OCT30

1918 - The Great War's heaviest day of air fighting begins : 130 claims... Only 2 unconfirmed.

http://www.theaerodrome.com/today/todays.cgi

1918 - Death of Robert Wallace Farquhar, British WWI flying ace, Killed in action.

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

1918 - Death of Augustus Paget, British WWI flying ace, killed in his Sopwith Camel by anti-aircraft fire.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus_Paget_(RAF_officer) - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/england/paget.php

1918 - Death of James Dudley Beane, American WWI flying ace, killed in action near Bantheville, France

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Beane - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/usa/beane.php

1918 - Death of Alvin Andrew Callender, American WWI flying ace, killed in action in his S.E.5a .

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

1918 – Flying a SPAD XIII fighter, Edward Vernon 'Eddie' Rickenbacker shoots down a German observation balloon near Remonville, France, for his 26th and final aerial victory (22 aircraft and 4 balloons) making him the top-scoring American ace of WWI.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Rickenbacker#Verified_aerial_victories - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/usa/rickenbacker.php

1918 - Birth of Robert Channing Seamans Jr, American Aeronautical engineer, NASA Deputy Administrator and MIT professor.

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

1919 - Death of Hans von Freden, German WWI fighter ace

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_von_Freden - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/freden.php

1922 - Death of Pavel Vladimirovich Argeyev (Paul d'Argueev 'The Eagle of Crimea'), Russian WWI fighter ace and test pilot, killed in the crash of his Potez in the Sudetes mountains.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Argeyev - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/russia/argeyev.php

1923 - French Joseph Sadi Lecointe reach an altitude of 11.145m (36,565 ft) with the Nieuport-Delage NiD-40R, new world record.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_altitude_record#Fixed-wing_aircraft

1925 - A Fairey IIID became the 1st standard Fleet Air Arm seaplane to be catapulted from a ship at sea.

http://www.aviastar.org/air/england/fairey_3.php

1933 - The Couzinet 33 'Biarritz' n°2, French 4 seat 3 engined record aircraft prototype (a Re-built of the damaged N°1), is destroyed in a crash.

http://aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=9502

1935 - United Air Lines Boeing 247D crashed during an instrument check flight near Cheyenne, killing the 4 crew members aboard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_247#Incidents_and_accidents

1935 - Death of Ployer Peter Hill American aviator and test pilot who piloted nearly 60 of the Army Air Corps' newest aircraft, testing and evaluating their capabilities for service, killed in the crash of the Boeing Model 299 (Prototype of the future B-17) because the crew neglected to remove the devices intended to keep the control surfaces from moving when the plane was on the ground. After take-off, the aircraft entered a steep climb, stalled, nosed over, and crashed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ployer_Peter_Hill - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Model_299#Origins

1936 - Jim A. Mollison lands his Bellanca 28-90 Flash (evolution of the 28-70) in Croydon, england, from Harbour Grace in Newfoundland setting a new west to east North Atlantic crossing record time.

http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/history-of-aviation-timeline/interactive-aviation-timeline/british-civil-aviation/1936.aspx

1939 - 1st German aircraft shot down over France and 1st german aircraft brought down by a single seat fighter in WWII is a Dornier DO-17, brought down by Pilot Officer Mould's Hawker Hurricane of No. 1 Squadron RAF near Vassincourt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornier_Do_17#Western_Europe - http://cieldegloire.com/002_raf_mould_p_w_o.php

http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/history-of-aviation-timeline/interactive-aviation-timeline/british-military-aviation/1939.aspx

1941 - 1st free flight of The Flettner Fl 282 Kolibri, german single-seat open cockpit intermeshing rotor helicopter (or synchropter).

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

1942 - 1st flight of the MÁVAG Héja, Hungarian fighter aircraft based on the Italian Reggiane Re.2000.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%81VAG_H%C3%A9ja

1944 - 1st flight of The Short S.45 Seaford , British flying boat ,development of the Short Sunderland for a longer ranged maritime patrol bomber for RAF Coastal Command.

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

1945 - Death of Claude Givaudan, French Engineer, early aircraft designer.

http://calm.sopixi.fr/files/pionniers-en-rhone-alpes.pdf

1946 - Birth of Robert Lee "Hoot" Gibson, US Navy pilot and NASA astronaut.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_L._Gibson

1952 - Death of Patrick Sarsfield Manley, Canadian WWI flying ace.

http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/canada/manley.php

1953 - Birth of Aleksandr Fyodorovich Poleshchuk, Russian Air Force pilot and cosmonaut.

