MARCH22
1874 - Joseph Croce-Spinelli and Théodore Sivel flew at a height of 7.400 m with their balloon 'Etoile Polaire' to test the use of an oxygen bottle.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Croce-Spinelli - http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%A9odore_Sivel
1877 - Birth of William Sefton Brancker (commonly known as Sir Sefton Brancker), British civil and military aviation pioneer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sefton_Brancker
1880 - Birth of George Valentin, Prince Bibescu, Romanian early aviation pioneer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Valentin_Bibescu
1881 - Birth of François de Rochechouart de Mortemart, French WWI flying ace.
http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/france/de_rochechouart.php
1892 - Birth of Bruno Philip Henry De Roeper, British WWI flying ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_De_Roeper - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/deroeper.php
1907 - Birth of Manuel Aguirre López, Spanish republican flying ace during the civil war.
http://adar.es/index/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=49&Itemid=#4
1909 - Birth of Charles Harvard Gibbs-Smith, British polymath historian of aeronautics and aviation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Harvard_Gibbs-Smith
1913 - Birth of Sabiha Gökçen, 1st female combat pilot in the world and the 1st Turkish aviatrix.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabiha_G%C3%B6k%C3%A7en
1913 - World's 1st scheduled passenger-carrying flights begins with the Compagnie Générale Transaérienne operating from Cannes to Nice. 2 passengers could be carried in a Astra CM Hydro-avion , 3-seat floatplane version of the Astra C single engine biplane.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astra_C#Operational_history
1918 - Death of Richard Watson Howard, Australian WWI flying ace, from wounds received in action.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Watson_Howard - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/australi/howard.php
1919 - 1st regular international passenger service is opened between Paris and Brussels by Lignes Aériennes Farman. The weekly service uses Farman F60 Goliath biplanes and the flying time is 2 hours 50 minutes
1925 - Zakavia Junkers F.13crashed on takeoff from Tiflis, Georgia, killing all 5 on board.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_F.13#Accidents_and_incidents
1926 - On its 7th test flight during tests at Taura Beach, Yokosuka, Japan, the Kaibo Gikai KB experimental, twin-engined parasol-wing monoplane flying boat is seen in a glide with both engines stopped, which steepens until it strikes the water in a near-vertical attitude, killing all four crew. Cause attributed to a malfunction of the flight control system.
http://en.valka.cz/viewtopic.php/t/119224 - http://japaneseaircraft.devhub.com/blog/category/recce/
1927 - Western Canada Airways pilots Bernt Balchen, J.R. Ross and F.J. Stevenson flew the largest airlift of freight (17,894 lbs) from Cache Lake to Churchill, Manitoba.
1934 – A Pan American Grace Airlines Ford 5-AT-C Tri-Motor (NC407H) crashes during take off due ot engine failure in Lima, Peru, killing 3 of 15 on the aircraft.
http://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=26350
1935 - Death of Arthur Constantin Krebs, French officer, pioneer in automotive engineering and balloonist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Constantin_Krebs
1935 - Death of Jimmy Collins, chief test pilot for the Grumman military aircraft, killed in the crash of a Grumman F3F after it broke up in midair when it pulled sharply out of a terminal velocity dive test.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_F3F#Design_and_development
1937 - Death of Mary Russell, Duchess of Bedford, English aviatrix and ornithologist, after leaving Woburn Abbey in a DH.60GIII Moth Major that crashed into the North Sea off Great Yarmouth. Her body was never recovered.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Russell,_Duchess_of_Bedford
1942 - Death of Mikhail Nikitovich Zhukov, Soviet Winter War and WWII flying ace, Killed in action in his Polikarpov I-153.
http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/soviet_zhukov_2.htm
1947 - 1st fligth of the Tupolev Tu-1, prototype Soviet night fighter variant of the Tupolev Tu-2 medium bomber.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-1
1948 - 1st flight of the SNCASO SO-7060 "Deauville', single-engine light French civil utility aircraft prototype.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNCASO_SO.7060_Deauville
1948 - 1st flight of The Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star, American-built jet trainer aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_T-33_Shooting_Star
1951 - Birth of Musa Khiramanovich 'Mussachi' Manarov , Soviet pilot and cosmonaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musa_Manarov
1951 - Death of László Ede Almásy de Zsadány et Törökszentmiklós, Hungarian aristocrat, motorist, desert researcher, aviator, WWI pilot, Scout-leader and WWII soldier who also served as the basis for the protagonist in Michael Ondaatje's 1992 novel The English Patient and the movie based on it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Alm%C3%A1sy
1952 – A Maritime Central Airways Douglas C-47 disappears two hours after departing St. John’s Airport in Newfoundland, Canada with four people on-board. The wreckage is found almost a year and a half later
http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19520322-0
1952 – A Douglas DC-6 (PH-TBJ) "Koningin Juliana" being operated by KLM Royal Dutch Airlines crashes into a forest while navigating its approach to Frankfurt International Aircraft in Germany. There are 5 survivors among the 47 on-board.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KLM
1954 - 1st take off from grass of the "BAROUGAN" (evolution of the Dassault M.D.450 Ouragan, first French-designed jet fighter-bomber to enter production) nickname given to a small number of Ouragans fitted with an experimental "diabolo" undercarriage and a tail braking parachute. The name was a fusion of Ouragan with baroud, an Arab word meaning battle, and signified the intention of adapting the Ouragan for use from unprepared airstrips in Algeria.
