FEB19
1881 - Birth of Paul Tissandier, son of aviator Gaston Tissandier, hot air balloon pilot, Early french aviator and record setter, pilot-pupil of Wilbur Wright who was also involved in the construction of hydro-gliders.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Tissandier - http://earlyaviators.com/etissand.htm
1891 - Birth of Auguste Joseph Marie Lahoulle, French WWI flying ace, WWII French Air force high ranking officer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_Lahoulle - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/france/lahoulle.php
1897 - Birth of John Geoffrey Sadler Candy, British WWI flying ace who served during WWII.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Candy_(RAF_officer) - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/candy.php
1899 - Birth of Cecil Frederick King, British WWI fighter ace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Frederick_King - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/king1.php
1901 - Birth of John Nelson Boothman, WWII Royal Air Force officer and Schneider trophy winner.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boothman
1906 - Birth of Louis Massotte, French aviator, Blériot chief pilot and record setter.
http://clec.uaicf.asso.fr/recherches_patrimoniales/louis_massotte.htm
1912 - 1st flight of the Zeppelin LZ11 'Viktoria Luise', introduced into service with the German airship civilian company DELAG.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Zeppelins
1915 - 1st flight of the Mann & Grimmer M.1, British two-seat biplane fighter prototype.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mann_%26_Grimmer_M.1 - http://www.aviastar.org/air/england/mann-grimmer_m-1.php
1916 - Death 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
1917 - 1st recorded casualty evacuation flight is carried out by the Royal Flying Corps (RFC), when a wounded trooper of the Imperial Camel Corps is flown from Bir-el-Hassana in the Sinai Desert to the airfield at Kilo 143 in an Royal Flying Corps aircraft. This would have been a three-day journey by the available surface transport, but the flight took 45 minutes.
1918 - The Dornier Rs.III, German large four-engined monoplane flying boat set off for 7-hour non-stop delivery flight from Friedrichshafen to Norderney.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornier_Rs.III#Operational_history
1919 - Death of Arthur Frederick Britton, British WWI flying ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Britton - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/britton.php
1919 - Birth of Russell E. "Russ" Schleeh, American WWII pilot and USAF test pilot who flew and tested virtually every bomber in the American Air Force up through the B- 52 Stratofortress and also fighters up through the Lockheed 104 Starfighter.
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/orangecounty/obituary.aspx?pid=157630245#fbLoggedOut
http://thetartanterror.blogspot.fr/2006/11/col-russell-eschleeh.html
1921 - Birth of Samuel Cochran Phillips, American WWII fighter pilot, USAF general, Director of NASA's Apollo Manned Lunar Landing Program and Director of the National Security Agency.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_C._Phillips
1926 - 1st flight of the Kawasaki Ka 87, Dornier N bomber aircraft designed in Germany for production in Japan issued from the Dornier Wal, landplane parasol-wing, strut-braced monoplane with two engines mounted in a Push-pull nacelle above the wing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kawasaki_Ka_87
1930 - Ralph O'Neil starts the 1st mail service of America airline New York, Rio and Buenos Aires Line (NYRBA) between Buenos Aires and New York. He takes off for the inaugural flight with a Sikorsky S-38 From Buenos Aires to Miami.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York,_Rio,_and_Buenos_Aires_Line
1932 - Birth of Joseph Peter Kerwin, American physician and former NASA astronaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_P._Kerwin
1933 - 1st flight of The Vultee V-1A, American single-engined low wing airliner
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vultee_V-1
1934 - The US Army Air Corps begins flying US airmail after the government cancels all existing airmail contracts due to alleged improprieties by the previous administration during the negotiations of those contracts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Mail_scandal
1934 - 1st flight of the Supermarine 224, British prototype fighter, open-cockpit monoplane with bulky gull-wings and a large fixed, spatted undercarriage issued from Supermarine seaplane racers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermarine_Type_224 - http://www.aviastar.org/air/england/supermarine_224.php
1936 - Death of Malcolm Charles McGregor, New Zealand WWI flying ace, Aviation Pioneer and air racer, director of Union Airlines of New Zealand, Killed in a crash at the Wellington airport whilst trying to land during a gale.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_C._McGregor - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/nzealand/mcgregor2.php
1936 - Death of William Lendrum "Billy" Mitchell, US Army general who is regarded as the father of the U.S. Air Force.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Mitchell
1941 - 1st flight of The Airspeed AS.45 Cambridge, British low-wing monoplane of composite construction with a single piston engine and a tailwheel-type, retractable undercarriage, advanced trainer prototype.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airspeed_Cambridge
