OCT08
1803 - Francesco Zambeccari, Italian balloonist and aviation pioneer, in an attempt to cross the Adriatic sea, ditch with his balloon near the coast of Istria .
1806 - During Napoleonic wars, The Royal Navy equipped a number of vessels to fire congreve rockets. Commodore Edward Owen attacked the French flotilla at Boulogne. Captain William Jackson of Musquito directed the boats firing 32 pounds (15 kg) Congreve rockets. As night drew in on the Channel, 24 cutters fitted with rocket frames formed a line and fired some 2,000 rockets at Boulogne.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congreve_rocket#Napoleonic_Wars
1883 - French brothers Albert and Gaston Tissandier make the 1st flight with an airship powered by electricity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Tissandier#First_electric_powered_flight
1885 - Birth of Sir Arthur Murray Longmore , British early naval aviator and high ranking RAF officer.
1885 - Birth of Patrick Nieson Lynch Bellinger, pioneering US Naval aviator and high ranking officer in WWII, 1st American to encounter enemy fire in an airplane.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_N._L._Bellinger - http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/pnlbell.htm
1887 - Birth of Ottorino Pomilio, early Italian aeronautic engineer and WWI scout aircraft designer.
1889 - Birth of Collett Everman Woolman, one of four founders of Delta Air Lines.
1890 - Birth of Edward Vernon Rickenbacker, American WWI fighter ace, race car driver and automotive designer, a government consultant in military matters and a pioneer in air transportation, particularly as the longtime head of Eastern Air Lines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Rickenbacker - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/usa/rickenbacker.php
1890 - Birth of René Cyprien Guilbaud, French navy aviator and long range pilot.
1892 - Birth of Lowell Herbert Smith, pioneer American airman who piloted the 1st airplane to receive a complete mid-air refueling.
1894 - Birth of Herbert Joseph "Jimmy" Larkin, Australian WWI flying ace, Pionneering australian aviator, airmail pilot, raid pilot who setted the Larkin Aircraft Supply Company. He served also in WWII.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Joseph_Larkin - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/australi/larkin.php
1894 - Birth of Frank Harold Hobson, British WWI fighter ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Hobson - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/hobson1.php
1896 - Birth of Franz Peter, Austro Hungarian WWWI flying ace, who worked worked postwar in aerospace industry, especially in a field of engine designing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Peter - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/austrhun/peter.php
1896 - Birth of Lansing Colton "Denny" Holden, Jr., American WWI flying ace, Rif War pilot in Morocco for the french air force, Hollywood movie pilot and Air National Guard officer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lansing_Holden - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/usa/holden.php
1898 - Birth of Bernard More Troughton Shute Leete, British aviation pioneer and raid pilot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Leete
1898 - Birth of Percy Boulton, British WWI flying ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Boulton - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/england/boulton2.php
1907 - Birth of Polina Denissovna Ossipenko, Soviet female aviator, fighter pilot, raid pilot and record setter
http://www.warheroes.ru/hero/hero.asp?Hero_id=654
1908 - 1st european flight of the Wright Brothers is made by Wilbur Wright in Le Mans, France. Griffith Brewer Becoming the 1st Briton to fly as a passenger in an aeroplane.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers#Public_showing
1912 - Edward Korn flying a Benoist Type XII biplane tractor-type aeroplane departed for Williamsville for the 1st official air mail.A mechanical problem forced him to return to the fair grounds but he crash-landed before making it back.
http://www.aerodacious.com/PIO1912.HTM
1913 - Birth of Robert Rowe Gilruth, American aviation and space pioneer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_R._Gilruth
1914 - Wing Cdr Charles Samson, RNAS plans the 1st strategic air raid on Germany. 2 Sopwith Tabloids set out to attack the Zeppelin sheds at Düsseldorf. One of the aircraft attacks the Cologne railway station, but the other, piloted by Flt Lt Reggie Marix finds his target and destroys a shed holding the Z.IX.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sopwith_Tabloid#Operational_history
1917 - An explosion destroys Zeppelin LZ102 (L57) in its shed at Juterbog near Berlin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Zeppelins#Zeppelins_constructed_during_World_War_I
1918 - Birth of Livio Bassi, Italian WWII flying ace.
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livio_Bassi
1918 - Death of Cyril Hayes Sawyer, British WWI flying ace, killed in a flying accident.
http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/sawyer.php
1919 - Beginning of the 1st (and only) transcontinental reliability and endurance test, air race between Roosevelt Field, Long Island, New York and the Presidio of San Francisco, California.
1920 - Birth of Edward Hamilton "Easy Ed" Taylor, USAF WWII and Korean War fighter pilot.
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/statesman/obituary.aspx?n=edward-hamilton-taylor&pid=89434708
1922 - 1st woman passenger to make a non-stop transcontinental flight, Lillian Gatlin lands in a Post Office DH-4 at Mineola, New York, coming from San Francisco, California, a flight of 2,680 miles with a combined flight time of 27 hours and 11 minutes.
1923 - Tempelhof is officially designated as an airport.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Tempelhof_Airport#History
1923 – 1st British motor glider competition is flown, at Lympne, Kent. An English Electric Wren and an Air Navigation & Engineering Company (ANEC) monoplane win the main prizes in the Daily Mail Lympne Motor Glider Competition. Both aircraft manage to fly 140 kilometres (87 miles) on one gallon of fuel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lympne_light_aircraft_trials#1923
1929 - 1st flight of the Boeing Model 100, commercial counterpart of the F4B-1/P-12, American pursuit biplane aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_P-12#Model_100
1930 - The D'AT3 (D'Ascanio), Italian early helicopter, wins an international prize for an endurance flight of 8 minutes and 45 seconds.
