MARCH23
1875 - Joseph Croce-Spinelli, Théodore Sivel, Claude Jobert, Albert and Gaston Tissandier and Claude Jobert launch the balloon 'Zenith' for a time record.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z%C3%A9nith_(ballon)
1885 - Birth of Otto Schmidt, German WWI fighter ace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Schmidt_(aviator) - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/schmidt2.php
1888 - Birth of Gustave Victorin Daladier, French WWI fighter ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Daladier - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/france/daladier.php
1892 - Birth of Oren John Rose, American WWI fighter ace, businessman who served in WWII in USAAF
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oren_Rose - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/usa/rose1.php
1896 - Birth of Ernest Edward Owen, British WWI flying ace
http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/owen1.php
1896 - Birth of William Ernest Reed, British WWI flying ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Reed_(aviator) - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/reed3.php
1900 - Birth of Jurgis Dobkevicius, Lithuanian aviator and aircraft designer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurgis_Dobkevi%C4%8Dius
1905 - Birth of Martin Schempp, German glider pilot and founder of Schempp-Hirth, a major manufacturer of gliders.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Schempp
1908 - Birth of Arkhip Mikhailovich Lyul'ka, Soviet scientist and designer of jet engines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkhip_Mikhailovich_Lyulka
1910 - 1st airport in Argentina is officialy dedicated with the flight of Emilio Eugene Aubrún in his Blériot X.
http://earlyaviators.com/emankus.htm
1911 - Birth of Ewald Rohlfs, german test pilot.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ewald_Rohlfs
1911 - Louis Charles Breguet carries 11 passengers a distance of 5 km (3.1 miles) in his Bréguet Biplane.
1911 - Jules Vedrines flies above the Carnival of Paris and drops a rain of flowers
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_V%C3%A9drines
1912 - Birth of Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun, German rocket scientist, engineer, space architect, and one of the leading figures in the development of rocket technology in Nazi Germany and the United States during and after WWII.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun
1914 - The Royal Siamese Flying Corps is formed.
1918 - Death of Hans Gottfried von Häbler, German WWI flying ace, killed from wounds received in action in his Fokker DR.I the day before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_von_H%C3%A4bler - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/habler.php
1921 - 1st flight of the Nieuport-Delage NiD-30T2, French six-passenger variant prototype with sesquiplane wings, enclosed cabin and an open cockpit for the pilot.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nieuport-Delage_NiD.30T#Les_versions - http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=548
1921 - Lieutenant Arthur Hamilton sets a new world record when he jumps by parachute from 24,400 feet.
hhttp://hypertextbook.com/facts/2004/parachute-high-altitude.html
1921 - Lawrence Sperry flew and landed the first airplane at the U. S. Capitol, in a Sperry Messenger.
1923 - 1st flight of The Fokker D.XI, Dutch single-seat sesquiplane fighter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fokker_D.XI
1929 - Birth of Albert Hanlin Crews, Jr., USAF / NASA test pilot and Astronaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_H._Crews
1932 - French Lucien Bossoutrot and Maurice Rossi takes off in the Blériot Bl-110 'Joseph Le Brix' for a world distance record.
http://records.fai.org/file?i=2&f=9292 - http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=1678
1934 - 1st flight of The Westland F.7/30, British fighter prototype.
http://www.aviastar.org/air/england/west_f7-30.php
1936 - Imperial Airways begins scheduled flights between Hong Kong and Malaysia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Aviation/Historical_anniversaries/March_in_aviation/March_23
1938 - 1st flight of the Breguet 690-01, prototype of a series of light twin-engine ground-attack aircraft that were used by the French Air Force in WWII.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breguet_693 - http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=544
1942 - Death of Petr Ivanovich Pumpur, Soviet Flying ace of the Spanish war who also took part in the Soviet–Japanese war, executed under false accusations of a conspiracy against Stalin.
http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/soviet_pumpur.htm
1942 - Death of Jan Olieslagers, Belgian motorcycle , aviation pioneer (who set world records with both types of machinery) and WWI flying ace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Olieslagers - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/belgium/olieslagers.php
1944 - 1st flight of 2nd prototype of The XP-56 Black Bullet, prototype fighter interceptor built by Northrop. It was one of the most radical of the experimental aircraft built during WWII. Ultimately, it was unsuccessful, and never produced.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_XP-56_Black_Bullet
1946 – The Royal Netherlands Navy commissions its f1st aircraft carrier, the escort carrier HNLMS Karel Doorman (QH1), Formerly the British carrier HMS Nairana.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HNLMS_Karel_Doorman_(QH1)
1948 - Test pilot Gp. Capt. 'Cat's eyes' John Cunningham sets a new Federal Aeronautique Internationale (FAI) ratified world altitude record of 18,118 m (59446 ft.) during tests with the third production D. H. 100 Vampire (serial no. TG278).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Vampire#Records_and_achievements
1948 - 1st flight of The Douglas F3D Skyknight, (later F-10 Skyknight),United States twin-engine, midwing jet fighter, designed as a carrier-based all-weather aircraft. It downed several MiG-15s as a night fighter over Korea against no losses of its own. It also served as an electronic warfare platform in the Vietnam War. The aircraft is sometimes unofficially called "Skynight", dropping the second "k".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_F3D_Skyknight
1949 - The Improved Sud-Ouest S.O.1100 Ariel version II, an all-metal helicopter with an enclosed cabin for two, makes it's 1st flight.
http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/snias_ariel.php
1955 - 2 Saab 29C photographic reconnaissance jet aircraft of the Royal Swedish Air Force, flying in formation, set a new record of 560mph over a closed course of 621 miles. They claim it to be the 1st speed record made in formation.
