AUG03
1861 - John La Mountain becomes the 1st balloonist to use boats for aerial operations in a military conflict. Using the Union tug Fanny, he ascends from its deck to a height of 2,000 ft. to conduct aerial reconnaissance of Confederate forces during America's Civil War.
http://www.navsource.org/archives/09/86/86076.htm
1867 - Birth of Augustus Moore Herring, American aviation pioneer, who flew a compressed-air powered aircraft in 1898, five years before the Wright Brothers made their own powered flight. It has been claimed that he was the 1st aviator of a motorized heavier-than-air aircraft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus_Moore_Herring
1890 - Birth of Richard Williams, Australian WWI Pilot, WWII high ranking officer, Australian director of Civil aviation postwar, 1st military pilot trained in Australia, widely regarded as the "father" of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Williams_(RAAF_officer)
1890 - Birth of Flaminio Avet, Italian WWI flying ace
http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/italy/avet.php
1890 - Birth of Francis Dominic Casey, Irish WWI flying ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Dominic_Casey - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/ireland/casey.php
1892 - Birth of Hugh Leslie Owen, British WWI flying ace
http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/owen2.php
1896 - Birth of Kenneth William Junor, Canadian WWI flying ace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_William_Junor - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/canada/junor.php
1900 - Birth of Umberto Klinger, Italian aviator.
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umberto_Klinger
1904 - In a dirigible named 'California Arrow', Thomas Scott Baldwin carries out the 1st circular flight by an airship in America. Powered by a converted motorcycle engine, it is built and dispatched by Glenn Curtiss.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Scott_Baldwin#Powered_balloons
1912 - Mexican Miguel Lebrija Urtetegui flies at a height of 300 m in a Deperdussin.
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Lebrija
1914 - Birth of Pavel Stepanovich Kutakhov, Soviet WWII pilot and later Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Air Forces and Chief Marshal of Aviation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Stepanovich_Kutakhov
1921 - Lieutenant John A. Macready of the U.S. Army Air Corps finds a new use for airplanes when he sprays a patch of ground infested with caterpillars. This practice becomes known as crop dusting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_application#Crop_dusting_1921
1923 - 1st flight of the Blériot-SPAD S.81-Bis, modification of the prototype S.81 as a racer for the Michelin Cup with shortened wings.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bl%C3%A9riot-SPAD_S.81 - http://www.aviafrance.com/spad-s-81-bis-aviation-france-10264.htm
1928 - 1st flight of the 2nd prototype of the BFW M.20 (Messerschmitt M 20), German single-engine, high-wing monoplane 10-seat passenger transport aircraft, precursor of the commercial version.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BFW_M.20
1929 - Death of Emile Berliner or Emil Berliner, German-born American inventor, best known for developing the disc record gramophone, he also dedicated himself to improving the technologies of vertical flight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emile_Berliner
1930 – The Imperial Japanese Navy practices dive bombing for the 1st time, using fighters to sink the retired protected cruiser Akashi with 4-kg (8.8-lb) practice bombs in Tokyo Bay.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_cruiser_Akashi#World_War_I
1933 - 1st flight of the Blériot Bl-5190, French transatlantic mail plane, large parasol-wing monoplane flying boat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bl%C3%A9riot_5190 - http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=1677
1935 - Birth of Georgi Stepanovich Shonin, Soviet Air Force pilot and Cosmonaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgi_Shonin
1937 - 1st flight of the Air Couzinet 10, French 3 seat Twin engine Highwing Mail plane prototype.
http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=456 - http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Couzinet_10
1938 - 1st flight of The Martin-Baker MB2, British private-venture fighter prototype.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin-Baker_MB_2
1940 - 1st flight of the Focke-Achgelis Fa 223 Drache, German WWII helicopter, single engine which powered two three-bladed 11.9 meter (39 feet) rotors mounted on twin booms on either side of the 12.2 meter (40 ft) long cylindrical fuselage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focke-Achgelis_Fa_223#First_flight
1944 - Death of Jean Maridor, WWII Free french pilot. The V1 he was chasing was falling on a hospital. Too late to perform the usual 'topple' with the wingtip, he had to close to shoot at it. The V1 explosion desintegrated his Spitfire.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Maridor - http://www.jean-maridor.org/ - http://cieldegloire.com/004_maridor_j.php
1945 - 1st flight of The Kyushu J7W1 Shinden, WWII Japanese propeller-driven aircraft prototype that was built in a canard design.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%ABsh%C5%AB_J7W
1947 - At the Tushino air parade in Moscow, USSR, newest Soviet jet fighters (Yak-19, La-150, La-156, La-160, Su-9, Su-11) and Bombers Tu-4, Tu-77 are presented.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_air_show#Notable_first_appearances
1950 - USMC air operations over Korea commence, with VMF-214 flying strike missions from USS Sicily
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VMF-214#Korean_War
1950 - 1st medical evacuation by helicopter from a Mobil Army Surgery Hospital (MASH) team takes place when an S-51 flies out a casualty from a fire flight along the Pusan Perimeter.
