JUL03

1920 - Birth of Herschel "Herky" Green, USAAF WWII flying ace .

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

1920 - Over 60,000 spectators attend the 1st Royal Air Force Pageant at Hendon

http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/history-of-aviation-timeline/interactive-aviation-timeline/british-military-aviation/1920.aspx

http://www.raf.mod.uk/history/raftimeline19181929.cfm

1921 - Zeppelin LZ120 'Bodensee' is transferred, renamed as Esperia, to Italy in the context of war reparations.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZ_120#.C3.9Cbergabe_an_Italien

1928 - Arturo Ferrarin And Carlo Del Prete, take off with their Savoia-Marchetti S.64 for a South-transatlantic flight from Montecelio, italy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savoia-Marchetti_S.64

1929 - Lt A. W. Gordon hooks a Vought VO-1 onto US Navy airship USS Los Angeles in successful parasite fighter experiments.

http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/history-of-aviation-timeline/interactive-aviation-timeline/world-aviation/1929.aspx

1931 - 1st prototype Breguet 393T (390T), French 3 engine sesquiplane of all-metal construction airliner, looses a propeller during test flight, pilot losing his life when his parachute failed to open after he abandoned the aircraft.

http://www.aviastar.org/air/france/breguet-393t.php

1933 - 1st flight of Tupolev ANT-16 (also known as TB-4) experimental russian heavy bomber aircraft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_ANT-16

1935 - 1st flight of the Lambach HL I, Dutch light trainer aircraft.

http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Frank_Lambach#Lambach_HL_I - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambach_HL.I

1935 - Birth of Harrison Hagan "Jack" Schmitt, American geologist and NASA astronaut. Last of the Apollo astronauts to arrive and set foot on the Moon

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

1936 - 1st flight of The Short Empire S.23, British passenger and mail carrying flying boat.

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

1937 - 1st flight of The Dornier Do 24, German all-metal parasol monoplane, 3-engine flying boat for maritime patrol and search and rescue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornier_Do_24

1940 - For the 1st time, the targets attacked by RAF Bomber Command during this day include invasion barges being massed for a possible invasion of Britain.

http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/history-of-aviation-timeline/interactive-aviation-timeline/british-military-aviation/1940.aspx

1940 - During the British attack on the French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir, part of operation Catapult, Fairey Swordfish aircrafts from the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal mine the harbor and unsuccessfully attack the French battlecruiser Strasbourg as she flees to Toulon. French Curtiss Hawk 75 fighters and Blackburn Skua fighters from Ark Royal engage dogfights.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Mers-el-K%C3%A9bir

http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/history-of-aviation-timeline/interactive-aviation-timeline/british-military-aviation/1940.aspx

1941 - Death of Wilhelm Balthasar, german Spanish War and WWII fighter ace, Killed in the crash of his Me Bf 109 F-4 near Saint-Omer after a wing folded in a sharp dive while attempting to disengage from combat against RAF fighters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Balthasar - http://www.luftwaffe.cz/balthasar.html - http://www.cieldegloire.fr/001_balthasar_w.php

1942 - 1st airborne test firing of a retrocrocket at Goldstone Lake, Calif., from a PBY-5A piloted by Lt. Comdr. J. H. Hean (USN).

http://www.astronautix.com/thisday/july03.htm

1943 - Birth of Norman Earl Thagard, American scientist and NASA astronaut. 1st American to ride to space on board a Russian vehicle, and can be considered the 1st American cosmonaut.

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

1945 - 1st flight of The Northrop F-15 Reporter (later RF-61), American unarmed photographic reconnaissance aircraft, based on the Northrop P-61 Black Widow night fighter, last piston-powered photo-reconnaissance aircraft designed and produced for the USAF.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_F-15_Reporter

1948 - 1st flight of The North American AJ Savage (later A-2 Savage), US twin engine carrier-based bomber aircraft.

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

1950 - Death of Austin Leonard Walsh, New Zealand pioneer aviator and aircraft designer, founder with his brother Vivian Claude Walsh of the New Zealand Flying School.

http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/3w3/walsh-austin-leonard

1950 - Supermarine Seafires of 800 Naval Air Squadron and Fairey Fireflys of 827 Naval Air Squadron from HMS Triumph fly the 1st non-US sortie over Korea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Triumph_(R16)#Korean_War_service

1950 - F9F Panthers of VF-51 flying from USS Valley Forge become the 1st US jet fighters to go into combat. A North Korean Yak-9 is shot down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Valley_Forge_(CV-45)#Korean_War

1952 - 1st flight of The Yakovlev Yak-24 'Horse', soviet twin engine, tandem rotor transport helicopter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakovlev_Yak-24

1952 - 1st flight of the Lavochkin La-200B, Sokol (Falcon) RADAR equipped version of the Soviet two-seater, swept winged, Night and Bad Weather Jet Interceptor Fighter

http://www.aviastar.org/air/russia/la-200b.php

1953 - 1st tethered flight by the Rolls-Royce Thrust Measuring Rig VTOL aircraft at Hucknall Aerodrome, Nottinghamshire, England

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Thrust_Measuring_Rig

1953 - 1st flight of The North American FJ-3 Fury, American swept-wing carrier-capable fighter for the US Navy and Marine Corps, re-engined version of the FJ-2.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_FJ-2/-3_Fury#FJ-3

1963 - New Zealand National Airways Corporation Flight 441 Douglas DC-3C (C-47B-15-DK) encountered an area of extreme turbulence in poor weather and flew into a vertical rock face in the Kaimai Ranges near Mount Ngatamahinerua, at an altitude of 2460 feet (750 m), killing all 23

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_National_Airways_Corporation_Flight_441

1963 - The Peruvian Naval Aviation (originally formed in 1919 as the Naval Aviators Corps / Cuerpo de Aviadores Navales) is re-created.