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corradino_D%27Ascanio#Il_D.27AT3 - http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/askanio.php
1932 - Indian Air Force (IAF) is formed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Air_Force
1938 - The S.20 Mercury seaplane (launched from S.21 Maia flying boat over Dundee in Scotland) arrives in Alexander Bay, South Africa, setting a new seaplane record flight of 6,045 miles (9,726.4 km).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Mayo_Composite#Operations
1939 - 1st RAF victory of WWII. A Lockheed Hudson of No.224 Squadron, operating out of RAF Leuchars, shoots down a German Dornier Do18 flying boat of 2/Küstenfliegergruppe over Jutland.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Hudson#Operational_history
1939 - 1st flight of The Percival Proctor, British radio trainer and communications aircraft, single-engined, low-wing monoplane with seating for three or four.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percival_Proctor
1940 - Death of Josef František, Czech WWII fighter ace in the crash of his Hurricane MK-I on approach. He flew for the air forces of Czechoslovakia, Poland and the United Kingdom. 1st allied ace in the Battle of Britain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Frantisek - http://cieldegloire.com/002t_frantisek_j.php
1943 - Death of Günther Schuster, German WWI flying ace, test pilot, airliner pilot, instructor and WWII fighter pilot, killed in action in Italy.
http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCnther_Schuster - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/schuster.php
1945 - KD Avia (or Kaliningrad Avia), Russian airline, is formed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KD_Avia
1948 - 1st flight of The Saunders-Roe Skeeter (originated as a Cierva design, the W.14 Skeeter 1), British two-seat training and scout helicopter, 1st helicopter to be used by the British Army Air Corps.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saunders-Roe_Skeeter
1952 - A United States ambulance C-47 aircraft is attacked by Russian Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG15s over Koennern, germany.It escaped undamaged after taking evasive action and using cloud cover.
1954 - 1st (powered) flight of the Bell X-1B, USAF supersonic research aircraft, evolution of the X-1, 1st aircraft to fly with this sophisticated control system, later used in the North American X-15.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_X-1B_flights - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_X-1#X-1B
1956 - Birth of Janice Elaine (Ford) Voss, American engineer and a NASA astronaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janice_E._Voss
1958 - American manned balloon Study 'Manhigh III' reached 98,000 feet (29,900 m) with Lieutenant Clifton McClure aboard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Manhigh
1959 - Birth of Carlos Ismael Noriega, Peruvian born USMC pilot and NASA astronaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_I._Noriega
1973 - 1st flight of the RFB (Rhein-Flugzeugbau) Fanliner, German light mid-wing monoplane designed all-metal construction with a T-Tail.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhein-Flugzeugbau_Fanliner
1975 - Launch of Kosmos 775, Soviet US-KS missile early warning satellite designed to identify missile launches using optical telescopes and infrared sensors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_775
1979 - Swissair Flight 316 Douglas DC-8-62 overran the runway at Athens-Ellinikon International Airport and came to rest on a public road. The left wing and tail separated and fire broke out. 14 were killed over 154.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swissair_Flight_316
1979 - Death of Brian Edmund Baker, British WWI Flying Ace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Edmund_Baker - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/baker1.php
1980 - 1st flight of the Kamov Ka-32, Soviet co-axial rotor transport helicopter, civilian version of the KA-27.
http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/ka-32.php
1980 - 1st to fly the Atlantic standing on wing : German Stuntman Jarorim Wagner ends his 46 hrs flight from Lutzellinden (Germany) to New-york (USA)
1980 - Death of Robert 'Bob' Dodds, Canadian WWI flying ace, involved in development of Canada's airways system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Dodds - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/canada/dodds1.php
1985 - 1st flight of the Mudry CAP-230, French aerobatic competition aircraft, issued from the CAP-21 competition single seater, strengthened to cope with a 300 hp engine.
http://aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=3964
1985 - Death of Malcolm David Ross, American atmospheric scientist and balloonist who setted several records for altitude and scientific inquiry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Ross_(balloonist)
1996 - Aeroflot Antonov AN-124-100 operated by Ajax, crashed at San Francesco al Campo, Italy, while initiating a go-around after a low visibility approach on Turin Caselle airport's, killing 2 over 23.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-124#Notable_accidents - http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19961008-0
1998 - Oslo Airport, Fornebu is replaced replaced by Gardermoen as the new International Airport.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_Airport,_Gardermoen
2001 - Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) Flight 686 McDonnell-Douglas MD-87 collide with Air Evex Cessna Citation CJ2 in heavy fog during takeoff from Milan, Italy killing 118.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linate_Airport_disaster
2005 - CryoSat-1, 1st ESA Earth Sciences satellite, is destroyed on launch.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryoSat-1
2008 - Yeti Airlines Flight 103 De Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter Series 300 crashes Due to bad weather conditions and heavy fog on final approach to Tenzing-Hillary Airport in Lukla, Nepal, killing 18 of the 19 people on board.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeti_Airlines_Flight_103
2009 - Launch of WorldView-2, American commercial Earth observation satellite delivering panchromatic imagery of .5 m resolution, and eight-band multispectral imagery with 1.8 m (5 ft 11 in) resolution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WorldView-2
2012 - Launch of Dragon, partially reusable spacecraft developed by SpaceX, American private space transportation company, to resupply the ISS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_(spacecraft)#List_of_COTS.2FCRS_missions - http://www.space.com/17943-spacex-dragon-capsule-space-cargo-launch.html