FEB08
1825 - Birth of Henri Giffard, French engineer, who invented the steam injector and the powered airship.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Giffard
1862 - Birth of Ferdinand Ferber, French Army artillery captain who played an important role in the development of aviation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Ferber
1880 - Birth of Jean Louis Conneau (aka André Beaumont), pioneer French aviator, Naval Lieutenant and Flying boat manufacturer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andre_Beaumont
1882 - Birth of Thomas Etholen Selfridge, 1st person to die in a crash of a powered airplane. He was a passenger while Orville Wright was piloting the Wright Flyer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Etholen_Selfridge
1884 - Birth of John Theodore Cuthbert Moore-Brabazon, 1st Baron Brabazon of Tara, English aviation pioneer and politician, 1st Englishman to pilot a heavier-than-air machine under power in England, who he served as Minister of Transport and Minister of Aircraft Production during WWII.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Moore-Brabazon
1886 - Birth of Gunther Plüschow, German aviator, aerial explorer and author, Only German Prisoner of war (in either WW) to escape from britain back to Germany.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunther_Pl%C3%BCschow
1892 - Birth of Wilhelm Fahlbusch, German WWI flying ace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Fahlbusch - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/fahlbusch.php
1892 - Birth of William Spurrett Fielding-Johnson, British WWI flying ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Spurrett_Fielding-Johnson - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/fielding-johnson.php
1894 - Birth of Erich Bönisch, German WWI flying ace
http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/bonisch.php
1894 - Birth of Air Marshal William Avery "Billy" Bishop,Canadian WWI fighter ace, officially credited with 72 victories, making him the top Canadian ace, and according to some sources, the top ace of the British Empire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Bishop - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/canada/bishop.php
1896 - Birth of Bruce Digby-Worsley, British WWI fighter ace
http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/digby-worsley.php
1899 - Birth of Lester James Maitland, American aviation pioneer and a veteran pilot of WWI and WWII.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lester_J._Maitland
1902 - Birth of Gori Castellani, Italian raid aviator.
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gori_Castellani
1908 - 1st flight of The Gastambide-Mengin monoplane (later Gastambide-Mengin I, Gastambide-Mengin II and Antoinette II), early French experimental aircraft designed by Leon Levavasseur and 1st aircraft built by the Antoinette company
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastambide-Mengin_monoplane
1909 - Birth of Wassili Iwanowitsch Rakow, Soviet WWII Pilot and high ranking officer.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassili_Iwanowitsch_Rakow
1912 - Birth of Yoshio Hirose, Japanese sino-japanese war and WWII flying ace
http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/japan_hirose.htm - http://cieldegloire.com/010_hirose_y.php
1912 - Birth of Horst Ademeit, German WWII fighter ace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horst_Ademeit - http://cieldegloire.com/001_ademeit_horst.php
1912 - Robert Grant Fowler lands his Wright biplane in Jacksonville, Florida, after a 4 months west to east coast-to-coast journey.coming from San Francisco. He becomes the 1st person to traverse the US from the West Coast to the East Coast
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_G._Fowler
1913 – Russian pilot N. de Sackoff becomes the 1st pilot shot down in combat when his biplane, possibly a Maurice Farman MF.7, is hit by ground fire following bomb run on the walls of Fort Bizani during the First Balkan War. Flying for the Greeks, he comes down near small town of Preveza, on the coast N of the Aegean island of Levkas, secures local Greek assistance, repairs plane and resumes flight back to base.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bizani#Aerial_warfare
1914 - Hans Rudolf Berliner, Alexander Haase and A. Nikolai takes off in their free balloon from Bitterfeld to Perm for setting a new distance record.
