DEC03
1877 - Birth of Richard William Pearse, New Zealand aviation pioneer
1889 - Birth of Victor Louis Georges Sayaret, French WWI flying ace, Farman test pilot and airliner pilot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Sayaret - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/france/sayaret.php
1890 - Birth of Walter Rieseler, German WWI pilot, Instructor and aircraft designer.
1891 - Birth of Oakley George Kelly, record setting pilot for the United States Army Air Service.
1892 - Birth of Jerry Cox Vasconcells, American WWI flying ace and commercial pilot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Vasconcells - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/usa/vasconcells.php
1896 - Birth of William Lancelot Jordan, South African WWI fighter ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lancelot_Jordan - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/safrica/jordan.php
1897 - Birth of Alan Jerrard, British WWI flying ace, who served in North Russia durin Russian civil war, before retiring in 1933
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Jerrard - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/jerrard.php
1910 - French Gaston Cughet failed to clear the fence on takeoff, and wrecked his Bleriot monoplane on the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
1910 - 1st multiple fatality airplane accident in history happened at Centocelle, near Rome. Italian engineer and early aviator Adorno Enrico Cammarota is killed along with friend Giovanni Castellani are killed in the crash of their Farman due to an attempt to make a short turn.
1912 - Birth of Edward S. Forman, Early American rocket pioneer and co-founder of Aerojet.
1913 - Birth of Guido Presel, Spanish war Italian flying ace.
1915 - Richard Caswell Saufley set an American altitude record flying the Curtiss AH-14 to 11,975 feet over Pensacola, Florida.
http://cv10navalaviator.wordpress.com/2010/12/03/navy-altitude-record-1915/
1917 - 1st flight of The Beardmore W.B.V, British single-engine shipborne biplane prototype.
1928 - A seaplane carrying brasilian personalities to welcome Santos Dumont, crashes near the luxury ocean liner SS Cape Arcona in Rio de Janeiro.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cap_Arcona#Fiert.C3.A9_de_la_marine_allemande
1931 - 1st flight of the Zveno-1, Soviet parasite aircraft concept using a Tupolev TB-1 mothership and two Tupolev I-4 fighters mounted on top of the wings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zveno_project#Development
1932 - Death of Gabriella 'Gaby' Angelini, italian aviatrix, in her Breda Ba.15 on an attempt to make a flight to Asia from Roma to Karachi in the libyan desert.
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaby_Angelini
1934 - Birth of Viktor Vasilyevich Gorbatko, Soviet pilot and cosmonaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Gorbatko
1934 - Death of Charles Thomas Philippe Ulm, pioneer Australian aviator, while flying from Oakland, California to Hawaii in VH-UXY Stella Australis, an Airspeed Envoy. It is believed an unexpected tailwind and bad weather caused them to fly past the islands in the dark.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ulm
1937 - Death of Le Yi-Chin (Lo I-Ching), Chinese Sino-Japanese War flying ace, killed in action over Nanking in his Curtiss Hawk III.
http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/china_yi-chin.htm
1939 - 1st flight of the Bloch MB-155, French low-wing, all-metal monoplane fighter aircraft issued from the MB-152.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloch_MB.150_%C3%A0_MB.157#Arriv.C3.A9_trop_tard.2C_le_Bloch_MB.155 - http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=292
1939 - 1st flight of the Bloch MB-175, French twin engine 3 seat bomber issued from the MB-174
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloch_MB.170_%C3%A0_MB.178#MB.175
1939 - 1st British bomb to strike German soil. German warships at Heligoland are bombed by 24 RAF Vickers Wellingtons. A bomb from one of the aircraft hangs up briefly, before dropping on a German AA battery on shore.
1941 - Death of Wolfgang Lippert, German fighter ace of the Spanish war and WWII, Injured as bailing out behind british lines, he was amputated of both legs in egypt and died from an embolism after the operation without regaining consciousness.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Lippert_(pilot) - http://www.luftwaffe.cz/lippert.html
1942 - Death of Arthur Josef Stanislaus Berson, Polish meteorologist and pioneer of aerology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Berson
1945 - 1st purely jet-powered airplane to operate from an aircraft carrier is a de Havilland Sea Vampire piloted by Eric Melrose "Winkle" Brown from HMS Ocean.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Brown_(pilot)#Post_War - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Vampire#Records_and_achievements
1946 - Death of Clive Beverley Glynn, British WWI flying ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Glynn - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/england/glynn.php
1952 - The Ambrosini SAI.7, Pre WWII Italian racing aircraft (developped post-WWII as a trainer) flown by Guidantonio Ferrari, Set a new international airspeed record for this category of aircraft at 419,482 km/h at Roma.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrosini_S.7
1952 - 1st United Kingdom air-sea rescue by helicopter. Four Danish sailors are rescued by Flight Lieutenant Daniel Kerns RAF off Yarmouth.
