FEB11

1876 - Birth of Lucien Chauvière, French aeronautical engineer, best known for his Integrale propellers, 1st aerodynamically advanced propellers manufactured in Europe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:TheLongTone/Lucien_Chauviere

1888 - Birth of Lewis Hector "Hec" Ray, Canadian WWI flying ace.

http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/canada/ray2.php

1893 - Birth of Harold William Medlicott, British WWI flying ace.

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

1897 - Birth of Rudolf Stark, German WWI flying ace

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

1905 - Arthur Charles Hubert Latham accompanied his cousin, the balloonist Jacques Faure, on a night crossing of the English Channel (from London to Paris) in a gas balloon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Latham#Early_life_and_exploits

1913 - Escuela de Aviación del Capitán Manuel Ávalos Prado is founded, it will become later Fuerza Aérea de Chile, (Chilean Air Force).

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escuela_de_Aviaci%C3%B3n

1920 - Birth of Daniel "Chappie" James Jr., American WWII, Korean and Vietnam War fighter pilot and 1st black American to reach the rank of four-star general.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_%22Chappie%22_James_Jr.

1932 - 1st flight of the Couzinet 70 'Arc en Ciel III', French three-engined commercial monoplane.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Couzinet_70

1938 - 1st flight of The Bristol Type 146, British single-seat, eight-gun fighter monoplane prototype.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Type_146

1939 – A Lockheed XP-38 Lightning flies from California to New York in 7 hours 2 minutes, not counting two refueling stops, but the aircraft was downed by carburetor icing short of the Mitchel Field runway in Hempstead, New York, and was wrecked.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-38_Lightning

1941 - Death of Mario Visintini, 1st Regia Aeronautica WWII ace ,crashing his Fiat CR42 on Mount Nefasit, Eritrea because of Storm. He was the top scoring pilot of all belligerent air forces in Eastern Africa (Africa Orientale) and the top biplane fighter ace of WW2

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

1941 - Combat debut as UK's 1st 4-engined heavy bomber: 222 British bombers attack Hanover, Germany, losing 7 of their number, and 43 others (including 3 stirlings) attack oil storage tanks at Vlaardingen, Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/history-of-aviation-timeline/interactive-aviation-timeline/british-military-aviation/1941.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Stirling#Operational_history

1942 - The 'Channel Dash'. Following repeated attacks on the German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the cruiser Prinz Eugen by RAF Bomber Command, in an effort to prevent them sailing to intercept British shipping in the Atlantic, it is decided that the ships should be withdrawn to Germany (Operation Cerberus). In parallel, the Luftwaffe draw up a plan centred on the assembly of a massive fighter screen to protect the vessels en route through the English Channel known as Operation Donnerkeil (Thunderbolt).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_Dash - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Donnerkeil

http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/history-of-aviation-timeline/interactive-aviation-timeline/british-military-aviation/1942.aspx

1945 - 1st flight of The Consolidated Vultee XP-81, American single seat, long range escort fighter prototype that combined use of both a turbojet and a turboprop engines

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_Vultee_XP-81

1949 - 1st flight of The CASA C-201 Alcotán ("Kestrel"), Spanish twin-engine low-wing cantilever monoplane military transport aircraft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CASA_C-201_Alcot%C3%A1n

1953 - Birth of Stephen Douglas Thorne, American Naval officer and NASA astronaut candidate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Thorne_(astronaut)

1954 - Test pilot John R. Noll began tethered hovering flight tests of the McDonnell XV-1, US experimental compound helicopter, designated as a convertiplane.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_XV-1

1956 - 1st flight of The Antonov An-8 (NATO reporting name: Camp), Soviet-designed twin-turboprop-engine high-wing light military transport aircraft.

