FEB23
1886 - Birth of Didier Masson, pioneering French aviator, barnstormer, 2nd flier in history to bomb a surface warship, WWI fighter pilot and early manager of Pan American World Airways.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didier_Masson
1890 - Birth of Lucien Girier, French WWI pilot, raid pilot and French air force High ranking officer.
http://calm.sopixi.fr/files/gal-girier.pdf - http://calm.sopixi.fr/general-lucien-girier.htm
1891 - Birth of Frederick Irving Eglin, USAAS / USAAC pilot, WWI and post war Instructor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fredrick_I._Eglin
1896 - Birth of Maurice Leblanc-Smith, British WWI flying ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Leblanc-Smith - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/leblanc-smith.php
1899 - Birth of George Raby Riley, British WWI fighter ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_R._Riley - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/riley2.php
1901 - Birth of Ruth Rowland Nichols, American aviation pioneer, who was the only woman to hold simultaneous world records for speed, altitude, and distance for a female pilot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Rowland_Nichols
1908 - Birth of Ivan Alekseyevich Lakejev, Soviet fighter ace who fought during Spanish War, Soviet–Japanese war and WWII.
http://sl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Aleksejevi%C4%8D_Lakejev
1909 - 1st flight of the Aerial Experimental Association's Silver Dart (Aerodrome #4) biplane flown by John A. McCurdy, 1st designed Canadian plane, 40 feet over the frozen Bras d'Or lake at Baddeck Bay - 1st flight of a heavier-than-air machine in Canada. John A. McCurdy became the 1st person to fly an airplane in the British Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Alexander_Douglas_McCurdy - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AEA_Silver_Dart
1914 - 1st flight of the Bristol Scout, simple, single seat, rotary-engined biplane originally intended as a civilian racing aircraft.Like other similar fast, light aircraft of the period - it was acquired by the RNAS and the RFC as a "scout", or fast reconnaissance type. In the event it was one of the first single-seaters to be used as fighter aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Scout
1915 - Birth of Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr., brigadier general in the USAF, best known for being the pilot of the B-29 'Enola Gay', the 1st aircraft to drop an atomic bomb in the history of warfare
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Tibbets
1921 - American James Herbert Knight, part of a relay team that flew 2,629 miles across the country, lands his de Havilland DH-4B in Chicago, completing the 1st overnight transcontinental air mail delivery.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_H._Knight
1922 - 1st flight of the Spad S-54-1, French twin seat biplane trainer, issued from the S-34.
http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=132
1928 - Birth of Vasily Grigoryevich Lazarev, Soviet cosmonaut
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Lazarev
1929 - 1st flight of The Breguet 27, French two-seat biplane all-metal observation aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breguet_27
1932 - 1st flight of The Gloster TC.33, British large four-engined biplane designed for troop carrying and medical evacuation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloster_TC.33
1934 - 1st flight of The Lockheed Model 10 Electra, twin-engine, all-metal monoplane airliner
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Model_10_Electra
1935 - Leland Andrews breaks Doolittle's January record, completing a transcontinental transport flight in 11 hours 34 minutes.
1942 - 1st flight of The Polikarpov ITP, Soviet fighter prototype
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polikarpov_ITP
1943 - Death of Grigorii Panteleevich Kravchenko, Soviet-japanese war and WWII fighter ace, Killed in action.
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Kravchenko,+Grigorii
1944 - Death of Yoshio Wajima, Japanese WWII flying ace, Killed in action.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_aces_from_Japan#W
1945 - Last allied ship sunk by the Luftwaffe in WWII is the Liberty ship SS Henry Bacon, torpedoed in the Barents Sea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Henry_Bacon
1949 - Birth of Joseph Jean-Pierre Marc Garneau, Canadian retired military officer, astronaut, engineer and politician. 1st Canadian in space.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Garneau
1949 - Death of Thomas Neville Stack, British test pilot, air racer and aviation pioneer. He served in WWI and WWII and was managing director of Pakistan-Orient airways.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/2791561 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Neville_Stack
1951 - 1st flight of the Dassault MD.452 Mystère I , French fighter-bomber prototype with a 30-degree swept wing, 1st french aircraft to break the sound barrier.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dassault_Myst%C3%A8re - http://www.aviastar.org/air/france/dassault_mystere2.php - http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=1012
1955 - 1st flight of the CAC CA-25 Winjeel, australian Two-seat basic trainer aircraft for the RAAF.
http://www.aviastar.org/air/australia/common_ca-25.php
1959 - Birth of Clayton Conrad Anderson, American engineer and NASA astronaut
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clayton_Anderson
1959 - EWR (Entwicklungsring Süd GmbH) was formed of a Bölkow, Heinkel, and Messerschmitt design consortium to develop a Mach 2 VTOL intercepter.
http://www.aviastar.org/manufacturers/0832.html
1959 - 1st flight of the Dornier Do 28D Skyservant, german twin-engine STOL utility aircraft evolution of the Do-28. Redesigned aircraft with box fuselage, larger wing, new tail.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornier_Do_28
1959 - Death of Juan Guillermo Villasana Lopez, prominent mexican engineer and early aviator.
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Guillermo_Villasana
1970 - 1st flight of the Hughes Model 500C, Civil re-engined version of the American light utility helicopter.
http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/mcdonnel-500.php
1972 - 1st flight of The Pacific Aerospace Corporation PAC CT/4 Airtrainer, all-metal construction, single-engine, two place side-by-side seating, fully aerobatic, piston engined, basic training aircraft built in New-Zealand
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAC_CT/4_Airtrainer
1976 - Death of Petr Mikhailovich Stefanovskiy, Soviet test pilot and WWII pilot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petr_Mikhailovich_Stefanovskiy
1977 - 1st flight of the SOCATA TB-9 'Tampico', French 4 seat low wing monoplane touring aircraft.
http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=2537
1981 - Death of Chester Stairs Duffus, Canadian WWI flying ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_Stairs_Duffus - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/canada/duffus.php
1999 - Launch of Ørsted, Denmark's 1st satellite, to map the Earth's magnetic field and collect data to determine the changes occurring in the field, and the The Stellenbosch UNiversity SATellite (SUNSAT), 1st miniaturized satellite designed and manufactured in South Africa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%98rsted_(satellite) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SUNSAT
2001 - Air Sénégal International, Senegalese airline, begin operations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_S%C3%A9n%C3%A9gal_International
2008 - Launch of WINDS (Wideband InterNetworking engineering test and Demonstration Satellite, also known as Kizuna), Japanese communication satellite.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WINDS
2008 - 1st operational loss of a Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit.The B-2 'Spirit of Kansas' 89-0127 crashed on the runway shortly after takeoff from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam.The two person crew ejected safely from the aircraft and survived the crash.