1942 – "Pearl Harbor of Australia", largest attack ever mounted by a foreign power against Australia. Nearly 250 Japanese warplanes attack the northern Australian city of Darwin killing 243 people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Darwin
1948 - Birth of Byron Kurt Lichtenberg, Sc. D., American engineer, fighter pilot and Nasa Astronaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron_K._Lichtenberg
1949 - British European Airways Douglas Dakota colllided in midair with a RAF Avro Anson T21 over Exhall, Warwickshire, UK, killing all 24 on both planes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1949_Exhall_mid-air_collision
1952 - Birth of Rodolfo Neri Vela, Mexican scientist and astronaut. 1st Mexican and 2nd Latin-American, to have traveled to space.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodolfo_Neri_Vela
1953 - 1st flight of The North American AJ Savage Model AJ-2 , carrier-based bomber aircraft, version with uprated engines and a taller vertical stabilizer and non-dihedral tailplane.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_AJ_Savage
1955 - TWA Flight 260 Martin 4-0-4 crashed into the Sandia Mountains as the result of instrument failure, killing all 16.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_260
1956 - Birth of George David Low , American aerospace executive and NASA astronaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._David_Low
1957 - 1st flight of The Bell X-14 (Bell Type 68), US experimental VTOL aircraft. The main objective of the project was to demonstrate horizontal and vertical takeoff, hover, transition to forward flight, and vertical landing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_X-14
1965 - 1st flight of The Cessna 188 AGWagon, American light agricultural aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_188
1966 - Death of Étienne Romano, French aircraft designer and manufacturer.
http://www.cannes-aero-patrimoine.net/mediawiki/index.php/%C3%89tienne_Romano
1976 - Launch of MARISAT F1, 1st maritime telecommunications satellite designed to provide dependable telecommunications for commercial shipping and the U.S Navy from stable geosynchronous orbital locations over the three major ocean regions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marisat
1977 - Death of George Montague Cox, British WWI flying ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_M._Cox - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/cox2.php
1978 – Egyptian forces raid Larnaca International Airport in an attempt to intervene in a hijacking, without authorisation from the Republic of Cyprus authorities. The Cypriot National Guard and Police forces kill 15 Egyptian commandos and destroy the Egyptian C-130 transport plane in open combat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_raid_on_Larnaca_International_Airport
1982 - 1st flight of The Boeing 757, American mid-size, narrow-body, twin-engine jet airliner.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_757
1984 - 1st flight of the Boeing 737-400, American short- to medium-range, twin-engine narrow-body jet airliner, with a a further 10 ft (3.0 m) stretched fuselage, increasing the passenger load to 170
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737#Improved_variants
1985 - China Airlines Flight 006, a Boeing 747, miraculously survives a 30,000-foot (9,146 m) plunge over the Pacific Ocean near San Francisco.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Airlines_Flight_006
1986 - Launch of Mir, Soviet and later Russian space station.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir
1985 - Iberia Flight 610, a Boeing 727-256 crashed after hitting a television antenna installed on the summit of Monte Oiz while landing in Bilbao, killing 148 people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iberia_Airlines_Flight_610
1990 - Soyuz TM-8, soviet manned spaceflight to Mir, is back on earth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_TM-8
1990 - 1st flight by Doug Shane of The Scaled Composites ARES, American demonstrator aircraft built by the company Scaled Composites. ARES is an acronym for Agile Responsive Effective Support.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaled_Composites_ARES
1991 - 1st flight of the Dassault Mirage 2000D, conventional attack counterpart variant designed for long-range precision strikes with conventional weapons of the French twin seat Mirage 2000N.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dassault_Mirage_2000N/2000D#Mirage_2000D
1998 - Soyuz TM-26, Russian spacecraft that ferried cosmonauts and supplies to the Mir Station, is back on earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_TM-26
2002 – NASA's Mars Odyssey space probe begins to map the surface of Mars using its thermal emission imaging system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Odyssey
2002 - 1st flight of The Embraer E-170 , Brazilian narrow-body, twin-engine, medium-range, jet airliner.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embraer_E-Jet_family
2003 - An IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard) Ilyushin Il-76 crashed near Kerman, Iran killing all 275. No precise causes have been yet defined.
http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20030219-0 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Iran_Ilyushin_Il-76_crash
2008 - 1st flight of The Sukhoi Su-35 'Flanker E', Russian single-seat, twin-engined supermaneuverable multirole fighter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-35#Further_development
2014 - Death of Dale Allan Gardner, US Navy pilot and NASA astronaut.