JUL17
1859 - John Wise piloted an unofficial balloon post flight from St. Louis, USA, to Henderson, New York, a distance of 1,290 km on which he carried a mailbag entrusted to him by the American Express Company.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airmails_of_the_United_States#Experimental_airmails
1892 - Birth of Edwin Harris Dunning , British Royal Naval Air Service, 1st pilot to land an aircraft on a moving ship.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Harris_Dunning
1894 - Birth of George Cox, Australian WWI flying ace
http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/australi/cox1.php
1894 - Birth of Lloyd Samuel Breadner, Canadian WWI flying ace and senior RCAF commander during WWII
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd_Samuel_Breadner - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/canada/breadner.php
1896 - Birth of Rupert Norman Gould Atkinson, British WWI flying ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Atkinson_(aviator) - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/atkinson2.php
1896 - Birth of Reed Gresham Landis, American WWI flying ace and USAAC officer during WWII.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_G._Landis - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/usa/landis.php
1904 - Birth of André Japy, French aviation pioneer and record setter.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Japy_(aviateur)
1912 - Birth of Carlos Bayo Alessandri, Spanish Nationalist flying ace of the civil war, Volunteer for combat in Russia with 1a Escuadrilla Azul part of the german LuftFlotte 2, and later General in the Spanish Air Force.
http://www.cieldegloire.com/018_bayo_alessandri_c.php - http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/spain_bayo.htm
1912 - 1st flight by a seaplane in Canada was at Port Stanley Ontario and It was also the occassion of the 1st passenger ride in a seaplane in Canada.
1913 - Birth of Petr Semenovich Bityutskiy, Soviet WWII flying ace.
http://www.cieldegloire.com/015_bityutskii_p_s.php - http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/soviet_bityutskii.htm
1914 - 1st flight of The Vickers F.B.5 (Fighting Biplane 5) (known as the "Gunbus"), British two-seat pusher WWI military biplane, 1st aircraft purpose-built for air-to-air combat to see service, making it the world's 1st operational fighter aircraft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickers_F.B.5
1917 - Death of Luigi Olivi, Italian WWI flying ace, killed in action in his SPAD VII.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Olivi - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/italy/olivi.php
1917 - Death of Roger Bolton Hay, British WWI flying ace, from wounds received in action.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Hay - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/hay2.php
1917 - Australian WWI flying ace Cecil Roy Richards scored 4 on that single day with his F.E.2d.
http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/australi/richards.php
1918 - Death of Claud Robert James Thompson, Australian WWI flying ace, Killed in a crash.
http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/australi/thompson3.php
1918 - Death of Edward Harper Sayers, british WWI flying ace, Killed in a crash.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Sayers_(aviator) - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/sayers.php
1918 - Death of Auguste Baux, French WWI flying ace, Killed in action in his SPAD XIII.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_Baux - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/france/baux.php
1920 - Birth of Nils Ivar Bohlin, Swedish inventor who invented the 3-point safety belt while working at Volvo, aircraft designer for SAAB who also helped to develop ejection seats.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nils_Bohlin
1924 - French Pelletier d'Oisy completes a flight from Paris to Tokyo in a Breguet 14. The trip was 120 hours in the air over 84 days.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelletier_d%27Oisy
1926 - Death of Augustus Moore Herring, American aviation pioneer, who flew a compressed-air powered aircraft in 1898, five years before the Wright Brothers made their own powered flight. It has been claimed that he was the 1st aviator of a motorized heavier-than-air aircraft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus_Moore_Herring
1927 - Birth of Robert 'Bob' K. Smyth, Grumman chief test pilot who flew the 1st flights of the A6A, the F-14A and the Gulfstream II.
http://www.flyingmidshipmen.org/smyth.html - http://www.grummanpark.org/content/robert-k-smyth-grumman-test-pilot-%E2%80%93-flight-no-24
1927 - USMC de Havilland DH.4s are used to attack bandits in Nicaragua threatening the garrison at Ocotal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ocotal
1929 - Robert Hutchings Goddard successfully launches a camera equipped rocket.
http://www.astronautix.com/thisday/july17.htm
1929 - Delta Air Lines begins operations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Air_Lines
1933 - Death of Lithuanians Steponas Darius and Stasys Girenas in the crash of their Bellanca CH-300 Pacemaker 'Lituanica' in Germany, after a 37 hours, 11 minutes flight, covering distance of 6411 km from New-york, only 650 km short of their final destination Kaunas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darius_and_Girenas#Flight
1934 - 1st flight of the Potez 437, French 3-seat single-engine high-wing monoplane light utility and sports aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potez_43#Variants - http://aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=6907
1938 – Douglas Corrigan takes off from Brooklyn to fly the "wrong way" to Ireland (instead of California) and becomes known as "Wrong Way" Corrigan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Corrigan#Transatlantic_flier
1939 - 1st flight of The Bristol Type 156 Beaufighter, often referred to as simply the Beau, British long-range heavy fighter modification of the Bristol Beaufort torpedo bomber design.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Beaufighter
1941 - Death of Armand Dufaux, Swiss Aviation pionneer and aircraft designer.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armand_Dufaux - http://www.pionnair-ge.com/spip1/spip.php?article34
1943 - Death of Jean Tulasne, french WWII flying ace, shot down in his Yak-1M by a FW-190 near Orel in Russia.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Tulasne - http://cieldegloire.com/004_tulasne.php - http://normandieniemen.free.fr/Jean_Tulasne.htm
1944 – Launch of Operation Mascot, the British aircraft carriers HMS Formidable, HMS Furious, and HMS Indefatigable launch a raid by 44 Fairey Barracuda bombers escorted by 48 fighters against the German battleship Tirpitz at her anchorage in Norway, but a highly effective German smoke screen allows them to achieve only one near-miss.
