AUG14
1881 - Birth of Arthur Laibel "Al" Welsh (born Welcher), Jewish, Russian-born American pioneer aviator, 1st flight instructor for the Wright Brothers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_L._Welsh
1885 - Birth of Horace Meek Hickam, American aviator and pioneer airpower advocate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Meek_Hickam
1886 - Birth of Rudolph William Schroeder, Early american aviator.
http://earlyaviators.com/eschroed.htm
1896 - Birth of Albert Ball, English WWI fighter Ace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Ball - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/ball.php
1897 - Birth of Charles Duncan Bremner Green, Canadian WWI flying ace and WWII instructor with the RCAF.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_D._B._Green - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/canada/green1.php
1901 - 1st claimed powered flight is made by Gustave Whitehead in his Whitehead No. 21 near Bridgeport, Connecticut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_21_(plane) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Whitehead#Connecticut_1901
1909 - 1st woman passenger to fly in a powered airplane in Great Britain is Lela Cody (Mrs Elizabeth Mary King), wife of Samuel F. Cody. She is taken for a 3-minute flight from the Royal Engineers Balloon Factory at Farnborough in Cody's British Army Aeroplane No.1.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Franklin_Cody#Cody_aeroplanes
1913 - 1st flight of The Blackburn Type I, British single-engine civil two-seat monoplane used for flying demonstrations and training including seaplane pilotage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackburn_Type_I
1914 - Frenchmen Lieutenant Antoine Cesari and Corporal Roger Prudhommeau attack the Zeppelin sheds at Metz-Frescaty.
1915 - 1st flight of The Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.9 (Blériot Experimental), British prototype reconnaissance biplane pusher aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Aircraft_Factory_B.E.9
1916 - Birth of Heinrich Alexander Ludwig Peter Prinz zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, German of aristocratic descent and a Luftwaffe WWII night fighter flying ace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Prinz_zu_Sayn-Wittgenstein
1917 - Death of Thomas Alfred Oliver, British WWI flying ace, killed in action in his Nieuport.
http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/oliver.php
1918 - Death of Herbert Ruska Gould, British WWI flying ace and Author, Killed in action in his D.H.4.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Gould - http://www.natgould.org/herbert_ruska_gould - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/england/gould.php
1918 - Death of David Esplin Smith, Scottish WWI flying ace, killed in action in his Bristol F.2b.
http://theaerodrome.com/aces/scotland/smith1.php
1918 - Death of James Fitz Morris, Scottish WWI fighter ace and instructor, killed in the crash of his sopwith Camel. Upon take off his engine suddenly died and the plane plunged to the ground.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Fitz-Morris - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/scotland/morris.php
1918 - Death of Richard Alexander "Alex" Hewat, American WWI flying ace, killed in action in his Sopwith Dolphin
http://theaerodrome.com/aces/usa/hewat.php
1921 - Death of Wilhelm Leusch, German WWI flying ace, killed in the crash of the flying wing FN-4 Weltensegler he was testing during a glider meeting at Röhn, Germany.
http://theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/leusch.php - http://claudel.dopp.free.fr/Les_planeurs/Histoire/Concours-1920/Concours-1920.htm
1922 - 1st flight of the Dewoitine P-2, French single seat glider prototype.
http://aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=4503
1930 - Eddie August Henry Schneider aged 19, takes off from Westfield, New Jersey in a Scarab powered Cessna for a new Est to West junior transcontinental record.
1931 - 1st flight of The Tupolev ANT-14 'Pravda', Soviet 5 engines monoplane, enlargement of the ANT-9, which served as the flagship of the Soviet propaganda squadron.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_ANT-14
1932 – 1st successful single-lift rotor helicopter: Alexei Cheremukhin & Boris Yuriev’s TsAGI-1EA, flew to a record altitude of 605 meters (1,985 ft).
http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/brat_1ea.php - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter#First_flights
1934 - 1st flight of the Dewoitine D.510, French all-metal, open-cockpit, fixed-undercarriage monoplane fighter aircraft, evolution othe the D.500
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewoitine_D.500#Variants
1934 - Death of John Howard Umney, British WWI flying ace as gunner/observer in the rear seat of Bristol F.2 Fighters,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Howard_Umney - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/umney.php
1936 - Frenchman Georges Detre, flying a Potez 50, establishes a new world altitude record of 14,843 metres (48,698 feet).