1917 - 1st allied pilot to shoot down a German heavy bomber is French Georges Guynemer, bringing down a Gotha G.III with his Spad VII.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Guynemer#Early_life_and_military_career
1918 - Lafayette Escadrille, the US volunteer squadron serving in the French Army is transferred to the US Army and redesignated the 103rd Aero Squadron.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafayette_Escadrille
1919 - The Farman brothers make the 1st scheduled international flight in Europe when a Farman F.60 Goliath piloted by M. Lucien Bossoutrot carries a token load of military passengers between Toussus le Noble airfield outside Paris and Kenley in southern England.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farman_F.60_Goliath
1928 - Charles Lindbergh with the Spirit of St Louis completes the 7,800-mile (12,600 km) "Good Will Tour" of Latin America and the Caribbean after having spent 125 hours in the air
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lindbergh#Air_Mail_advocate
1933 - 1st flight of The Boeing Model 247, early US airliner, considered the 1st such aircraft to fully incorporate advances such as all-metal (anodized aluminum) semi-monocoque construction, a fully cantilevered wing and retractable landing gear.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_247
1933 - Squadron Leader O Gayford (officer in charge of the RAF Long Range Development Unit) and his navigator Flight Lieutenant G.E. Nicholetts lands their Fairey Long-Range Monoplane at Walvis Bay, South West Africa. Coming from Cranwell they set a 5,309 mile (8,544 km) flight, new distance record. They took 57 hours 25 minutes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Long-Range_Monoplane
1936 - 1st flight of the Morane-Saulnier M.S.350, French single-seat open-cockpit aerobatic biplane with equal-span wings, the independent main legs of the fixed landing gear being fully faired and fitted with streamlined wheel 'spats'.
http://www.aviastar.org/air/france/morane_ms-350.php - http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=8687
1941 - A fleet of Junkers Ju 52s is used to airlift German troops to North Africa.
1950 - A Lockheed P-2 Neptune of the US Navy establishes a distance record for carrier-launched aircraft flying 5,156 miles in 25 hours 59 minutes, non-stop from the Atlantic to San Francisco.
1951 - 1st flight of the Leduc 0.16, french research aircraft powered solely by a ramjet, evolution of the 0.10 featuring a Turbomeca Marbore I turbojet on each wingtip, to provide better control during landings
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leduc_0.10
1956 - 8 RAF Hunter F1 are redirected to another airfield due to adverse weather conditions. 6 of the 8 aircraft ran out of fuel and crashed, killing one pilot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_Hunter#Operational_history
1965 – After taking evasive maneuvers to avoid a mid-air collision immediately after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, Eastern Air Lines Flight 663 DC-7B crashes into the Atlantic Ocean and explodes, killing everyone aboard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Air_Lines_Flight_663
1966 - Freddie Laker founds Laker Airways
1967 - 1st flight of The Saab 37 Viggen, Swedish single-seat, single-engine, short-medium range fighter and attack aircraft,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_37_Viggen
1967 - Launch of Diadème D1C, French Satellite carrying a scientific payload consisting of two radio transmitters and a laser reflector
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diad%C3%A8me_(satellite)
1974 - Skylab 4 returns on Earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylab_4
1980 - The Eurocopter AS365 N Dauphin II breaks it's speed record for helicopter, flying from Issy-les-Moulineaux to Battersea at 321,91 km/h with 8 passengers, flying back the same day at an average speed of 281.05 km/h.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurocopter_AS365_Dauphin#AS.365_N_Dauphin_2_:_le_Dauphin_nouveau
1982 - Death of Vladimir Yevgeniyevich Turovets, Russian test pilot, killed in the crash of a Mi-8 Helicopter.
http://www.astronautix.com/astros/turovets.htm
1984 - Launch of Soyuz T-10, Russian expedition to Salyut 7 space station.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_T-10
1985 - Launch of Arabsat-1A, Saudi Arabian communications satellite, and BrasilSat A1, Brasilian communications satellite (1st brasilian artificial satellite).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabsat-1A - http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrasilSat_A1
1987 - Death of Otto “Otsch” Bertram, German Spanish war and WWII fighter ace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Bertram - http://www.luftwaffe.cz/bertram.html - http://www.cieldegloire.com/001_bertram_o.php
1989 - Independent Air Flight 1851, a Boeing 707, crashed into a hill on approach to Santa Maria, Azores, due to a misunderstanding between crew and ATC.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Air_Flight_1851
1993 - Iran Air Tours Tupolev Tu-154 departing on a non-scheduled flight from Mehrabad International Airport, Tehran, to Khoram Dareh is involved in a midair collision with an Iranian Air Force Sukhoi Su-24 that was on approach to the same airport.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Tours#Incidents_and_accidents
1999 - 1st flight of The Tupolev Tu-334, Russian short to medium range airliner project that was developed to replace the aging Tu-134s and Yak-42s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-334
2006 - Steve Fossett takes off The Scaled Composites Model 311 Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer for a world endurance record.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Atlantic_GlobalFlyer - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Fossett
2010 - Launch of STS-130 (ISS assembly flight 20A), NASA Space Shuttle Endeavour mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-130
2011 - 1st flight of the Boeing 747-8 Freighter, American wide-body jet cargoliner