JUL05
1802 - French André-Jacques Garnerin made a balloon ascent with Edward Hawke Locker from Lord's Cricket Ground, travelling the 17 miles from there to Chingford in just over 15 minutes and carrying a letter of introduction signed by the Prince Regent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9-Jacques_Garnerin
1883 - Birth of Jacques Benjamin de Lesseps, French aviator and 2nd man to fly the English Channel by airplane.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_de_Lesseps
1893 - Birth of Gustav Tweer, German aviation Aerobatic Pioneer.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Tweer
1896 - Birth of Harold Francis "Kiwi" Beamish, New-Zealand WWI flying ace.
http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/nzealand/beamish.php
1897 - Birth of Gorman DeFreest Larner, American WWI flying ace, and WWII USAAF senior officer. He helped to set up the New York National Air Guard and was Chairman of Robinson Aviation, Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeFreest_Larner - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/usa/larner.php
1898 - Birth of William Carrall Hilborn, Canadian WWI flying ace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Carrall_Hilborn - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/canada/hilborn.php
1908 - Birth of Pierre Pharabod, French commercial pilot and raid aviator.
http://aviateur-pharabod.monsite-orange.fr/
1910 - Herbert 'Bert' Pither is reputed to have flown the 1st metal-framed aircraft at Riverton, New Zealand
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_Pither
1912 - French Georges Legagneux sets a record speed and endurance flight with passenger (124 km/h and 150 Km in 1h 19 min) with the Zens Monoplane N°3.
http://www.precurseursaviation.com/zens.htm
1912 - RFC Captain Eustace Broke Loraine and his observer Staff Sergeant R.H.V. Wilson, flying a Nieuport Monoplane out of Larkhill, Wiltshire, England, on a routine morning practice sortie, crashed. 1st Flying Corps personnel to die in an aircraft crash while on duty.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eustace_Loraine#Death - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._3_Squadron_RAF#Foundation_and_First_World_War
1912 - Captain Charles Chandler and Lieutenants Thomas Milling and Henry Arnold are presented with certificates qualifying them as the U.S.'s 1st "Military Aviators."
1915 - Birth of Alfredo Fusco, Italian WWII pilot.
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfredo_Fusco
1915 - German Army airship Schutte-Lanz SL5 is wrecked after it is forced to land during a gale on its 2nd flight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sch%C3%BCtte-Lanz_airships#SL5
1917 - 1st flight of The Fokker Dr.I Dreidecker, famous WWI German triplane fighter aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fokker_Dr.I
1917 - 1st flight of The Fairey N.9 (also known as the F.127), British experimental floatplane, compact biplane with single-bay wings of unequal span that folded back for shipboard stowage, and which carried out the 1st shipborne catapult launches from Royal Navy ships.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_N.9
1919 - A Handley Page V/1500, on an attempt a non-stop Transatlantic flight from Newfoundland to New-York is forced to land in Parrsboro, Nova Scotia for repairs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handley_Page_V/1500#Service
1921 - 1st flight of The de Havilland DH.29 Doncaster, British high-wing cantilever long range monoplane long-range prototype aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Doncaster
1927 - Lady Mary Bailey establishes a new light airplane altitude record of 17,283 feet, in a de Havilland D.H. 60 Cirrus Moth, at the company's airfield in Edgeware, Middlesex.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Bailey_(aviator)
1928 - Arturo Ferrarin and Carlo Del Prete, Land their Savoia-Marchetti S.64 near Natal, Brazil, coming from Montecelio, italy after a 49 h 19 m and 7 188 km flight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savoia-Marchetti_S.64
1929 - Curtiss-Wright Corporation is formed, result of a merger of 12 companies associated with Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company of Buffalo, New York, and Wright Aeronautical of Dayton, Ohio,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtiss-Wright
1929 - Ryan Aircraft Corporation is incorporated into Detroit Aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_Aircraft_Corporation#Subsidiaries
1937 - Imperial Airways and Pan American World Airways (Pan-Am) undertake the 1st North Atlantic flying-boat route survey.
