisp.php - http://helicoptermuseum.co.uk/westland.htm

1976 - 1st flight of The Boeing 747 SCA, American Airlines airliner which has been adapted to carry the US reusable space shuttle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Aviation/Historical_anniversaries/December_in_aviation/December_2

1977 - A Libyan Arab Airlines Tu-154 ran out of fuel in foggy weather near Benghazi and crashed, killing 59 over 165.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Benghazi_Libyan_Arab_Airlines_Tu-154_crash

1979 - 1st flight of The Gulfstream III, American business jet produced by Gulfstream Aerospace, improved variant of the Grumman Gulfstream II.

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

1987 - Death of Donn Fulton Eisele, USAF test pilot and NASA Astronaut.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donn_F._Eisele

1988 - Launch of STS-27, NASA Space shuttle Atlantis mission with a classified payload for the U.S. Department of Defense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-27

1990 - Launch of Soyuz TM-11, russian space flight to the Mir Station with Toyohiro Akiyama, reporter/space tourist for a Japanese television network.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_TM-11

1990 - Launch of STS-35, NASA space shuttle Columbia mission devoted to astronomical observations with ASTRO-1, a Spacelab observatory consisting of four telescopes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-35

1991 - STS-44, Space Shuttle Atlantis for a U.S. Department of Defense space mission, is back on earth

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-44

1992 - Death of Dan Vizanti, Romanian WWII fighter ace.

http://www.worldwar2.ro/arr/p061.htm - http://cieldegloire.fr/012_vizanti_d.php

1992 - Launch of STS-53, Space Shuttle Discovery mission in support of the United States Department of Defense

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-53

1993 - Launch of STS-61, NASA Space Shuttle Endeavour mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-61

1995 - Launch of The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), European space Agency spacecraft to study the Sun.

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

2011 - Death of Henry Lafont, French WWII fighter pilot, last surviving French veteran of the Battle of Britain, who stayed in the French Air Force until 1966 and was director of the Paris Air Show at Le Bourget.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Lafont - http://www.cieldegloire.fr/004_lafont_h.php

2012 - Launch of Pléiades-HR 1B via a Russian Soyuz STA rocket out of the Guiana Space Centre, Kourou, French Guiana, very-high-resolution optical Earth-imaging satellite, Designed as a dual civil/military system to meet the space imagery requirements of European defence as well as civil and commercial needs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiades_(satellite)