FEB06
1874 - Birth of Henry Croskey Mustin, American pioneering naval aviator who establised the 1st Naval Aeronautic Station (now Naval Air Station Pensacola) and performed the world's 1st catapulting of an aircraft from a ship underway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Mustin
1883 - Birth of Dmitry Pavlovich Grigorovich, Russian/Soviet aircraft designer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Pavlovich_Grigorovich
1890 - Birth of Gottfried von Banfield, most successful Austro-Hungarian WWI naval aeroplane pilot, known as the 'Eagle of Trieste'. He may have been the only flying ace who flew a flying boat to five or more victories.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Freiherr_von_Banfield - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/austrhun/banfield.php
1892 - Birth of Ivan Alexandrovich Loiko, Russian WWI flying ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Loiko - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/russia/loiko.php
1892 - Birth of Guido Keller, Italian WWI pilot, poet and adventurer.
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guido_Keller
1895 - Birth of Kurt Wolff, Imperial Germany's WWI fighter ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Wolff_(aviator) - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/wolff2.php
1896 - Birth of Harold Alan Hamersley, Australian WWI fighter ace, Avro test pilot and WWII flying officer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_A._Hamersley - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/australi/hamersley.php
1896 - Birth of Arthur Clunie "Snowy" Randall, Scottish WWI flying ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Randall - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/scotland/randall1.php
1902 - Birth of Pierre-Charles Corbu, french Airliner pilot and test pilot.
1913 - Birth of Yevdokia Bershanskaya, WWII soviet pilot. She and Yevgeniya Rudneva formed three women's air regiments, so fierce and accurate that the German soldiers began calling them Night Witches.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevdokia_Bershanskaya
1915 - 1st flight of The Sikorsky S-16 (or RBVZ S-XVI), Russian equi-span single-bay two-seat biplane fighter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_S-16
1916 – Aircraft from the Imperial Russian Navy Black Sea Fleet’s seaplane carriers Imperator Nikolai I and Imperator Aleksandr I sink the Ottoman collier Irmingard (4,211 grt). Irmingard is the largest ship sunk by air attack in WWI.
1919 - Death of Edgar George Davies, British WWI flying ace, Killed in his SE.5a while trying a high-speed roll over Bickendorf Airfield.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_G._Davies - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/davies3.php
1919 - Birth of David Wayne Howe, American WWII Flying ace, Test pilot for Bell.
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/dwhowe.htm - http://www.cieldegloire.com/014_howe_d_w.php
1923 - Deutsche Luft-Reederei, Early german Airline, and 1st German airline to use heavier than air aircraft, ceased operations.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Luft-Reederei
1933 - Jim Mollison takes off his de Havilland Puss Moth from Lympne Aerodrome to Natal, Brazil, via Senegal, across South Atlantic, 1st person to fly solo across the North and South Atlantics.
1933 - Squadron Leader O Gayford (officer in charge of the RAF Long Range Development Unit) and his navigator Flight Lieutenant G.E. Nicholetts takes off in their Fairey Long-Range Monoplane MKII from Cranwell to Walvis Bay, South West Africa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Long-Range_Monoplane
1933 - 1st flight of The Kawanishi E7K, Japanese three-seat biplane reconnaissance floatplane.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kawanishi_E7K
1938 – Junkers Ju 90 V1, D-AALU, "Der Grosse Dessauer", combination of wings, engines, undercarriage and tail assembly of Junkers Ju 89 V3, Werknummer 4913, mated to a new transport fuselage, broke up in flight while undergoing flutter tests out of Dessau, Germany.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Ju_90
1938 - 1st successful in-flight separation of The Short-Mayo composite (Short S.21 Maia and Short S.20 Mercury seaplane) from the Shorts works at Borstal, near Rochester, Medway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Mayo_Composite
1941 - Trans Canada Airline Lockheed 14H-2 landing at Armstrong, Ontario during the night, crashed a mile short of the airport, killing all 12
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Canada_Air_Lines#Notable_accidents_and_incidents
1943 - 1st flight of The Supermarine Type 322, British prototype carrier borne torpedo,dive bomber and reconnaissance aircraft single engined monoplane.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermarine_Type_322
1944 - Death of Isamu Mochizuki, 2nd sino-japanese war and WWII japanese flying ace, presumed killed in action in ground combat with the enemy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isamu_Mochizuki
1944 - Death of Yoshijiro Minegishi, Japanese WWII flying ace, killed in action.