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

1957 - Birth of Aleksandr Ivanovich Lazutkin, Russian cosmonaut.

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

1957 - A Mil Mi-6 (NATO reporting name Hook), Soviet/Russian heavy transport helicopter, Sets a record lifting 12,000kg to 2432m.

http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/mi-6.php

1959 - Death of James Allan ("Jim") Mollison, famous Scottish pioneer aviator who set many records during the rapid development of aviation in the 1930s.

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

1959 - Piedmont Airlines Flight 349 Douglas DC-3 'Buckeye Pacemaker' crashed on Bucks Elbow Mountain near Crozet, Virginia, killing 26. The sole survivor, Ernest P. "Phil" Bradley, was seriously injured and lay on the ground near the wreckage, still strapped in his seat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piedmont_Airlines_Flight_349

1961 - Andrei Durnovtsev, flying a Tupolev Tu-95V, drops the 'Tsar Bomba', nickname for the Soviet AN602 hydrogen bomb of 50 megatons, over the Mityushikha Bay nuclear testing range (Sukhoy Nos Zone C), north of the Arctic Circle over the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in the Arctic Sea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba#Test - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Durnovtsev

1961 - Birth of Ronald John Garan, Jr., USAF pilot and NASA astronaut.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_J._Garan,_Jr.

1964 - Birth of Sandra Hall Magnus, an American engineer and NASA astronaut.

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

1964 - 1st flight of The Bell Aerosystems Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV), vertical take-off vehicle that used a single jet engine mounted on a gimbal so that it always pointed vertically, Apollo Project era program to build a simulator for the Moon landings.

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

1967 - Launch of Kosmos 188, unmanned Soviet spacecraft that incorporated a Soyuz programme descent module for landing scientific instruments and test objects. A few hours later, along with Osmos 186, they made the 1st fully automated space docking in the history of space exploration.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_186_and_Kosmos_188

1968 - Soyuz 3, Soviet spaceflight mission, is back on earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_3

1971 - Death of Eric Bourne Coulter Betts, Irish WWI flying ace.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Betts - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/ireland/betts.php

1972 - Death of Frederick Joseph Cunninghame, British WWI flying ace.

http://theaerodrome.com/aces/england/cunninghame.php

1975 - Inex-Adria Aviopromet Flight 450 McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 crashed in Prague suburb Suchdol, into allotment, during final approach killing 75 people of 120 on board.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inex-Adria_Aviopromet_Flight_450

1976 - Death of Clarence Duncan Chamberlin, American aviator, 2nd man to pilot a fixed-wing aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean, from New York to the European mainland, while carrying the 1st transatlantic passenger.

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

1977 - Celebrating the 50th anniversary of Pan Am, Pan-Am flight 50 Boeing 787SP lands back at San Francisco after a round-the-world flight over the North Pole and the South Pole and including three stopovers in 54 hours, 7 minutes, 12 seconds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_American_World_Airways#Record-setting_flights - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747SP#Records

1979 - Death of Barnes Neville Wallis, English scientist, engineer and inventor, best known for inventing the bouncing bomb used by the RAF in Operation Chastise (the "Dambusters" raid) to attack the dams of the Ruhr Valley during WWII.

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

1981 - Launch of Venera 13, Soviet space probe for the exploration of Venus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera_13

1985 - Space Shuttle Challenger lifts off for mission STS-61-A, its final successful mission.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-61-A

2000 - Launch of BeiDou-1A, 1st of a serie of Chinese satellite navigation system.

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

2002 - Launch of Soyuz TMA-1, Soyuz mission to the International Space Station (ISS) with a Russian-Belgian cosmonaut crew.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_TMA-1

2003 - Launch of SERVIS-1, or Space Environment Reliability Verification Integrated System 1, Japanese satellite designed for testing the performance of commercial off-the-shelf products in the space environment

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SERVIS-1

2008 - Last flights from Berlin-Tempelhof airport: the last commercial flight was a Cirrus Airlines Dornier 328 that departed at 22:17 towards Mannheim, four and a half minutes before midnight, the last two airplanes – a historical Junkers Ju 52 and an airlift “raisin bomber” Douglas DC-3 – took off in parallel, waved their wings, and flew off south-east to Schönefeld airport. The runway and air field lights were switched off at midnight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Tempelhof_Airport#Closing_down_air_traffic