1937 - Beginning of air-to-air combat of the Second Sino-Japanese War and WWII in general, when 6 Imperial Japanese Mitsubishi G3M bombers are shot down by the Nationalist Chinese Air Force Boeing P-26/281 while raiding Chinese air bases. Known today as the 'Chinese Air Force Day'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_China_Air_Force#History
1938 - Death of Jean Niland (Aka James Williams), French early parachutist and record setter.
1942 - 27th Fighter Squadron pilot Elza E. Shahan, flying a P-38 Lightning, scores the 1st USAAF victory in the European theater of operations with the downing of an Fw 200C-3 Condor, a credit shared with a P-40C pilot of the 33rd Fighter Squadron.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Operations_Group#Aerial_victories
1943 - Birth of Jon Andrew McBride, USN pilot and NASA astronaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_McBride
1945 - Death of Melville Wells Waddington, Canadian WWI flying ace (as observer)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melville_Waddington - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/canada/waddington1.php
1952 - Death of Herbert Henry 'Herb' Hoover, American test pilot, Killed when the B-45 jet bomber he was flying on a mission to test various research instruments tore apart in mid-air and crashed near Barrowsville, Virginia.
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news/Biographies/Pilots/bd-dfrc-p032.html
1952 - Birth of Mark Charles Lee, USAF pilot and NASA astronaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_C._Lee
1953 - The sound barrier is broken over Australia for the 1st time by Flight Lieutenant Bentleigh, Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), in the 1st Australian-built Sabre fighter at Avalon, Victoria.
1954 - Death of Dr. Hugo Eckener, manager of the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin during the inter-war years, and commander of the famous 'Graf Zeppelin' for most of its record-setting flights, including the 1st airship flight around the world, making him the most successful airship commander in history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Eckener
1955 - 1st flight of The Fairey Ultra-light Helicopter, small British military helicopter for reconnaissance and casualty evacuation, designed to be low cost and easily transportable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Ultra-light_Helicopter
1956 - Death of David Carl Schilling, USAF officer, WWII fighter ace, and leading advocate of long-range jet fighter operations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_C._Schilling - http://cieldegloire.com/014_schilling_d_c.php
1958 - KLM Flight 607-E, a Lockheed Super Constellation, PH-LKM "Hugo de Groot" en route from Amsterdam to New York, via Shannon Airport, crashed into the ocean 180 km off the coast of Co. Galway, Ireland. 91 passengers and 8 crew members perished.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KLM_Flight_607-E
1958 - 1st flight of The Grumman Gulfstream I (company designation G-159), American twin turboprop business aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_Gulfstream_I
1967 - Death of James Hamilton Traill, Australian WWI flying ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hamilton_Traill - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/australi/traill1.php
1968 - Los Angeles Airways Flight 417 crashed Compton, California resulting in the loss of 21 lives. The accident aircraft, N300Y, serial number 61031, was the prototype of the Sikorsky S-61L.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Airways_Flight_417
1969 - Birth of Tracy Caldwell Dyson, American chemist and NASA astronaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracy_Caldwell
1972 - Interflug Ilyushin Il-62 crashed shortly after take-off from Berlin-Schönefeld Airport on a holiday charter flight to Burgas. All 156 passengers and crew died.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interflug_Flight_DM-SEA
1974 - 1st flight of The Panavia Tornado, twin-engine, variable-sweep wing combat aircraft, which was jointly developed by the United Kingdom, West Germany and Italy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panavia_Tornado
1979 - Steve Hinton sets a new piston-engined airspeed record in a specially-modified P-51 Mustang named the Red Baron. He reaches 499 mph (803 km/h) over Nevada.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RB51_Red_Baron
1997 - Soyuz TM-25, Russian mission to MIR, is back on earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_TM-25
2001 - 1st flight of The Bombardier Challenger 300, Canadian super-mid-sized jet capable of traversing transcontinental distances.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_Challenger_300
2005 - Helios Airways Flight 522 Boeing 737-300 crashes into a mountain north of Marathon and Varnavas, Greece, killing all 121 passengers and crew.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Airways_Flight_522
2008 - Death of Ioan Marinciu, Romanian WWII flying ace
http://www.worldwar2.ro/arr/?article=713 - http://cieldegloire.com/012_marinciu_i.php
2012 – An unmanned experimental USAF X-51A Waverider hypersonic aircraft launched from above the Point Mugu Naval Air Test Range in California goes out of control because of a fault in one of its control fins and crashes into the Pacific Ocean 15 seconds into its flight and before igniting its scramjet engine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-51A_Waverider#Powered_flight_tests