1946 - A TWA Lockheed Constellation lands at Orly airport, Paris, from LaGuardia, New York, to complete the airline's 1st scheduled international flight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Constellation#Postwar_use
1948 - A new 100 kilometre closed circuit speed record of 542mph is established by Squadron Leader W.A. Waterton, flying a Gloster Meteor IV.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Waterton#Gloster_Aircraft_Company
1956 - TWA Captain William Judd flew his Cessna 180 "Star of the Red Sea" non-stop from New York to Paris – a distance of more than 3600 miles across the North Atlantic
http://www.skyraideraviation.com/Newsletters/FEB08.pdf
1958 - An Airspeed Ambassador British European Airways Flight 609 crashed on take-off from Munich. 23 of the 44 passengers on board the aircraft died include 8 team members and staff of Manchester United football club.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_air_disaster
1959 - 1st launch of a Martin Marietta SM-68A/HGM-25A Titan I, US 1st multistage ICBM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_I
1960 - Death of Karl Maybach, German engineer, who built innovative engines for dirigibles, aircrafts and cars.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Maybach
1961 - Birth of Col. Yuri Ivanovich Onufriyenko, Ukrainian-Russian cosmonaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Onufriyenko
1961 - 1st flight of the Sud Aviation 'Caravelle' VIR, Reengined version of the french short/medium-range jet airliner, 1st Caravelle with thrust reversers.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sud-Aviation_SE_210_Caravelle#Versions
1962 - 1st flight of The I.A. 50 Guarani I, Argentine prototype utility aircraft, refined version of the Huanquero.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FMA_IA_50_Guaran%C3%AD_II
1965 - LAN Chile Flight 107 Douglas DC-6 crashed into the side of La Corona Mountain (Las Melosas area of the Andes), approximately 1,200 feet below its summit, killing all 87.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAN_Chile_Flight_107
1966 - Death of Bertram Hutchinson Smyth, British WWI flying ace.
http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/smyth.php
1968 - 1st flight of the Canadair CF-5 (officially designated the CF-116 Freedom Fighter), Canadair licensed-built version of the American Northrop F-5 Freedom Fighter aircraft primarily for the Canadian Forces.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadair_CF-5
1971 - Alan Shepard makes a historical golf drive on the moon.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Shepard
1975 - Death of Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Rodney Park, New Zealand soldier, WWI flying ace and WWII Royal Air Force commander.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Park - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/nzealand/park.php
1981 - 1st flight of the sole Sikorsky EH-60B prototype characterized by the long box-shaped SOTAS scanner mounted below the main cabin, and was equipped with backward-retracting main landing gear legs to allow the SOTAS antenna to rotate a full 360 degrees in flight
http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/sik_s-70.php
1982 - Freddie Laker's Laker Airways cease operations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laker_Airways
1983 - Death of Cyril Nelson 'Kit' Lowe, British WWI flying ace, International Rugby player and supposedly the inspiration for W. E. Johns' character "Biggles".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_Lowe - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/lowe1.php
1996 - Boeing 757-225 Birgenair Flight 301 crashed shortly after take-off from Puerto Plata's Gregorio Luperón International Airport in the Dominican Republic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birgenair_Flight_301
1996 - Death of James Lincoln Holt Peck, American flying ace during the Spanish Civil War, one of the few African-American aviators in the Air Force of the Spanish Republic, Aviation Journalist, 1st African-American to serve at Cape canaveral in an engineering capcity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Peck_(pilot) -
1998 - Andy Nelson and navigator Bertrand Piccard, lands the Breitling Orbiter II settind the world record for endurance at nine days and 17 hours - or, to be exact, 233 hours, and 55 minutes in an attempt of a round the wolrd flight aborted as China did not did not allow them to fly avor the country.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Piccard#Deuxi.C3.A8me_tentative
1998 - Death of Anthony W. "Tony" LeVier, American air racer and test pilot for the Lockheed Corporation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_LeVier
2008 - 1st flight of the Falcomposite Furio, New zealand two-seat, low-wing monoplane with retractable landing gear kitplane of carbon fibre construction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcomposite_Furio
2009 - Death of Giuseppe Ruzzin, Spanish war and WWII italian flying ace.
http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/italy_ruzzin.htm
2011 - Launch of USA-225,(Rapid Pathfinder Prototype 'RPP' or NRO Launch 66 'NROL-66'), American satellite to perform technology demonstration and development experiments, including advanced dosimeters to characterize the space environment from a 1,200 kilometer low Earth orbit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-225
2012 - Death of Janice Elaine Voss, American engineer and a NASA astronaut.