MARCH26

1870 - Death of Charles Green, British famous balloonist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Green_(balloonist)

1885 - Birth of Robert Blackburn, English aviation pioneer and the founder of Blackburn Aircraft

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Blackburn_(aviation_pioneer)

1893 - Birth of William Thomas Ponder, American WWI flying ace, who flew beer in from Mexico into Texas during prohibition for servicemen dying in hospitals who were in need of a last beverage of their choice. He worked for Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation and founded the Ponder Aircraft Sales Company.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ponder - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/usa/ponder.php

1894 - Birth of Albert Achard, French WWI flying ace.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Achard - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/france/achard.php

1894 - Birth of Douglas Hugh Moffatt Carbery, British WWI flying ace

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Carbery - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/carbery.php

1898 - Birth of Bernhard Ultsch, German WWI flying ace

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernhard_Ultsch - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/ultsch.php

1899 - Birth of Raymond Villechanoux, French WWI pilot,aerobatic pilot and chief test pilot for Bleriot post WWI.

http://www.aerosteles.net/fiche.php?code=souche

1899 - Birth of Clifford Bowman, British WWI flying ace

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_Bowman - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/bowman1.php

1899 - Birth of Kenneth Charles Mills, British WWI flying ace.

http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/mills2.php

1911 - Birth of Mitsugu Sawada, Japanese Sino-Japanese war and WWII flying ace, known as the ‘King of the Force-Landing’.

http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/japan_sawada.htm - http://www.cieldegloire.com/010_sawada_m.php

1915 - Birth of Juraj Puškár, Slovak WWII flying ace who served on the Eastern front with the Axis Forces.

http://en.valka.cz/viewtopic.php/title/Puskar-Juraj/t/127813

1917 - Birth of Teresio Martinoli, Italian WWII fighter ace.

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teresio_Martinoli - http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/italy_martinoli.htm

1917 - The sole Nestler Scout, British Biplane fighter prototype, is destroyed in a crash killing test pilot John Bernard Fitzsimons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Aviation/Historical_anniversaries/March_in_aviation/March_26

1919 - Birth of Walter Frame Gibb, British WWII flying ace and test pilot who twice held the world altitude record.

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

1922 - 1st flight of The de Havilland DH.34, British single engined biplane airliner, from Edgware, near London. One of the 1st small commercial transport aircraft built upon experience from passenger flying and the requirements of airline operators.This 10-seat passenger had a top speed of 128 mph, a cruising speed of 105 mph and a range of 365 miles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_DH.34

1926 - French Robert Bajac sets a world endurance record of 3 hours 46 minutes 35 seconds with a 1,500 kg payload aboard with a Blériot Bl-155.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bl%C3%A9riot_155

1927 - 1st flight of The Handley Page Hinaidi, British all-wooden twin-engine biplane bomber, developed from the Handley Page Hyderabad.

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

1931 - Swissair is formed by the merger of Ad Astra Aero and Balair.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swissair - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_Astra_Aero - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balair

1932 - French Lucien Bossoutrot and Maurice Rossi with the Blériot Bl-110 'Joseph Le Brix' set a new world distance record of 10601 km in 76hr 34 Min.

http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=1678

1934 - 1st Flight of The Short L.17 Scylla, British 4-engined 39-seat biplane luxury airliner, Piloted by John Lankester Parker (Chief Test Pilot for Short Brothers) and with three passengers on board, 1st landplane derivative of the Short Kent flying boat. Named Scylla (G-ACJJ), the big biplane is followed by Scyrinx (G-ACJK) for the busy Imperial Airways routes into continental Europe

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

1936 - Adolf II, Prince of Schaumburg-Lippe and his wife are killed in the crash of a Mexican Ford 5-AT-B Tri-Motor, strucking the Popocatépetl volcano in Zumpango, Mexico. All 18 on board died.

http://www.schaumburger-zeitung.de/portal/lokales/feierabend_Tod-am-Popocat%E9petl-_arid,330321.html -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_II,_Prince_of_Schaumburg-Lippe - http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19360326-0

1936 - 1st flight of The Autogiro Company of America AC-35, American 2 seat roadable aircraft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autogiro_Company_of_America_AC-35

1938 - Arthur Clouston and Victor Ricketts land their D. H. 88 Comet Australian Anniversary at Gravesend in Kent, England to complete a 26,500-mile flight from England to New Zealand and back in a record 10 days 21 hours

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_DH.88 - http://www.kiwiaircraftimages.com/comet.html

1940 - 1st flight of The Blackburn B-20, British experimentalk aircraft that attempted to drastically increase the performance of flying boat designs. The B-20 was an attempt to combine the best features of both the flying boat and the floatplane. In flight, the main float retracted towards the fuselage, fitting into a "notch" to become streamlined as a part of the fuselage. The wing floats folded outward to become the wing tips.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackburn_B-20

