MARCH09
1825 - Birth of Alexander Fedorovich Mozhayskiy , Russian naval officer, aviation pioneer, researcher and designer of heavier-than-air craft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Mozhayskiy
1832 - Death of Abraham Hopman, Dutch aeronaut pioneer, 1st Dutchman to fly in Netherlands with a homemade balloon
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Hopman
1877 - Birth of Albert Leo Stevens, American pioneering balloonist who also played a key role in the development of safety features for parachutes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Leo_Stevens
1892 - Birth of Erich Rüdiger von Wedel, German WWI flying ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_R%C3%BCdiger_von_Wedel - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/wedel1.php
1892 - Birth of Georges "Pivolo" Pelletier d'Oisy , French WWI flying ace, raid pilot and high ranking officer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Pelletier_d%27Oisy - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/france/pelletier.php
1894 - Birth of John Henry Smith, Canadian WWI flying ace
http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/canada/smith7.php
1896 - Birth of Laurence Henry Scott, British WWI flying ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_H._Scott - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/scott2.php
1896 - Birth of Stanley Wallace Rosevear, Canadian WWI fighter ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Wallace_Rosevear - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/canada/rosevear.php
1897 - Birth of René Mesmin, french raid aviatior.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Mesmin
1897 - Birth of Cyril John Agelasto, British WWI flying ace
http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/agelasto.php
1897 - Birth of Hilliard Brooke Bell, Canadian WWI flying ace and WWII pilot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilliard_Brooke_Bell - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/canada/bell5.php
1906 - Birth of Benjamin Scovill "Ben" Kelsey, American aeronautical engineer and test pilot. He co-authored the technical specifications which led to the development of the P-39 Airacobra and the P-38 Lightning, initiated the development of drop tanks, driving force behind a program of advanced airfoil research which resulted in the P-51 and important committee member of the group that approved and funded the X-15.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_S._Kelsey
1909 - 1st flight of The Goupy No.2, French experimental aircraft, 1st tractor configuration biplane to fly and 1st biplane to feature staggered wings. Both these features would very soon become the norm in aircrafts design.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goupy_No.2
1909 - 1st flight of the Santos-Dumont N° 20 'Demoiselle', french Light sport sigle seat high wing monoplane.
http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=9614 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santos-Dumont_Demoiselle
1910 - 1st serving member of the Canadian armed forces to take an aeroplane flight in Canada, Major G.S. Maunsell, was J.A.D. McCurdy's passenger on two flights of the Canadian Aerodrome Company's Baddeck No. 2 biplane at Baddeck, NS.
1913 - 1st airmail flight in Switzerland is flown by Swiss Oskar Bider from Basel to Liestal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Bider
1913 - Birth of John Fancy, British former airman whose tunnelling escapes from various German prisoner of war camps during WWII earned him the nickname 'The Mole', and inspired the book and film 'The Great Escape'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Fancy
1914 - Death of Alejandro Bello Silva, Chilean aviator who disappeared during his qualifying flight for certification as a military pilot, crashing with his Sánchez-Besa biplane in the Cuncumén hills
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alejandro_Bello_Silva
1915 - Birth of James Edgar "Johnnie" Johnson, British WWII fighter ace who also flew during the Korean war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnnie_Johnson_(RAF_officer) - http://cieldegloire.com/002_raf_johnson_j_e.php
1918 - 1st American air casualty in WWI is Capt. James Ely Miller who loses his life in a French Spad while flying a practice patrol across the German lines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_Field_(Staten_Island,_New_York)
1918 - Canadian WWI fighter ace Frank Granger Quigley shot down 4 Albatros DV with his Sopwith Camel on that single day.
http://theaerodrome.com/aces/canada/quigley.php
1925 - Launch of Pink's War (British India), 1st air action of the RAF carried out independently of the Army or Navy, air to ground bombardment and strafing carried out by the Royal Air Force, under the command of Wing Commander Richard Charles Montagu Pink, against the mountain strongholds of Mahsud tribesmen in South Waziristan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink%27s_War
1927 - René Cyprien Guilbaud long range flight through Africa and the Mediterranean venturing as far as Madagascar, is back in Marseille with the CAMS 37 flying boat. In the course of the flight, he covered 22,600 km (14,000 mi) in 38 stages without incident.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAMS_37
1928 - Dame Mary Bailey, née Westenra, starts a 8,000 mile solo flight from Croydon to Cape Town, flying de Havilland Cirrus Moth with an extra fuel tank.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Bailey_(aviator)
1928 - Death of (Lewis) Rodman Wanamaker, pioneer in sponsoring record-breaking aviation projects and in particular and especially an important early backer of transatlantic flight development.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodman_Wanamaker
1929 - 1st flight of the Blériot Bl-195/2, French low wing monoplane 4 engine tandem mounted mailplane prototype.