1942 - 1st flight of The Avro York, British transport aircraft derived from the Lancaster heavy bomber, and used in both military and airliner roles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_York
1943 - Death of Franco Lucchini, Spanish war and WWII italian fighter ace, called "Baracca della seconda guerra mondiale", one of the highest-ranking Italian ace, Bailing out too low from his Macchi 202 damaged by spitfires as he was attacking a B-17 formation near Scordia, Sicily.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco_Lucchini - http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/italy_lucchini.htm -
http://www.century-of-flight.net/Aviation%20history/WW2/aces2/lucchini.htm
1943 - Death of Leonardo Ferrulli, Spanish war and WWII italian fighter ace, His Macchi C.202 shot by a spitfire just after having destroyed a B-17 and a P-38, he bailed out too low for his parachute to open.
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_Ferrulli
1944 - 1st fligth of The glider test prototype Northrop XP-79 (Mx-324), ambitious American design for a flying wing fighter aircraft, towed into the air by a P-38 Lightning.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_XP-79
1945 - 1st prototype Mikoyan-Gurevich I-250 suffers failure of port tailplane at low altitude after it exceeded the airframe's G limit while maneuvering, killing test pilot Alexandr Deyev, when his parachute fails to open in time
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_I-250#Design_and_development
1945 - 1st flight of The Fairey Spearfish, British torpedo bomber prototype, one of the largest single-engine aircraft to ever operate from a British aircraft carrier.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Spearfish
1945 – American Airlines acquires American Export Airlines and forms American Overseas Airlines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Overseas_Airlines#Postwar_operations
1952 - Neal Stewart of Birmingham, Alabama, sets a world record of 124 parachute jumps in one day at Grand Prairie, Texas.
1952 - Birth of Terence Thomas "Tom" Henricks, USAF test pilot and NASA astronaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_T._Henricks
1955 - The sole Supermarine Type 525, British prototype naval jet fighter aircraft, was unable to recover from a flat spin 20 minutes after take-off and crashed killing the pilot Lieutenant Commander T.A. Rickell.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermarine_525
1958 - 1st flight of The Bristol Type 192 Belvedere, British twin-engine, tandem rotor military helicopter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Belvedere
1960 - Bell Aerospace, part of Bell Aircraft corporation, is purchased by Textron Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Aircraft#After_World_War_II
1969 - 1st flight of The Shenyang J-8, high-speed, high-altitude Chinese-built single-seat interceptor fighter aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenyang_J-8
1970 - Air Canada Flight 621 McDonnell Douglas DC-8-63 crashes on approach near Toronto International Airport after a 1st heavy landing, killing 108.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Canada_Flight_621
1975 - Death of Otto Skorzeny, SS-Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel) in the German Waffen-SS during WWII, field commander to carry out the rescue mission that freed the deposed Italian dictator Benito Mussolini from captivity during the Gran Sasso raid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Skorzeny
1978 - Soyuz 30, manned Soviet space flight to the Salyut 6 space station, is back on earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_30
1979 - Death of Emile Dewoitine, French aviation pioneer and aircraft manufacturer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emile_Dewoitine
1988 - Launch of Okean-O1, Soviet Satellite, all-weather radar oceanographic systems primarily designed to monitor sea-ice conditions in the Arctic seas
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraftDisplay.do?id=1988-056A
1999 - Death of Mikhail Nikolaevich Yakushin, Soviet flying ace during the Spanish war, high ranking officer during and post WWII.
http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/soviet_yakushin.htm
2002 - Launch of Stellat 5, french Civilian communications satellite, and NStar c, japanese Civilian communications satellite.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Bird_3#Historique
2006 – North Korea tests four short-range missiles, one medium-range missile, and a long-range Taepodong-2. The long-range Taepodong-2 reportedly fails in mid-air over the Sea of Japan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_missile_test,_2006
2008 - American Kent Couch makes a Cluster Balloons Ride in a lawn chair, successfully crossing the desert border, landing near Cambridge, Idaho.
http://www.couchballoons.com/2008-flight/story
2010 - Romanian Air Force Antonov AN-2T carrying paratroopers crashed on take off at the end of the runway at Tuzla Airfield, Romania, and burned. 12 over 14 were killed.
http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20100705-0
2012 - Death of Tex Amanda Meachem (Born Brown), former Women Air force Service Pilot during WWII
http://www.eaglebulletin.com/obituaries/2012/jul/13/tex-meachem/