MAY06

1888 - Birth of Johann Frint, Austro-Hungarian WWI flying ace.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Frint - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/austrhun/frint.php

1894 - Birth of George Clifton Peters, Australian WWI flying ace

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Peters_(aviator) - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/australi/peters.php

1894 - Birth of Sir Alan John Cobham, English aviation pioneer.

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

1894 - Birth of Richard Raymond-Barker, British WWI flying ace.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Raymond-Barker - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/raymond-barker.php

1895 - Birth of Ernest Charles Hoy, Canadian WWI flying ace, and airmail flight pioneer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Charles_Hoy - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/canada/hoy2.php

1896 - Samuel Pierpont Langley flies the unmanned Aerodrome No. 5 after a catapult launch, from a houseboat on the Potomac river a distance of 3,300ft.

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

1899 - Birth of Edward Grahame Johnstone, British WWI fighter ace

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Grahame_Johnstone - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/johnstone.php

1906 - Death of Carl Berg, German entrepreneur and airship builder.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Berg_(airship_builder)

1912 - Birth of Paul M. Fitts, known as one of the pioneers in improving aviation safety.

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

1917 - Birth of Rex Theodor Barber, American WWII fighter pilot, best known as a member of the top secret mission to intercept the aircraft carrying Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

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

1918 - Death of William Lewis Wells, British WWI flying ace from wounds received in action.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lewis_Wells - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/wells.php

1918 - Death of Jean Chaput, French WWI fighter ace, killed in action in his SPAD XIII.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Chaput - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/france/chaput.php

1926 - Air Commodore G.H. Boyce is the 1st pilot to carry out a night deck landing, when he landed his Dart aboard HMS Furious with a Blackburn Dart.

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

1930 - 1st flight of the Boeing Model 200 Monomail, American single, low set, all metal cantilever wing. Retractable landing gear and a streamlined fuselage.

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

1934 - New Zealander Miss Jean Batten takes off from Lypmne in a De Havilland DH.60 Moth for a new distance record to Australia.

http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/history-of-aviation-timeline/interactive-aviation-timeline/british-civil-aviation/1934.aspx

http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-BatMyL-t1-body1-d3.html

1935 – 1st flight of the Curtiss P-36 Hawk, also known as the Curtiss Hawk Model 75, American Fighter aircraft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-36_Hawk

1936 - 1st flight of The Latécoère 298 (Laté 298), French seaplane, single-engined, mid-wing cantilever monoplane, designed primarily as a torpedo bomber, but served also as a dive bomber against land and naval targets, and as a maritime reconnaissance aircraft, France's most successful military seaplane.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lat%C3%A9co%C3%A8re_298

1937 - German zeppelin LZ-129 Hindenburg caught fire and was destroyed whilst attempting to dock with its mooring mast at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in Lakehurst, New Jersey.

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

1937 - Death of Walter Rieseler, German WWI pilot, Instructor and aircraft designer.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Rieseler

1940 - 1st flight of the Dewoitine D-750, French low-winged monoplane twin-engined 3 seat torpedo bomber prototype.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewoitine_D.750 - http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=9185

1941 - Igor Sikorsky sets a world endurance record for helicopter flight of 1 hour 32 minutes, in a Sikorsky VS-300.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vought-Sikorsky_VS-300

1941 – 1st flight of the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, also known as the "Jug", largest, heaviest, and most expensive fighter aircraft in history to be powered by a single reciprocating engine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-47_Thunderbolt

1942 - Flight testing of the 1st of eight prototype/service-test aircraft (single-seat float-equipped interceptor seaplanes) of the Kawanishi N1K Kyofu starts.

http://japaneseaircraft.devhub.com/blog/468096-kawanishi-n1k-kyofu/

1944 - 1st flight of the Douglas XB-42 Mixmaster, American experimental bomber aircraft, designed for a high top speed, with two engines within the fuselage driving a pair of contra-rotating propellers mounted at the tail, leaving the wing and fuselage clean and free of drag-inducing protrusions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_XB-42_Mixmaster

1944 - 1st flight of Mitsubishi A7M1 Reppu, Japanese fighter prototype, designed as the successor to the Imperial Japanese Navy's A6M Zero. Production was disrupted by an earthquake in December 1944 in the Nagoya region.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_A7M

1945 - Royal Air Force sinks its last German submarine (U-320). (British Liberator aircraft Sqdn. 224/T)

http://uboat.net/boats/u3523.htm

1949 - Birth of David Cornell Leestma, American astronaut.

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

1952 - Birth of Chiaki Mukai, Japanese doctor, and JAXA astronaut. She was the 1st Japanese woman in space, and was the 1st Japanese citizen to have 2 spaceflights.