1944 – Napalm incendiary bombs are dropped for the 1st time by American P-38 pilots of the 402d Fighter Squadron / 370th Fighter Group on a fuel depot at Coutances, near St. Lô, France.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napalm#Historical_use
1946 - Birth of Toktar Ongarbayuly Aubakirov, Kazakh Air Force test pilot and cosmonaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toktar_Aubakirov
1947 - 1st flight of The Sud-Ouest S.O.95 Corse II , French mail and passenger transport aircraft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sud-Ouest_Corse_II - http://aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=2158
1949 - 1st flight of the Vickers Varsity, British twin-engine crew trainer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickers_Varsity
1952 - 1st flight of the Dassault M.D.316, Re-engined prototype version of the M.D. 315 flamant, French light twin-engined transport airplane.
http://www.aviastar.org/air/france/dassault_flamant.php
1952 - 58 Republic F84 Thunderjets complete a trans-ocean flight of 10,895 miles, with seven stops, from Georgia in the USA to Yokota in Japan.
1953 - Lieutenant Guy Pierre Bordelon scores his 5th aerial victory, becoming the United States Navy’s only ace of the Korean War, And only Night fighter ace, all 5 victories using an F4U-5N Corsair night fighter.
http://acepilots.com/korea_bordelon.html - http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=20668237 - http://www.cieldegloire.com/014_bordelon_g_p.php
1953 - A USN Fairchild R4Q-2 Packet (C-119F) crashed into a wooded area after takeoff near Milton-Whiting Field NAS killing 44 over 46.
http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19530717-0&lang=en - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_C-119_Flying_Boxcar#Accidents_and_incidents
1959 - Birth of Janet Lynn Kavandi, American scientist and NASA astronaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_L._Kavandi
1962 - Maj Robert M. White (USAF), pilots the North American X-15 to a record altitude of 314 750 feet (59 miles, 96 km).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_X-15#Highest_flights
1965 - 1st flight of the 2nd and last North American Aviation XB-70 Valkyrie prototype, US nuclear-armed deep-penetration bomber.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_XB-70_Valkyrie#Flight_test_program
1975 – Apollo-Soyuz Test Project: An American Apollo and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft dock with each other in orbit marking the 1st such link-up between spacecraft from the two nations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo-Soyuz_Test_Project#Launch_and_mission
1978 - 1st flight of The Soko G-4 Super Galeb, Yugoslav single engine, advanced jet trainer/light strike aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soko_G-4_Super_Galeb
1980 - A Vickers Viscount plane of charter airline Alidair crashed at Ottery St Mary when all four engines failed due to fuel exhaustion with no fatalities.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_the_Vickers_Viscount#1980s
1984 - Launch of Soyuz T-12 (also known as Salyut 7 EP-4), 7 th manned spaceflight to the Soviet space station Salyut 7.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_T-12
1984 - 2 airships are seen over London for the 1st time since the WWI when British Airship Industries fly their Skyship 600 and Skyship 500 models on a round trip between Cardington in Bedfordshire and Tower Bridge.
1989 - 1st flight of The Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit (also known as the Stealth Bomber), American heavy bomber with low observable stealth technology designed to penetrate dense anti-aircraft defenses and deploy both conventional and nuclear weapon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-2_Spirit
1991 - Launch of ERS-1, European remote sensing satellite (ERS), European Space Agency's 1st Earth-observing satellite.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Remote-Sensing_Satellite
1991 - Death of Arthur Raymond "Ray" Brooks, American WWI flying ace, pioneer in the development of radio navigational aids (NAVAIDs) and one of the earliest commercial pilots involved with carrying mail (air mail) for the US Post Office Department.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Raymond_Brooks - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/usa/brooks.php
1996 - TWA Flight 800 Boeing 747-131 with 230 people aboard, explodes 12 minutes after takeoff near East Moriches, New York.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_800
1997 - STS-94, Space Shuttle Columbia mission, is back on earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-94
1998 - Death of Michael James Lighthill, British applied mathematician, known for his pioneering work in the field of aeroacoustics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lighthill
2000 - Alliance Air Flight 7412 Boeing 737-2A8 requested a 360-degree orbit due to the flight being high on the approach Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Airport. The aircraft stalled during the turn ans grazed a few single-storied houses in a government residential housing estate and crashed in a government residential colony behind Gardani Bagh Girls School at Anishabad, which is located about 2 km southwest of the Patna Airport killing 60.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_Air_Flight_7412
2002 - Midway Airlines suspends operations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midway_Airlines_(1993%E2%80%932003)
2006 - STS-121 space shuttle 'Discovery' mission to the International Space Station (ISS) is back on earth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-121
2007 - 1st flight of the Ion Ion, American 2 seat, twin boom, pusher configuration light aircraft based on the DreamWings Valkyrie, intended either for homebuilding from kits or flyaway production, with versions meeting US and European rules.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_Aircraft_Ion
2007 – TAM Airlines (TAM Linhas Aéreas) Airbus A320-233 Flight 3054 crashes upon landing during rain in São Paulo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TAM_Airlines_Flight_3054
2014 - Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Boeing 777-200ER crashed near Hrabove in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, approximately 40 km (25 mi) from the Ukraine–Russia border, in the conflict zone of the ongoing Donbass insurgency, killing all 298 on board. Plane was probably shot down with a surface-to-air missile.