http://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/MedicalEvacuation/NeelHelievacinKorea.htm
1951 - Birth of Hans Wilhelm Schlegel, German physicist, ESA astronaut and NASA Astronaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Schlegel
1951 - 1st flight of The Breguet Br.960 Vultur, French prototype carrier-based attack aircraft with mixed-power design, combining an Armstrong Siddeley Mamba turboprop in the nose with a Rolls-Royce Nene turbojet in the tail.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breguet_Vultur
1953 - 1st flight of The CAC Sabre, sometimes known as the Avon Sabre or CA-27, Australian variant of the North American Aviation F-86F Sabre fighter aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAC_Sabre
1954 - 1st flight of The Rolls-Royce Thrust Measuring Rig (TMR), British pioneering vertical take-off and landing aircraft. It used two Nene turbojet engines mounted back-to-back horizontally within a steel framework, raised upon four legs with castors for wheels. The TMR had no lifting surfaces (wings, blades, etc.) and was understandably nicknamed the Flying Bedstead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Thrust_Measuring_Rig
1954 - 1st and only seaplane to become supersonic: the Convair XF2Y-1 Sea Dart, American seaplane fighter aircraft prototype that rode on twin hydro-skis for takeoff, exceed Mach 1 in a shallow dive, piloted by Charles E. Richbourg.
http://www.aviastar.org/air/usa/convair_seadart.php
1964 - Birth of Joan Elizabeth Higginbotham, American engineer and NASA astronaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Higginbotham
1971 - Death of Georgy Nikolayevich Babakin, Soviet engineer working in the space program, Chief Designer at the Lavochkin Design Bureau.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgy_Babakin
1975 - An Alia Royal Jordanian Airlines Boeing 707-321B chartered by Royal Air Maroc crashed into a mountain while preparing to land at Agadir-Inezgane Airport. All 188 passengers and crew on board were killed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Agadir_Morocco_Air_Disaster
1975 - Death of Karel Jan Bossart, Belgian-American pioneering rocket designer and creator of the Atlas ICBM..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karel_Bossart
1981 - Death of Fritz John Jacobsen, German WWI flying ace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Jacobsen - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/jacobsen.php
1981 - Launch of Dynamics Explorer 1 and 2, NASA mission consisting of 2 unmanned satellites, DE-1 and DE-2, whose purpose were to investigate the interractions between plasmas in the magnetosphere and those in the ionosphere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamics_Explorer
1986 - Death of Beryl Markham, British-born Kenyan aviatrix, adventurer, and racehorse trainer. 1st person to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beryl_Markham
1989 - Olympic Aviation Flight 545 short 330-200 crashed into a cloud-shrouded Mount Kerkis on Samos due to the pilots using Visual Flight Rules in Instrumental Flight Rules conditions, killing all 34.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Aviation_Flight_545
1995 - Taliban Air Force MiG-21 aircraft forced a Russian Ilyushin Il-76 to land at Kandahar.The men were held prisoner for one year before making their escape; after overpowering their captors they re-possessed their aircraft, flying it to freedom.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_Airstan_incident
1995 - Death of Clennell Haggerston "Punch" Dickins, pioneering Canadian aviator and bush pilot. Northern Indians called him "Snow Eagle;" northern whites called him "White Eagle;" while the press dubbed him the "Flying Knight of the Northland."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punch_Dickins
2003 - The 13th FAI World Rally Flying Championship in Rustenburg , South Africa , is won by south africans Nigel Hopkins and Dale de Klerk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_FAI_World_Rally_Flying_Championship
2004 - Launch of The MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER), US probe to study the chemical composition, geology, and the magnetic field of Mercury.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MESSENGER#Launch_and_trajectory
2005 - Stephen Kern Robinson, American astronaut becomes the 1st human to perform an in-flight repair during STS-114 mission to a Shuttle's exterior. Robinson was sent to remove two protruding gap fillers on Discovery's heat shield, after engineers determined they might pose a danger upon re-entry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Robinson#Astronaut_experience - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-114#In-flight_repair
2007 - 1st flight of the Northrop Grumman E-2D Advanced Hawkeye, Development prototype version of advanced technology of the American twin-turboprop all-weather, aircraft carrier-capable tactical airborne early warning (AEW) aircraft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_E-2_Hawkeye#E-2D_Advanced_Hawkeye
2010 - Katekavia Flight 9357, operated by an Antonov An-24, crashed on approach to Igarka Airport, Russia. Seven people were killed. The aircraft was on a domestic scheduled passenger flight from Krasnoyarsk Airport.