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

1955 - Birth of Donald Alan Thomas, American engineer and a former NASA astronaut.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_A._Thomas

1957 - Birth of Didier Delsalle , French Helicopter test pilot, 1st pilot to land a Helicopter on Mount Everest.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didier_Delsalle

1959 - 1st flight of the SNECMA C-450 'Coléoptère', French experimental VTOL jet aircraft featuring an annular wing designed to land vertically, therefore requiring no runway and very little space to take-off.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snecma_C-450_Col%C3%A9opt%C3%A8re - http://www.aviastar.org/air/france/snecma_coleoptere.php

1960 - Death of Marcel Marc Dhôme, French WWI flying ace, racing car driver, who also served in WWII and during the Korean war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Marc_Dh%C3%B4me - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/france/dhome.php

1962 - Channel Airways Douglas C-47A Dakota collided with a cloud-covered hill at St Boniface Down near Ventnor on the Isle of Wight, killing 12 over 18.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1962_Channel_Airways_Dakota_accident

1963 - Death of Theodore von Kármán,  Hungarian-American mathematician, aerospace engineer and physicist, responsible for many key advances in aerodynamics, notably his work on supersonic and hypersonic airflow characterization. He is regarded as the outstanding aerodynamic theoretician of the 20th century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_von_K%C3%A1rm%C3%A1n

1963 - Death of Paul Ward Spencer 'George' Bulman, British WWI pilot, air racer and chief test pilot for Hawker aircraft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bulman_(pilot)

1965 - Launch of Intelsat 1 (Early bird), 1st (commercial) communications satellite to be placed in geosynchronous orbit.

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

1966 - Birth of Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Skvortsov, Russian cosmonaut.

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

1968 – Astronaut Neil Armstrong ejects from Bell Aerospace Lunar Landing Research Vehicle No. 1 (LLRV-1), known as the "Flying Bedstead", at NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center, Ellington AFB, Houston, Texas, as it goes out of control.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Armstrong#Apollo_program - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Landing_Research_Vehicle#History

1981 - Death of Jens Frederick "Swede" Larson, American WWI flying ace

http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/usa/larson.php

1982 - 2nd prototype (SP-PSB) of the Helicopter PZL Swidnik W-3 "Sokol" makes his 1st flight.

http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/pzl_sokol.php

1983 - Death of Sergei Petrovich Izotov, Russian aircraft turbine engine designer

http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%98%D0%B7%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B2,_%D0%A1%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B3%D0%B5%D0%B9_%D0%9F%D0%B5%D1%82%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87

1983 - Death of Harris George "Clem" Clements, British WWI flying ace

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

1985 - Death of Smith J. DeFrance, Amrican WWI aviator and engineer who played a major role in wind tunnel design and experimentation before and during the birth of the Space Age.

http://www.astronautix.com/astros/defrance.htm

1986 - Death of Albert Forsythe, Early afro-American aviator and raid pilot

http://www.nytimes.com/1986/05/09/obituaries/dr-albert-forsythe-88-dies-among-first-black-aviators.html

1988 - 1st flight of The Extra Flugzeugbau EA300 , German aerobatic two-seat monoplane capable of Unlimited category competition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extra_300

1988 - Widerøe Flight 710 de Havilland Canada Dash 7 crashed in fog into nearby Torghatten mountain on landing, en route from Namsos to Brønnøysund Airport, Brønnøy at Brønnøy, Norway, killing all 36 passengers and crew.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wider%C3%B8e_Flight_710

1991 - STS-39, Space shuttle Discovery mission, is back on earth

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-39

1993 - STS 55, 55th overall flight of the US Space Shuttle and the 14th flight of Columbia, lands at Edwards AFB.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-55

1995 - Death of Adriano 'Arrighi' Mantelli, Spanish war italian fighter ace, Glider record breaker and aircraft designer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adriano_Mantelli - http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/italy_mantelli.htm

2001 - Soyuz TM-31 is back on earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_TM-31

2006 – A Westland Lynx AH.7 (Royal Navy) from 847 Squadron is shot down with a SA-14 over Basra, killing five crewmen and crashing into a house, 1st British helicopter and 2nd British aircraft downed due to enemy fire in the Iraqi war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westland_Lynx#Operational_history

2007 - SkyValue USA, seasonal American low-cost airline, cease operations

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

2010 - A PZL-104 (Polish designed and built short-takeoff-and-landing (STOL) Civil Aviation utility aircraft) carrying The former UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage crashed at Hinton-in-the-Hedges Airfield, Northamptonshire.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PZL-104_Wilga

2012 – A CIA unmanned aerial vehicle strike in eastern Yemen kills Fahd al-Quso, the al-Qaeda leader in Yemen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahd_al-Quso#Death

2012 - Death of Russell E. "Russ" Schleeh, American WWII pilot and USAF test pilot who flew and tested virtually every bomber in the American Air Force up through the B- 52 Stratofortress and also fighters up through the Lockheed 104 Starfighter.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/orangecounty/obituary.aspx?pid=157630245#fbLoggedOut

http://thetartanterror.blogspot.fr/2006/11/col-russell-eschleeh.html