MAY21
1878 - Birth of Glenn Hammond Curtiss, American aviation pioneer and a founder of the U.S. aircraft industry Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company, now part of Curtiss-Wright Corporation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Curtiss
1885 - Birth of Angel María Zuloaga, early argentian aviation pioneer, and record setter.
http://para-pilotos.com/Historia-Aviacion-Militar/Angel-Maria-Zuloaga/
1887 - Birth of Ruth Bancroft Law, pioneer American aviatrix, 1st woman to loop the loop in an airplane and 1st woman to make a night flight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Bancroft_Law - http://www.earlyaviators.com/eoliver.htm
1889 - Birth of Nikolai Kirillovich Kokorin, Russian WWI flying ace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolay_Kokorin - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/russia/kokorin.php
1896 - Birth of Johannes Janzen, German WWI flying ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Janzen - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/janzen.php
1898 - Birth of Edward Denman Clarke, British WWI flying ace abd managing director of Saunders-Roe Ltd.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Denman_Clarke - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/clarke1.php
1901 - Birth of Sergei Konstantinovich Tumansky, Soviet aircraft engine designer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Tumansky
1908 - 1st flight of the AEA 'June Bug' (or Aerodrome #3), early American aircraft designed and flown by Glenn H. Curtiss, famous for winning the 1st aeronautical prize, the Scientific American Cup, ever awarded in the US.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AEA_June_Bug
1909 - 1st flight of the Blériot XII, early French Hign wing monopane, 1st aircraft to be flown with two passengers on board.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bl%C3%A9riot_XII
1910 - French Jacques Benjamin de Lesseps is the 2nd pilot to cross the English Channel in a 37 minute flight.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_de_Lesseps - http://rafmuseum-1.titaninternet.co.uk/milestones-of-flight/world/1910.cfm
1911 - At the start of the Paris-Madrid air race, Louis Émile Train with his own buil monoplane, made a forced landing, running into a group of people killing Henri Maurice Berteaux, french Minister of defence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Maurice_Berteaux - http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Course_a%C3%A9rienne_Paris-Madrid_1911
1913 - 1st flight of the Jeanson-Colliex, French Double biplane twin tandem engine driving a single propeller (in pusher configuration) flyingboat prototype
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Colliex - http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=8713
1914 - 1st UK charter flight, 1st passenger charter flight and 1st international charter flight take place at the same time, when Princess Ludwig von Löwestein-Wertheim charters a Handley Page HP7 from the Northern Aircraft Company to fly her to Paris. The aircraft leaves Hendon at 0730hrs, but fog in the Channel forces it to land at Eastbourne and wait. They arrive in Calais at 1630hrs.
1915 - 1st flight of The SPAD A.2 (also called SA.2, A-2 or A2), French tractor biplane fighter, designed to carry an observer/gunner placed in a streamlined nacelle in front of the propeller.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPAD_A.2#SPAD_A.2 - http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=3139
1916 - Birth of Wilhelm "Willi" Batz, German WWII fighter ace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Batz - http://www.luftwaffe.cz/batz.html - http://www.cieldegloire.com/001_batz_w.php
1918 - Death of Harold William Medlicott, British WWI flying ace, in a Prisoner camp.
http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/medlicott.php
1921 - Birth of Roberta (Born Robert) Cowell, WWII Spitfire Pilot, 1st known British male-to-female transsexual to undergo sex reassignment surgery.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberta_Cowell
1927 - Flight Lieutenants Charles Roderick Carr and L.E.M Gillmann in their Hawker Horsley, British single-engined biplane bomber, attempting a non-stop flight to India. ran out of fuel en route, ditching in the Persian Gulf near Bandar Abbas, Iran. Despite this, it had covered a distance of 3,420 mi (5,506 km), which was sufficient to set a new world distance record,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_Horsley#Operational_history - http://www.aviastar.org/air/england/hawker_horsley.php
1927 - Charles A. Lindbergh lands his Ryan monoplane Spirit of St. Louis at Le Bourget. 1st to fly a non-stop solo Atlantic crossing of 3,600 miles in 33 hours, 29 minutes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lindbergh
1927 - Lieutenant Rutledge Irvine, in a Vought 02U Corsair equipped with a Pratt & Whitney Wasp engine, established a world record for Class C Seaplanes for 1,000 kilometers at Hampton Roads, Va., with a speed of 130.932 mph.
http://www.historycentral.com/navy/chron/PART03/ipage_21.htm
1930 - 1st flight of The Short S.11 Valetta , British passenger monoplane prototype, in a flotaplane version.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Valetta
1931 - 1st flight of the Dewoitine D-30, French 10 seat single engine cantilever monoplane prototype aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewoitine_D.30 - http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=380
1932 – Bad weather forces Amelia Earhart to land her Lockheed Vega 5b in a pasture in Derry, Northern Ireland, and she thereby becomes the 1st woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_Earhart
1932 - The Dornier Do X flying boat returns from his promotional flight taking off from New York to Berlin via Newfoundland and the Azores.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornier_Do_X#Operation
1938 - 1st flight of The Dornier Do 26, German all-metal gull winged flying boat produced before and during WWII .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornier_Do_26
1941 - Death of Rudolph, Charles Godfrey of Hemricourt Gunn, Belgian fighter Ace during the Spanish War and WWII pilot, drowned at sea when his Spitfire was shot down near Goodwin Sands.
http://cieldegloire.com/006_de_hemricourt.php
1941 - A Royal Air Force photographic reconnaissance Supermarine Spitfire of the Photographic Reconnaissance Unit sights the Bismarck in a Fjord near Bergen in Norway.