1954 - 1st flight of the Aero HC-2 Heli Baby, Czech two-seat light general-purpose utility helicopter with a three-bladed main rotor and a two-bladed tail rotor, 1st Czechoslovakian-designed helicopter to be produced.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aero_HC-2_Heli_Baby
1960 - Birth of Steven Ray Swanson, American engineer and NASA astronaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Swanson
1965 - Launch of Luna 8, also known as Lunik 8, Soviet lunar space probe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_8
1968 - 1st flight of The Anahuac Tauro, Mexican low-wing braced monoplane of conventional configuration agricultural aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anahuac_Tauro
1971 - Beginning of the Indo-Pakistani War, pre-emptive strikes carried out by the Pakistani Air Force (PAF) on the forward airbases and radar installations of the Indian Air Force (IAF) during operation Chengiz Khan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chengiz_Khan
1972 - Death of Friedrich Christiansen, WWI german seaplane fighter ace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Christiansen - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/christiansen.php
1972 - Spantax Convair CV-990-30A-5 crashes on take off in bad weather at Tenerife-Norte Los Rodeos Airport killing all 7 on board.
http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19721203-0
1973 - Pioneer 10, NASA robotic space probe sends back the 1st close-up images of Jupiter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_10
1980 - Judith Chisholm lands back her Cessna Turbo Centurion in London after for a round the world solo flight during which she broke many records.
http://www.wingnet.org/rtw/RTW007R.HTM
1981 - Death of Charles Harvard Gibbs-Smith, British polymath historian of aeronautics and aviation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Harvard_Gibbs-Smith
1984 - Death of Pavel Stepanovich Kutakhov, Soviet WWII fighter ace, jet fighter pilot (until he reached 60) and high ranking officer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Stepanovich_Kutakhov
1985 - Death of Henry Martin 'Hank' Kleemann, US Navy fighter pilot and instructor (noted for shooting down a Lybian SU-22 in 1981) , killed in the crash of his plane in bad weather at Miramar NAS.
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Martin_Kleemann
1985 - STS-61-B, NASA space shuttle Atlantis mission, is back on earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-61-B
1990 – At Detroit Metropolitan Airport, Northwest Airlines Flight 1482 Douglas DC-9-14 collide with Northwest Airlines Flight 299 Boeing 727-251 on the runway, killing 7 passengers and 1 crew member aboard flight 1482.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Airlines_Flight_1482
1993 - Sahara Airlines (later JetLite), Indian airline, begin operations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JetLite
1995 - Cameroon Airlines Flight 3701 Boeing 737-200 'Nyong' crashed after it lost control on its second approach to Douala International Airport after power was lost to one engine, kiling 75 over 76.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameroon_Airlines_Flight_3701
1999 – NASA loses radio contact with the Mars Polar Lander moments before the spacecraft enters the Martian atmosphere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Polar_Lander
1999 - Launch of HELIOS-1B (French military photo-reconnaissance satellite) and Clementine (Small french military Satellite to study the Earth's radio-electrical environment from space) with an Ariane 4 launcher.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_(satellite) - http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cl%C3%A9mentine_(satellite)
2002 - Death of Horace A. Hanes, American WWII fighter pilot, Test pilot and record setter.
http://www.astronautix.com/astros/hanes.htm - http://www.af.mil/information/bios/bio.asp?bioID=5690
2003 - 1st flight of The Honda HA-420 HondaJet, 1st general aviation aircraft developed by the Honda Motor Company.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_HA-420_HondaJet
2005 - 1st manned rocket aircraft delivery of US Mail is done by the XCOR Aerospace in Mojave, California.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_mail#Reusable_launch_vehicles
2010 - 1st flight (electric power) of the Waiex, Y-tail version of the Sonex, American lightweight, metal, low-wing, two seat homebuilt aircraft.
http://www.sonexaircraft.com/news/newsarchive95.html
2010 - The Boeing X-37B (Orbital Test Vehicle 1 (X-37B OTV-1) from mission USA-212 ,completes its 1st orbital flight by landing at Vanderberg AFB.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-212