FEB18
1832 - Birth of Octave Chanute, French-born American railway engineer and aviation pioneer. He provided the Wright brothers with help and advice, and helped to publicize their flying experiments. At his death he was hailed as the father of aviation and the heavier-than-air flying machine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octave_Chanute
1838 - Birth of Ernst Mach, Austrian physicist and philosopher, noted for his contributions to physics such as the Mach number and the study of shock waves.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Mach
1882 - Birth of Adolf Heyrowsky, Austro Hungarian WWI flying ace who also served in WWII Luftwaffe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Heyrowsky - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Heyrowsky
1885 - Birth of Mario Faccioli, Italian aviation pioneer, 1st Italian aviator to fly on an airplane planned and constructed in Italy.
http://earlyaviators.com/efaccioli.htm - http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Faccioli
1889 - Birth of Kurt-Bertram von Döring, German WWI flying ace, advisor with the Argentinian Air Force and the Peruvian Air Force between the Wars and Officer in WWII.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt-Bertram_von_D%C3%B6ring - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/doring.php
1891 - Birth of Julius Busa, Austro Hungarian WWI flying ace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Busa - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/austrhun/busa.php
1892 - Birth of Marcel-Georges Brindejonc des Moulinais, French Pioneer aviator, raid pilot and WWI fighter pilot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Brindejonc_des_Moulinais
1895 - Birth of Jean-Paul Jacques Favre de Thierrens, French WWI flying ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Paul_Favre_De_Thierrens - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/france/favre.php
1895 - Birth of William Howard "Hank" Stovall, American WWI flying ace, Businessman and High Ranking officer in WWII.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Stovall
1896 - Birth of Edmond Eugene Henri Caillaux, French WWI flying ace.
http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/france/caillaux.php
1911 - 1st official airmail flight is made by Henri Pequet, French Aviator, in India. For an airshow, he delivered about 6,500 letters when he flew from Allahabad to Naini in a Sommer Biplane.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Pequet
1914 - Birth of Mario D'Agostini, Italian WWII Pilot.
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_D%27Agostini
1916 - 1st Austro-Hungarian ace to down 3 enemy aircrafts in one day, Heinrich Kostrba shot down 2 Caproni Ca.I and one Caudron with his Fokker E.I
http://theaerodrome.com/aces/austrhun/kostrba.php
1916 - Death of Alfredo Barbieri, Italian WWI pilot, killed in action.
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfredo_Barbieri
1918 - Death of Guy William Price, Irish WWI flying ace, killed in his Sopwith Camel by german ace Theodor Rumpel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_William_Price - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/ireland/price1.php
1919 - Death of Herbert Andrew Patey, British WWI flying ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_A._Patey - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/patey.php
1919 - Death of Leonard Allen Payne, South African WWI flying ace, Killed in a plane crash while serving in the Army of Occupation in Germany.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_A._Payne - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/safrica/payne2.php
1920 - The Canadian Air Force is formed as a separate service.
1921 - 1st succesful flight with a helicopter by Étienne Oehmichen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etienne_Oehmichen
1923 - 1st flight of the Graz VL-1 Maulwurf I, Austrian Single-seat Hang Glider
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graz_VL-1_Maulwurf_I
1923 - The Canadian Air Force is granted the prefix 'Royal'.
1924 - 1st flight of the Latécoère 5, French 3-engined biplane night bomber prototype based on the Latécoère 4 passenger aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lat%C3%A9co%C3%A8re_5
1930 – Elm Farm Ollie ("Nellie Jay" and post-flight as "Sky Queen") becomes the 1st cow to fly in a fixed-wing aircraft and also the first cow to be milked in an aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elm_Farm_Ollie
1930 - Birth of Theodore Cordy 'Ted' Freeman, NASA astronaut and captain in the USAF.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Freeman
1931 - Birth of Marat Nikolayevich Tishchenko, Russian Helicopter designer for MIL.
http://www.aviastar.org/people/mil/index_2.html
1934 – The American World War I ace Eddie Rickenbacker and a Transcontinental & Western Air team including Jack Frye, “Tommy” Tomlinson, Larry Fritz, Paul E. Richter, Si Morehouse, Harlan Hull, John Collings, and Andy Andrews, set a new record for a transcontinental flight across the United States, flying the Douglas DC-1 from Burbank, California, to Newark, New Jersey, in 13 hours 4 min.
