JAN07

1785 - 1st crossing of The English Channel by Jean-Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries flying their hydrogen balloon from Dover, England to a forest near Calais, France.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Pierre_Blanchard

1891 - Birth of Fernand Eugene Guyou, French WWI flying ace, Airliner pilot and WWII Pilot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernand_Guyou - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/france/guyou.php

1895 - Birth of Sir Wilmot Hudson Fysh, Australian aviator and businessman, founder of the Australian airline company Qantas.

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

1896 - Birth of Geoffrey Hornblower Cock, British WWI fighter ace, highest scoring ace to fly the Sopwith 1½ Strutter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Hornblower_Cock - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/cock.php

1898 - Birth of Wallace Alexander Smart, Scottish WWI flying ace

http://theaerodrome.com/aces/scotland/smart.php

1906 - Birth of Evelyn "Bobbi" Trout, American early aviator, 1st Woman to set the 1st non-refueling endurance record for women.

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

1910 - Frenchman Hubert Latham is the 1st pilot to climb to 1000 metres at Mourmelon, France

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

1911 - Lieutenant Myron Sydney Crissy of the United States Army, drops the first live bomb from an aeroplane when he conducts a test drop on a target in San Francisco from a Wright biplane piloted by Philip O. Parmelee.

http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/history-of-aviation-timeline/interactive-aviation-timeline/world-aviation/1911.aspx

1917 - Death of Paul Joannes Sauvage, French WWI youngest flying ace, killed by anti-aircraft fire.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Sauvage_(aviator) - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/france/sauvage.php

1917 - Thomas Mottershead, British WWI pilot, is severly injured during a dogfight with two Albatros D.III, He managed to take his burning FE-2d back to the Allied lines and made a successful forced landing saving his observer's life.

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

1919 - Death of Lorenzo Gaslini, Goal keeper and WWI Italian Pilot.

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenzo_Gaslini

1920 - 1st flight of The Boeing Model 7 (BB-1), American biplane 3 seat flying boat aircraft, smaller version of the Model 6 (B-1).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Model_7

1925 - Death of Emil Schäpe, German WWI flying ace

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Sch%C3%A4pe - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/schape.php

1929 - Carl Spaatz, Ira Eaker, and Elwood Quesada sets an endurance record of 151 hours aloft in the Question Mark, a modified Atlantic-Fokker C-2A airplane. While in the air, it Refueled 37 times and resupplied six others, with 12 of the 43 replenishments taking place at night.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Question_Mark_(airplane)

1931 - Australian Guy Lambton Menzies crash-landed upside-down in the La Fontaine Swamp near Hari Hari on New Zealand's west coast after a 11 hours and 45 minutes from Blenheim, New Zealand, 1st solo trans-Tasman flight with the Avro Sports Avian 'Southern Cross Junior'.

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

1933 - Death of Herbert John Louis Hinkler, better known as Bert Hinkler, pioneer Australian aviator (dubbed "Australian Lone Eagle") , Inventor , WWI pilot and aircraft designer. His plane crashed in the Tuscan Mountains in Italy in an attempt to break the flying record from England to Australia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_Hinkler#Later_life_and_career

1934 - 1st flight of The Curtiss XF13C (Model 70), Us prototype carrier-based HighWing monoplane fighter aircraft with a manually retractable landing gear and an enclosed cockpit. The aircraft was designed to facilitate conversions from biplane to monoplane and vice-versa

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtiss_XF13C

1935 - Birth of Valeri Nikolayevich Kubasov, Soviet cosmonaut

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

1935 - 1st flight of The Tachikawa Ki-9 (Spruce), intermediate training aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force.

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

1935 - 1st flight of The Avro 652, British prototype twin-engine, low-wing monoplane with a retractable undercarriage, and a tailwheel, basis for the successful Avro Anson.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_652

1941 - Birth of Frederick Drew Gregory, USAF test pilot and NASA astronaut

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_D._Gregory

1942 - 1st flight of The Supermarine Seafire, naval version of the famous british fighter Supermarine Spitfire adapted for operation from aircraft carriers.