1941 - Operation Splice: 46 Hawker Hurricanes are flown from HMS Ark Royal and HMS Furious to Malta, however, only 4 aircraft are retained, together with the pilots of No.249 Squadron. A detachment from No.82 Squadron (Bristol Blenheim) also arrive on the island.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malta_Convoys#May_.E2.80.93_Operations_Tiger_and_Splice
1942 - Birth of Robert Clyde "Bob" Springer, American astronaut, Vietnam war pilot and test pilot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_C._Springer
1945 - Birth of Prof. Dr. Ernst Willi Messerschmid, German physicist and astronaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Messerschmid
1946 - KLM is the 1st continental European airline to launch scheduled service to New York.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KLM
1949 - A Sikorsky S-52 flown by U.S. Army Captain Hubert D. Gaddis sets a new helicopter altitude record of 21,200 ft (6,468 m).
http://www.sikorskyarchives.com/S-52.php
1949 - 1st flight of the Breguet G.IIE "Gyroplane", french helicopter prototype.
http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/breguet_g-2.php
1953 - Polish Air Force pilot, Zdzislaw Jazwinski escaped with a MiG-15 to Bornholm island.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-15#Operational_history
1953 - Dan-Air is founded as a charter operator.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan-Air#Beginning
1955 - John "Jack" Michael Conroythen of the USAF 115th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, completed "Operation Boomerang" world record. This involved flying coast-to-coast and return in one day during daylight hours. He flew a North American F-86A Sabre from San Fernando Valley Airport in Van Nuys, California to Floyd Bennett Field, New York with return using fuel stops both ways.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_M._Conroy#Record_Flights
1956 - 1st air dropped thermonuclear weapon : A Boeing B-52B Stratofortress dropped a Mk-15 nuclear bomb over the Bikini Atoll in a test code-named Cherokee
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-52_Stratofortress#Introduction - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee_(nuclear_test)
1957 – 1st Sud-Aviation (Sud-Ouest) SO.9050 Trident II -001, rocket-powered short-range interceptor, is destroyed during a test-flight out of Centre d'Essais en Vol (Flight Test Center) when its highly volatile fuels, Furaline and nitric acid, accidentally mix and explode, killing test pilot Charles Goujon. Project is discontinued following this accident.
http://www.bibert.fr/Joseph_Bibert_fichiers/Charles%20Goujon.pdf - http://pdennez.free.fr/hommes/html/h063a.html -
http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=5872
1958 - 1st flight of the pre-production Dassault Étendard IVM, supersonic carrier-borne "strike" fighter aircraft designed for service with the French Navy.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dassault_%C3%89tendard_IV - http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=2112
1958 - 1st flight of the Breguet Br 940, French four-engine STOL transport aircraft prototype.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breguet_941 - http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=1154
1965 - Death of Captain Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, British aviation pioneer and aircraft engineer. His Mosquito has been considered the most versatile warplane ever built.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_de_Havilland
1969 - 1st flight of The Antonov An-26 'Curl', Soviet twin-engined turboprop civilian and military transport aircraft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-26
1973 - 1st flight of The Saab 37 SF Viggen, Spanning Foto, or photo-reconnaissance version of the Swedish single-seat, single-engine, short-medium range fighter and attack aircraft
http://www.aviastar.org/air/sweden/saab_viggen.php
1975 - Death of Arthur Stanley Gould Lee, British WWI flying ace, Author and WWII RAF senior officer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Lee_(RAF_officer) - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/lee.php
1975 - 1st flight of The Rutan VariEze, American composite, canard aircraft, notable for popularizing the canard configuration and moldless composite construction for homebuilt aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutan_VariEze
1977 - The Concorde makes a special trip from New York to Paris to mark the 50th anniversary of Charles Lindbergh's historic flight on the same route in the Spirit of St. Louis; the airliner takes just 3 hours, 44 minutes, compared with Lindbergh's time of 33 hours, 29 minutes
http://www.concorde-art-world.com/html/concorde_timeline.html
1978 - Tokyo's new Narita International Airport becomes operational.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narita_International_Airport#Construction
1982 - Whilst lying in Falkland Sound and supporting Operation Sutton by bombarding the Argentine airstrip at Goose Green, HMS Ardent (Royal Navy Type 21 frigate) 1s attacked by at least 3 waves of Argentine Navy A-4Q Skyhawks. The air strikes resulted in the sinking of Ardent the next day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Ardent_(F184)
1985 - Death of Murray Kenneth Guthrie, American WWI flying ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Guthrie - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/usa/guthrie.php
1986 - Launch of Soyuz TM-1, Soviet unmanned test flight of the Soyuz-TM spacecraft for use in the Mir space station program.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_TM-1
1999 - Launch of Nimiq 1, geostationary telecommunications satellite, Canada's 1st direct broadcast digital TV satellite.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimiq
2011 - Volcano Grímsvötn in Iceland enters in eruption, causing Disruption to air travel in Iceland, followed by Greenland, Scotland and Norway and north europe in the following days