http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=1168
1931 - 1st flight of The Blériot 125 (or Bl-125), highly unusual French airliner. It featured accommodation for twelve passengers in two separate fuselage pods. Between them, these pods shared a tailplane and a high wing. The centre section of wing, which joined the fuselage pods also carried a nacelle that contained an engine at either end and the crew compartment in the middle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bl%C3%A9riot_125 - http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=815
1931 - French Jean Antoine Réginensi et Marcel Lalouette sets a distance (2678.120 km) and duration (16 h 59 mn 49 s) record in closed circuit with a 2 tons load with a Farman F-302, 3 seat high wing monoplane single engine prototype.
http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=6477
1934 - Birth of Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, Soviet pilot and cosmonaut. He was the first human being to journey into outer space.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Gagarin
1939 - 1st flight of the SNCAC NC.471, French twin engine hig wing Floatplane trainer.
http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=1129
1942 - 1st electronic navigation aid is brought into service by RAF Bomber Command - 'Gee' is employed for the 1st time installed on a Wellington on a raid over Essen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gee_(navigation)#Into_service
1944 - Death of Arthur Roy Brown, Canadian WWI flying ace, officially credited with shooting down Manfred von Richthofen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Brown_(RAF_officer) - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/canada/brown3.php
1945 - With Operation MeetingHouse, 334 B-29s takes off for the beginning of The Bombing of Tokyo, one of the most destructive bombing raids in history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo#B-29_raids
1948 - 1st flight of The Gloster E.1/44, British single-engined jet fighter design of the Second World War which came about because of low availability of jet engines but was not completed in prototype form until after the war and never entered production.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloster_E.1/44
1949 - 1st flight of The Avro Shackleton, British 4 engine long-range maritime patrol aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Shackleton
1955 - Robert Ray Scott, in a F-84F Thunderstreak, set a 3 hour, 44-minute and 53-second record for the 2,446 mile flight from Los Angeles to New York.
http://www.corbisimages.com/stock-photo/rights-managed/U1080769/robert-r-scott-waving-from-his-plane
1961 - Launch of Korabl-Sputnik 4 or Vostok-3KA No.1, also known as Sputnik 9 in the West, Soviet test flight of the Vostok spacecraft, carrying the mannequin Ivan Ivanovich, a dog named Chernushka, some mices and a guinea pig, successfully recovered that same day. During the descent, the mannequin was ejected from the spacecraft in a test of its ejection seat, and descended separately under its own parachute
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_9
1967 - 1st flight of The Slingsby T.53, 1st all-metal sailplane designed and built in the UK.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slingsby_T.53
1967 - TWA Flight 553, registration N1063T, McDonnell Douglas DC-9-15 jet airlineren route from Pittsburgh to Dayton collided in mid-air with a Beechcraft Baron near Urbana, Ohio
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_553
1968 - Death of René Leduc, French Engineer and aircraft designer, much acclaimed for his work on ramjets.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Leduc
1969 - 1st flight of The AS/SA 202 Bravo, two to three-seat civil light aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FFA_AS-202_Bravo
1979 - 1st flight of The Dassault Mirage 4000 (sometimes called the Super Mirage 4000), French prototype jet fighter aircraft developed by Dassault-Breguet from their Mirage 2000.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dassault_Mirage_4000
1985 - Death of Campbell Alexander Hoy, British WWI flying ace, And RAF officer until end of WWII
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell_Hoy - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/hoy1.php
1987 - 1st flight of The Yakovlev Yak-141 'Freestyle', also known as the Yak-41, Soviet supersonic vertical takeoff/landing (VTOL) fighter prototype aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakovlev_Yak-141
1988 - Death of Frank Kerr Hays, American WWI flying ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Hays_(aviator) - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/usa/hays.php
1996 - STS-75, Space Shuttle Columbia mission, is back on earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-75
2008 - Launch of The Jules Verne ATV, or Automated Transfer Vehicle 001 (ATV-001), ESA unmanned cargo resupply spacecraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Verne_ATV
2011 - Space Shuttle Discovery makes its final landing after 39 flights.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Discovery
2012 - 1st flight of The Cessna Citation M2, American turbofan-powered light corporate jet, based on the earlier Model 525 CitationJet