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

1959 - A US meteorological balloon achieves a record height of 146,000 ft. carrying a special package of detectors sending information by radio signal to the ground.

http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/history-of-aviation-timeline/interactive-aviation-timeline/world-aviation/1959.aspx

1960 - 1st flight of the Sud Aviation 'Caravelle' IA, Evolution of the french short/medium-range jet airliner.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sud_Aviation_Caravelle#Variants - http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sud-Aviation_SE_210_Caravelle#Caract.C3.A9ristiques

1960 - Birth of Richard Alan "Rick" Mastracchio, American engineer and NASA astronaut

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

1964 - US Navy select the Ling-Temco-Vought A-7 Corsair II for replacing their Douglas A-4 Skyhawk.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTV_A-7_Corsair_II

1970 - Launch of Osumi (or Ohsumi), 1st Japanese artificial satellite put into orbit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%8Csumi_(satellite)

1976 - Death of Alexander Martin Lippisch, German pioneer of aerodynamics. He made important contributions to the understanding of flying wings, delta wings and the ground effect. His most famous design is the Messerschmitt Me 163 rocket-powered interceptor.

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

1978 - Pacific Western Airlines Flight 314 Boeing 737-200 crashed at Cranbrook/Canadian Rockies International Airport, near Cranbook, British Columbia, Canada, after its thrust reversers did not fully stow following an aborted landing to avoid a snowplow on the runway, killing 42 over 49.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Western_Airlines_Flight_314

1984 - Challenger STS-41-B lands at Kennedy Space Center.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-41-B

1985 - Death of Benjamin L. Abruzzo, American hot air balloonist and businessman, Killed in the crash of his Cessna 421 near Albuquerque.

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

1986 - Death of Paul Yvan Robert Waddington, French WWI flying ace which served until beginning of WWII.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Waddington - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/france/waddington2.php

1990 - Launch of Soyuz TM-9, 9th expedition to the Russian Space Station Mir.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_TM-9

1994 - STS-60, Space shuttle Discovery mission, 1st mission of the US/Russian Shuttle-Mir Program, is back on earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-60

1995 - STS-63, NASA Space Shuttle Discovery, 2nd mission of the US/Russian Shuttle-Mir Program, which carried out the 1st rendezvous of the American Space Shuttle with Russia's space station Mir, is back on earth

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-63

1997 - Launch of STS-82, Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission by Space Shuttle Discovery.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-82

2000 - Death of Jacqueline Auriol (Born Jacqueline Marie-Thérèse Suzanne Douet) , French aviatrix who set several world speed records.

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

2000 - Launch of STS-99, Space Shuttle Endeavour mission. The primary objective of the mission was the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) project.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-99 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle_Radar_Topography_Mission

2000 - Jetblue, American low-cost airline, begins operations.

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

2002 - 1st flight of the Airbus A340-500, European long-range widebody four engine jet airliner.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A340#A340-500

2006 - Steve Fossett set the absolute world record for "distance without landing" by flying his GlobalFlyer from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, around the world eastbound, then upon returning to Florida continuing across the Atlantic a second time to land in Bournemouth, England. The official distance was 25,766 statute miles (41,467 km) and the duration was 76 hours 45 minutes

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

2008 - Death of Frank Piasecki, American engineer and helicopter aviation pioneer. Piasecki pioneered tandem rotor helicopter designs and created the compound helicopter concept of vectored thrust using a ducted propeller.

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

2008 - Adam Aircraft Industries (AAI), American aircraft manufacturer ceased operations.

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

2010 - Launch of The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), NASA mission to observe the Sun and to understand the Sun's influence on Earth and near-Earth space by studying the solar atmosphere on small scales of space and time and in many wavelengths simultaneously.

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

2010 - The Boeing YAL-1 Airborne Laser Testbed, (formerly Airborne Laser) weapons system, megawatt-class chemical oxygen iodine laser (COIL) mounted inside a modified Boeing 747-400F, successfully destroyed a liquid-fuel boosting ballistic missile less than one minute after its launch.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_YAL-1#Testing

2014 - Algerian Air Force Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft crashed in bad weather in a mountainous area in Oum El Bouaghi Province, killing all 103 on board.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Algeria_Lockheed_C-130_Hercules_crash