http://www.aviastar.org/gallery/143.html
1955 - US Navy Douglas R6D-1 Liftmaster (Douglas DC-6), crashed into Pali Kea Peak in the Waianae Range near Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, after the crew made a navigational error, killing all 66 people on board.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1955_Hawaii_R6D-1_crash
1965 – Avianca Flight 676, a Douglas C-47 (DC-3) crashes into Sugar Loaf Mountain shortly after departure from Bogota-Eldorado Airport in Colombia at an elevation of 7,200ft. All 29 on the aircraft are killed due to the pilot continuing to fly by (VFR) Visual Flight Rules in unfavorable conditions.
http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19650322-1
1966 - Death of Norman Charles Trescowthick, Australian WWI flying ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Trescowthick - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/australi/trescowthick.php -
http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/t/r/e/David-J-Trescowthick/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0248.html
1966 - 1st flight of the Wassmer WA-50, French four-seat cabin monoplane.
http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=961
1967 - 1st flight of the Bell Model 205A-1 (Civil and export designation of UH-1H 'Iroquois')
http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/bell_uh-1.php
1970 - 1st flight of the Heintz 'Zenith', French low wing monoplane single seat homebuilt tourer.
http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=5676
1972 - Death of Charles John Biddle, American WWI flying ace and lawyer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_J._Biddle_(aviator) - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/usa/biddle.php
1974 - Death of Roland Rohlfs, american early aviator and test pilot.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Rohlfs
1976 - Death of Hazel LeRoy Wallace, Canadian WWI fighter ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazel_Wallace - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/canada/wallace.php
1979 - 1st flight of The Lockheed CP-140 Aurora, maritime patrol aircraft operated by Canadian Forces Air Command. The aircraft is based on the Lockheed P-3 Orion airframe, but mounts the electronics suite of the S-3 Viking
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_CP-140_Aurora
1981 - Launch of Soyuz 39, Soviet manned space flight to the Salyut 6 space station.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_39
1982 - 1st flight of the Valmet PIK-23 Towmaster (or Suhinu), Finnish twin-seated glider towing/primary trainer aircraft built entirely out of composite materials.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valmet_PIK-23_Towmaster
1982 - Launch of Space shuttle Columbia for it's 3rd mission (STS-3)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-3
1984 – Pacific Western Airlines Flight 501 catches fire on takeoff, with no fatalities among the 119 passengers on-board (there would be 27 injuries). A popping sound heard 20 seconds into the departure roll of the Boeing 737-200 (C-GQPW) caused the flight crew to abort, thinking a tire had blown. Instead, an intense fire on the left wing occurred due to a faulty compressor disc that ruptured a fuel tank. The aircraft is almost completely destroyed and later written off.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Western_Airlines_Flight_501
1989 - The sole Antonov An-225 sets a total of 106 world and class records during a 3 hour 30 minute flight carrying a Buran orbiter. Its total weight at take-off was 508,200 kg (1,129,370 lb)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Aviation/Historical_anniversaries/March_in_aviation/March_22
1992 – USAir Flight 405 Fokker F28, crashes shortly after liftoff from New York City's La Guardia Airport, leading to a number of studies into the effect that ice has on aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USAir_Flight_405
1995 – Cosmonaut Valeriy Polyakov returns to earth after setting a record of 437 days in space between launching on Soyuz TM-18 and landing on TM-20, setting the record for the longest human spaceflight in history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valeriy_Polyakov - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_TM-20
1996 - Death of Robert Franklyn Overmyer, Colonel, United States Marine Corps, American test pilot and NASA astronaut while testing light aircraft Cirrus VK-30.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Overmyer
1996 - Launch of STS-76, Space Shuttle Atantis mission to MIR.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-76
1998 – Philippine Airlines Flight 137, an Airbus A320 (RP-C3222), overshoots the runway at Bacolod City Airport. The #1 engine’s thrust reverser was inoperative, and the cockpit crew fails to compensate properly after applying full reverse thrust to engine #2 on landing. This causes runway excursion and an overshoot of the runway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Airlines_Flight_137
1999 - Death of Arthur Emmons Raymond, American aeronautical engineer at the Douglas Aircraft Company, lead designer of the DC-3.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Emmons_Raymond
2001 - Death of Sabiha Gökçen, 1st female combat pilot in the world and the 1st Turkish aviatrix.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabiha_G%C3%B6k%C3%A7en
2002 - 1st flight of the Yanagisawa Gen H-4 Uav, Radio-controlled version of the Japanese personal helicopter with contrarotating twin blades of tapered planform and fixed pitch.
http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/gen_h-4.php
2006 - Death of Pierre Clostermann, French WWII fighter ace, author (the big show), engineer, politician and sporting fisherman. Over his flying career he was awarded the Grand-Croix of the French Légion d'Honneur, Croix de Guerre France, DFC and bar, Distinguished Service Cross (USA), Silver Star (USA), and the Air Medal (USA).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Clostermann - http://www.pierre-clostermann.com/index.html - http://cieldegloire.com/004_clostermann.php
2008 - Death of Robert John McIntosh, American WWII fighter pilot and polititcian.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_J._McIntosh
2009 – A Pilatus PC-12 (N128CM) operated by Eagle Cap Leasing Inc. dives into the ground 500 feet short of the runway at Bert Mooney Airport in Butte, Montana, killing all 14 occupants (including 7 children).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Montana_Pilatus_PC-12_crash
2010 - VSS Enterprise, 1st of five commercial suborbital spacecraft being constructed for Virgin Galactic by Scaled Composites, underwent a captive carry test flight,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VSS_Enterprise
2012 - Death of Edward Barnes Sismore, British WWII air navigator, fighter pilot and senior RAF officer in the post-war years.