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

1968 - An Airspeed Ambassador of BKS Air Transport crashed at London Heathrow Airport, damaging two parked Trident airliners as it cartwheeled into the uncompleted London Heathrow Terminal 1, then under construction. Six of the eight crew were killed along with eight horses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_BKS_Air_Transport_Heathrow_crash

1970 – A British Dan-Air De Havilland Comet chartered jetliner crashes into mountains north of Barcelona, Spain killing 113 people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Comet#Accidents_and_incidents

1970 - HMCS Bonaventure (CVL-22), 3rd and the last aircraft carrier to serve Canada, is Decommissioned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMCS_Bonaventure_(CVL_22)

1971 - Toa Domestic Airlines Flight 533 NAMC YS-11A-217 crashed due to strong winds into the south face of Yokotsudake (Yokotsu Mountain) killing all 68 on board.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toa_Domestic_Airlines_Flight_533

1973 - Death of Laurens Hammond, American engineer and inventor (most famously, the Hammond organ, the Hammond Clock, and the world's 1st polyphonic musical synthesizer, the Novachord). In WWII he helped design guided missile controls and was awarded patents for infrared and light sensing devices for bomb guidance, glide bomb controls, a camera shutter and a new type of gyroscope.

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

1974 - Launch of Soyuz 14, Soviet manned spaceflight to the Salyut 3 space station

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_14

1976 - 1st flight of the Piaggio P.166-DL3, last version of the italian ten-seat twin-engined light transport

http://www.aviastar.org/air/italy/piaggio_p-166.php

1976 - 3 Israeli Air Force C-130 Hercules carry commandos to Entebbe, Uganda to rescue the 258 passengers of an Air France Airbus hijacked.

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

1982 - 1st flight of The prototype General Dynamics F-16XL, derivative of the F-16 Fighting Falcon, with a cranked arrow delta wing, similar in appearance to the wing planform of the earlier Saab 35 Draken from Sweden, that is over twice the size of that of the standard F-16 wing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16XL

1982 - Death of William Ellsworth Kepner, US Army, US Army Air Corps, pioneer balloonist and airship pilot. WWII high ranking officer, he flew some missions in Bombers and fighters.

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

1984 - Air Florida, American low-cost carrier, ceased operations.

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

1987 - Per Lindstrand and Richard Branson, became 1st hot-air balloon travelers to cross Atlantic. Their balloon 'Virgin Atlantic' is , at the time, the largest ever flown at 2.3 million cubic feet of capacity. It flew 3,075 miles from Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine to Eglinton in County Londonderry in 31 hours 41 minutes.

http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/history-of-aviation-timeline/interactive-aviation-timeline/world-aviation/1987.aspx

1992 - Launch of The Solar Anomalous and Magnetospheric Particle Explorer (SAMPEX) satellite, to measure the radiation environment of the Earth's magnetosphere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Anomalous_and_Magnetospheric_Particle_Explorer

1988 – USN warship USS Vincennes shoots down Iran Air Flight 655 Airbus A300B2-203 over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people aboard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

1998 - Launch of Nozomi, Japanese space probe designed to study the upper Martian atmosphere and its interaction with the solar wind and to develop technologies for use in future planetary missions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nozomi_(spacecraft)

2001 - More than 3 months after its emergency landing at Lingshui airbase in China, the US Navy EP3E Aries III is air freighted back to America on a chartered Russian Antonov An-124-100. The Chinese Government insist that a civilian aircraft be used to remove the aircraft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hainan_Island_incident#Aftermath

2001 - Vladivostok Air Flight 352, a Tupolev Tu-154 belonging to Vladivostok Air crashed while attempting to land in Irkutsk, Russia, killing all 145 people aboard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladivostok_Air_Flight_352

2002 - 1st person to fly around the world alone, nonstop, in a balloon, Steve Fossett lands his balloon 'Spirit of Freedom 'in Queensland, Australia. This solo balloon flight was 13 days, 8 hours, 33 minutes (14 days 19 hours 50 minutes to landing), 20,626.48 statute miles (33,195.10 km).

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

2002 - Launch of The COmet Nucleus TOUR (CONTOUR), NASA Discovery-class space probe.

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

2004 - Death of Andriyan Grigoryevich Nikolayev, Soviet pilot and cosmonaut.

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

2008 - 1st flight of the Cirrus Vision SF50, American single-engine, low-wing, V-tailed, 7-seat, very light jet aircraft prototype

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrus_Vision_SF50

2009 - A Russian-made Mil Mi-17 transport helicopter of the Pakistan Army crashed near Peshawar. Fatalities and resons are not clearly established.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Pakistan_Army_Mil_Mi-17_crash