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

1945 - Death of Thomas Buchanan McGuire Jr., 2nd highest scoring American ace during WWII, Killed in the crash of his P-38 which stalled while chasing a Ki-43 Hayabusa 'Oscar'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_McGuire#His_last_mission - http://cieldegloire.com/014_mc_guire_t_b.php

1946 - Birth of Giovanni Carta (John Carta), Italo-American aviator and Extreme Skydiver

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carta

1947 - Death of Helen Richey, American pioneering female aviator and 1st woman to be hired as a pilot by a commercial airline in the USA.

http://www.women-in-aviation.com/cgi-bin/links/detail.cgi?ID=387

1948 - Death of Captain Thomas Francis Mantell Jr., WWII pilot, in the crash of his P-51 Mustang while in pursuit of a supposed UFO.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantell_UFO_incident - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_F._Mantell

1950 - 1st flight of the Sud Ouest S.O.30C Bretagne, Cargo prototype version of the French Twin engine low wing monoplane airliner.

http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=4739

1951 - Birth of Talgat Amangeldyuly Musabayev, Kazakh test pilot and cosmonaut

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

1952 - 1st flight of the Manzolini Libellula (Dragonfly), Italian co-axial twin-rotor helicopter.

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

1954 - Death of Emil Uzelac, Croatian soldier and military commander who was a leading figure in the air forces of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the Independent State of Croatia.

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

1957 - 1st flight of the all-weather/night fighter version (J32-B) of the Saab J32 Lansen, Swedish two-seat, high transsonic attack aircraft.

http://www.aviastar.org/air/sweden/saab_lansen.php

1960 - 1st launch test of the Polaris missile, US two-stage solid-fuel nuclear-armed submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM).

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

1964 - Birth of Marco Matta, Italian Air Force Pilot.

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Matta

1968 - Launch of Surveyor 7, seventh and last lunar lander of the American unmanned Surveyor program sent to explore the surface of the Moon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveyor_7

1971 - Death of Charles Henry Chapman Woollven, British WWI flying ace

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Woollven - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/woollven.php

1972 - Iberia Airlines Flight 602 Sud Aviation SE 210 Caravelle, crashed into Sa Talia hill in San Jose on approach to Ibiza Airport killing all 104 on board.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iberia_Airlines_Flight_602

1973 - 1st flight of the Cameron D-96, built byCameron Balloons Ltd. of Bristol, England. 1st time the world's only hot-air airship (G-BAMK) is flown from Wantage, Berkshire.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameron_D-96

1975 - 1st flight of the Mohawk 298, French Nord 262 twin-prop high-wing airliner modified for US regulations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%C3%A9rospatiale_N_262

1980 - In San Francisco, a single-engined Mooney 231 sets a nonstop coast-to coast record in 8 hours 4 minutes using only 105 gallons of fuel.

http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/thismonth/this_month_jan10.html

1981 - A Boeing 747 of CAAC lands at JFK International Airport, marking the 1st time since 1949 that a flight from mainland China to the United States is performed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Aviation/Historical_anniversaries/January_in_aviation/January_7

1983 - The McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet, US supersonic, all-weather carrier-capable multirole fighter jet enters service.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F/A-18_Hornet#Operational_history

1992 - Produte (Croazia) incident: 2 Yugoslavian Mig-21 (Pilots Danijel Borovic and Emir Šišic) shot down a Bell UH-1 Iroquois of the European Union Monitoring Mission. Killing Italian Enzo Venturini pilot, Marco Matta co-pilot, observers Fiorenzo Ramacci, Silvano Natale and french Lieutenant de vaisseau Jean-Loup Eychenne. For this, Emir Šišic served prison time.

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eccidio_di_Podrute

1998 - Launch of The Lunar Prospector mission , part of the Discovery Program, designed for a low polar orbit investigation of the Moon.

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

2004 - Death of Oswald Garrison "Mike" Villard Jr., American engineer, pioneer in radio and radar, Father of the 'over-the-horizon radar'.

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2004/january28/villardobit-128.html

2012 - A Cameron A-210 hot air balloon 'Mr Big' collided with a high voltage power line while attempting to land, causing it to catch fire, disintegrate and crash just north of Carterton, New Zealand, killing all 11 on board.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Carterton_hot_air_balloon_crash