1940 - 1st Flight of The Curtiss-Wright C-46 Commando, american transport aircraft originally derived from a commercial high-altitude airliner design. It was instead used as a military transport during World War II. Known to the men who flew it as "The Whale," or the "Curtiss Calamity,"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtiss-Wright_C-46_Commando

1945 - 1st flight with combined jet/rocket power of the Messerschmitt Me 262 C-2b, Single prototype rocket-boosted interceptor with two BMW 003R "combined" powerplants (BMW 003 jet, with a single 1000 kg thrust BMW 718 rocket engine mounted atop the rear of each jet exhaust) for boosted thrust.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_262#Variants

1949 - Death of Albert William Stevens, American balloonist and aerial photographer who took the 1st photograph of the Earth in a way that the horizon's curvature is visible, and the 1st photograph of the Moon's shadow projected onto the Earth during a solar eclipse

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

1950 - 1st flight of the Douglas A2D Skyshark, American turboprop-powered carrier born attack prototype aircraft developped from the A-1 Skyraider.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_A2D_Skyshark

1952 - 1st flight of the McDonnell Model 79 'Big Henry', second ramjet helicopter.

http://www.boeing.com/history/mdc/BigHenry.htm

1955 – Pan am Flight 845/26 ditches into Pacific Ocean off of the Oregon coast after its #3 engine failed. The Boeing 377 Stratocruiser (N1032V) experiences the difficulty after departing Portland International, and floats in the water for two hours, until the USS Bayfield arrives for rescue

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_845/26

1956 - 1st flight of The Temco TT Pinto, american jet-powered, tandem two-place primary trainer aircraft.

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

1957 - Death of Modesto Panetti, Italian aeronautic Engineer.

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modesto_Panetti

1958 - Launch of Explorer 3 , artificial satellite of the Earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explorer_3

1962 - Birth of Yuri Pavlovich Gidzenko, Ukrainian-Russian cosmonaut

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

1963 - 1st flight of The Hunting H.126, English experimental aircraft designed and built in order to test the concept of blown flaps (Jet flaps).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunting_H.126

1971 - 1st flight of The EADS CASA C-212 Aviocar, turboprop-powered STOL medium transport aircraft designed and built in Spain for civil and military use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CASA_C-212_Aviocar

1971 - Jamair Douglas C-47A-90-DL strayed off course on a flight from Guwahati to Calcutta via Bagdogra and collided with a hill, killing all 15.

http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19710326-0

1974 - Concorde 101 set a speed record of Mach 2.23.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde_(avion)#Essais

1977 - Death of Alec Stratford Cunningham Reid, British WWI flying ace and politician.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alec_Cunningham-Reid - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/reid1.php

1979 - Interflug Ilyushin 18D aborted take off at Luanda-4 de Fevereiro Airport, Angola, when the no. 2 engine failed. The Ilyushin overran the runway, collided with the ILS localizer antenna causing the aircraft to break up and burst into flames, Killing all 10.

http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19790326-0

1992 - 1st flight of The Saab 2000, swedish highspeed turboprop airliner able to cruise at a speed of over 665 km/h (360 kt).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_2000

1996 - Pace Airlines, American charter airline, is formed.

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

2001 - Death of Mary Grace Baloyo, 1st Lieutenant in the Philippine Air Force : the OV-10 Bronco in which she was flying was experiencing engine trouble and rapidly descending into a heavily populated area. Rather than ejecting, she chose to stay on board and diverted the plane before it crashed subsequently killing her.

http://www.angelfire.com/ga/batwentyone/valor.html - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Grace_Baloyo

2005 - West Caribbean Airways Flight 9955 Let L-410 Turbolet aircraft, registration HK-4146, on departure from El Embrujo Airport, Isla de Providencia in the Caribbean, failed to climb and hit hills close to runway 1, killing the 2 crew and 6 of the 12 passengers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_L-410_Turbolet#Notable_accidents - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Caribbean_Airways#Incidents_and_accidents

2006 - Death of Angelo d'Arrigo, Italian aviator, of French origin, who held a number of world records in the field of flight, principally with microlights and hang gliders, with or without motors. He has been referred to as the "Human Condor", killed in a crash of a light aircraft in which ha was passenger.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelo_d%27Arrigo - http://www.angelodarrigo.com/home_en.php

2009 - Launch of Soyuz TMA-14, russian space mission to the ISS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_TMA-14

2010 - Death of HH Sheikh Ahmed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Emirati businessman and Managing Director of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), in the crash of the ultralight aircraft in which he was learning to fly at lake Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah, near the Moroccan capital, Rabat.

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

2011 - William E. "Wild Bill" Walker, from the Red Thunder Air show team, is killed in the crash of his Yakovlev Yak-52 in Flagler Beach, FLorida

http://www.redthunder.us/ - http://www.news-journalonline.com/news/local/flagler/2011/03/27/crash-kills-pilot-at-flagler-air-show.html