1936 - 1st flight of 2nd prototype Caudron C.690M, single-seat training aircraft developed in France to train fighter pilots to handle high-performance aircraft. It was a conventional low-wing cantilever monoplane that bore a strong resemblance to designer Marcel Riffard's racer
http://www.aviastar.org/air/france/caudron_c-690.php
1936 - 1st flight of The Grumman XSBF, American biplane scout bomber prototype developped for the US Navy, issued from the Grumman FF/SF 'Fifi'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_XSBF
1938 - Death of Lu Ji-Chun, Chinese Sino-Japanese war flying ace, killed in action in his Polikarpov I-15bis
http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/china_ji-chun.htm
1939 - 1st flight of The Martin PBM Mariner, American patrol bomber twin engine gull wing flying boat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_PBM_Mariner
1941 - 1st flight of The Grumman XP-50, American twin engine fighter prototype, land-based development of the shipboard F5F-1 Skyrocket fighter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_XP-50
1943 - The North Western African Air Force (NAAF) is formed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_African_Air_Forces
1944 - Operation Jericho: de Havilland Mosquitos of No. 487 Squadron, Royal New Zealand Air Force and No. 464 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, breach the prison walls at Amiens, France, allowing captured members of the French Resistance to escape.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Jericho
1945 - Luftwaffe test Pilot Erwin Ziller runs into problems 45 minutes into the 3rd flight of the flying wing Horten H.IX V2 when he suffers a failure of one of the jet engines, aircraft spins to starboard and crashes just outside the airfield perimeter. Ziller will die from his injuries 2 weeks later.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horten_Ho_229#Operational_history
1951 - Death of Lyman Wiswell Gilmore, Jr., American Aviatiobn pioneer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyman_Gilmore
1956 - Scottish Airlines Avro York crashed after take off from Malta International Airport after N° 1 engine failed. Loss of speed and consequent loss of control through an error of judgement of the pilot leaded to the crash that killed all 50 on board.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1956_Scottish_Airlines_Malta_air_disaster
1958 - A Martin RB-57A Canberra operated by the Republic of China Air Force is shot down over Shandong by a Chinese Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_B-57_Canberra#Reconnaissance_and_Electronic_warfare_B-57s
1959 - Death of Carlos Viegas Gago Coutinho, generally known simply as Gago Coutinho, Portuguese aviation pioneer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gago_Coutinho
1963 - Death of Cosimo Rizzotto, Italian WWI flying ace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosimo_Rizzotto - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/italy/rizzotto.php
1964 - Death of Joseph-Armand Bombardier, Canadian inventor and businessman, and founder of Bombardier.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph-Armand_Bombardier
1966 - Death of Grigori Grigoyevich Nelyubov, Soviet cosmonaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Nelyubov
1967 - 1st flight of the CEA (Now Robin) DR-221 'Dauphin', French 4 Seat conventional landing gear single-engined light touring or training cabin monoplane.
http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=1641
1969 – Hawthorne Nevada Airlines Flight 708 Douglas DC-3 crashes into Mount Whitney killing all on board.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_Nevada_Airlines_Flight_708
1973 - Daniel Bouchart and Didier Potelle land 19,568 feet up on the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania in an SA 319 B Alouette II helicopter.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alouette_III
1977 - 1st flight of Space Shuttle Enterprise atop a Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) to measure structural loads and ground handling and braking characteristics of the mated system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Enterprise
1979 - Launch of SAGE (Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment), Nasa Atmosphere satellite to study dust and liquid droplets in upper atmosphere
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_Aerosol_and_Gas_Experiment
1981 - Death of John Knudsen "Jack" Northrop, American aircraft industrialist and designer, who founded the Northrop Corporation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Northrop
1991 - Death of Liu Chi-Sheng, Chinese Sino-Japanese war flying ace, leading ace of the Republic of China Air Force and high ranking officer post war
http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/china_chi-sheng.htm
2010 - Andrew Joseph Stack III deliberately flew his Piper PA-28-236 Dakota into Building 1 of the Echelon office complex in Austin, Texas, in an apparent revenge attack on the Internal Revenue Service office located there.