1959 - Death of Ernest James Salter, Canadian WWI flying ace who served as bombing instructor in WWII
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_James_Salter - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/canada/salter.php
1961 - Death of Valentin Vasiliyevich Bondarenko, Soviet fighter pilot and cosmonaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentin_Bondarenko
1965 - Canadair CP-107 Argus Mk.2 20727 crashed on a night ASW exercise near Puerto Rico killing all 16 on board.
http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19650323-0
1965 - Launch of Gemini 3 'The Molly Brown ', 1st manned Gemini flight and also the final manned flight controlled from Cape Canaveral. The only major incident during the orbital phase involved a contraband corned beef sandwich. The crew each took a few bites before the sandwich had to be restowed. The crumbs it released could have wreaked havoc with the craft's electronics, so the crewmen were reprimanded when they returned to Earth. Other crews were warned not to pull the same type of stunt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_3
1967 - Worst ground aviation accident of Vietnam War occurred at Da Nang Air Base, South Vietnam when a traffic controller cleared a USMC A-6A Intruder for takeoff but also cleared USAF C-141A-LM Starlifter to cross runway. The A-6's crew saw the Starlifter at last moment, veered off runway to try to avoid it, but its port wing sliced through C-141's nose, which immediately caught fire, load of 72 acetylene gas cylinders ignited and caused tremendous explosion, only loadmaster escaping through rear hatch. The Intruder overturned, skidded down runway on its back. Some of ordnance load of 16 x 500 lb bombs and six rocket packs went off in ensuing fire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_C-141_Starlifter
1971 - CFB Portage La Prairie received the Beechcraft CT-134 Musketeer (military training derivative for RCAF), single engine, low-wing, four-seat light aircraft with fixed landing gear and a limited aerobatic capability.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_CT-134_Musketeer
1983 - 1st flight of the Rockwell B-1 Lancer,four-engine, variable-sweep wing strategic bomber, in his B- 1B version which will lead the production version.
http://www.aviastar.org/air/usa/rok_b-1.php
1991 - Death of Mary Anita 'Neta' Snook Southern, American pioneer aviator who achieved a long list of 1sts, 1st woman aviator in Iowa, 1st woman student accepted at the Curtiss Flying School in Virginia, 1st woman "aviatrix" to run her own aviation business and first woman to run a commercial airfield. She was Amelia Earhart's 1st flying instructor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neta_Snook
1994 - Aeroflot Flight 593, Russian International Airlines Airbus A310 passenger airliner operating on behalf of Aeroflot, crashed into a hillside in Kemerovo Oblast. All 75 passengers and crew were killed. Cockpit voice and flight data recorders revealed that the pilot's 15 year-old son Eldar Kudrinsky had, while seated at the controls, unknowingly disabled the A310 autopilot's control of the aircraft's ailerons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroflot_Flight_593
1994 - The Aerospace Division of the Defence Research Agency, formerly the Royal Aerospace Establishment, Farnborough, is closed.
1994 - An F-16D (88-0171, c/n 1D-25, of the 74th Fighter Squadron, 23rd Group,) simulating an engine-out approach collided with an USAF Lockheed C-130E Hercules, (68-10942, c/n 4322, of the 2nd Airlift Squadron, 317th Group) over Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina, killing 24 people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Ramp_disaster
1998 - 1st flight of the Chengdu J-10, People's Republic of China's multirole fighter aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengdu_J-10
2001 - Mir, Soviet and later Russian space station, operational in low Earth orbit , breaks up in Earth's atmosphere over the South Pacific during the reentry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deorbit_of_Mir
2004 - The 1st prototype Boeing X-50A Dragonfly Canard Rotor/Wing, gyrodyne unmanned aerial vehicle to demonstrate the principle that a helicopter's rotor could be stopped in flight and act as a fixed wing, crashes at the United States Army Yuma Proving Ground, Yuma, Arizona, during its third hover test flight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-50_Dragonfly#Crashes
2005 – Airline Transport Flight 982, an Ilyushin IL-76 (ER-IBR ) crashes into the water beyond Mawanza Airport in Tanzania. Using a takeoff configuration for a weight almost 10 tons lighter than its actual weight, the aircraft is unable to maintain its climb.
http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20050323-0
2007 – A Transaviaexport Airlines Ilyushin IL-76 (EW-78849) is shot down after one of three missiles fired at it hits its wing after departure from Mogadishu Airport in Somalia, killing all 11 occupants.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Mogadishu_TransAVIAexport_Airlines_Il-76_crash
2009 – FedEx Flight 80 crashes on landing at Tokyo Narita Airport, killing the pilots. The McDonnell Douglas MD-11 F (N526FE) lands in heavy winds, causing a bounce and an eventual left roll. The aircraft ends up on its back and in flames.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FedEx_Express_Flight_80
2012 - 1st production prototype of the Terrafugia Transition, American light sport, roadable airplane, completed its 1st flight
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrafugia_Transition#Development_Milestones
2012 - 1st launch of the Edoardo Amaldi ATV, or Automated Transfer Vehicle 003 (ATV-003), European unmanned cargo resupply spacecraft,