JUL08
1838 - Birth of Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin (also known as Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin, Graf Zeppelin and in English, Count Zeppelin), German general and later aircraft manufacturer. He founded the Zeppelin Airship company.
1867 - 1st South American military balloon reconnaissance ascent is made by Lieutenant Colonel Roberto Adolfo Chodasiewicz, an Argentine Army military engineer, manning a Brazilian Army’s captive ballon over Paraguayan troops, during the Triple Alliance War.
http://www.earlyaviators.com/echodase.htm - http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Adolf_Chodasiewicz
1883 - Birth of Charles Rumney Samson, British naval aviation pioneer and WWI pilot.
1892 - Birth of Nikolai Nikolaevich Polikarpov, Soviet aircraft designer, known as "King of Fighters".
1908 - Thérèse Peltier, French sculptress and aviator believed to have been the 1st ever woman passenger in an airplane, flies with her husband Ferdinand Marie Léon Delagrange in Turin.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9on_Delagrange - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%A9r%C3%A8se_Peltier
1913 - Harry George Hawker, flying a Sopwith Bat Boat (British single-engined pusher biplane, 1st successful flying boat and amphibious aircraft built in the UK) wins the £500 Mortimer Singer prize for the 1st all-British amphibious aircraft
1918 - Death of Arthur Claydon, British WWI flying ace, Killed in action in his S.E.5a
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Claydon - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/claydon.php
1918 - Death of John Albert Edward Robertson Daley, British WWI flying ace, Killed in action in his S.E.5a
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Daley_(aviator) - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/daley.php
1919 - Birth of Hans-Dieter Frank, German Luftwaffe WWII night fighter ace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Dieter_Frank - http://www.cieldegloire.fr/001_frank_h_d.php
1928 - Zeppelin LZ-127 is christened 'Graf Zeppelin'
1932 - 1st flight of The Percival Gull, British single-engined monoplane, successful fast company transport, racing aircraft and long-range record breaker.
1932 - 1st flight of The Supermarine Scapa (Nanuk/Solent/Southampton X), British general reconnaissance biplane twin engined flying boat. Developed from the Southampton, it formed the basis of the later Stranraer flying boat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermarine_Scapa
1935 - Birth of Vitaly Ivanovich Sevastyanov, Soviet cosmonaut
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitali_Sevastyanov
1936 - 1st landing of an aircraft at Rhein-Main-Flughafen (Today Frankfurt am Main Airport) is made by a Junker Ju-52
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flughafen_Frankfurt_am_Main
1940 - The Boeing Model 307 Stratoliner, American commercial transport aircraft, is the 1st aircraft with a pressurized cabin to enter commercial service with Transcontinental Airways on the New York to Burbank in California route.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_307 -
1941 - 1st operation, against Wilhelmshaven, of the Fortress 1, RAF Boeing B-17s, 1st operation use of the Flying Fortress.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-17_Flying_Fortress#The_RAF -
1944 – Swordfish aircraft from the British Merchant Aircraft Carrier (or “MAC-ship”) MV Empire MacCallum mistakenly sink the Free French submarine La Perle. It is the only time that MAC-ship-based aircraft sink a submarine.
http://www.sectionrubis.fr/spip.php?article191
1946 - 1st flight of The Convair Model 110, unpressurized American airliner prototype which will lead to the CV-240 development.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convair_CV-240_family
1947 - 1st flight of The Yakovlev Yak-23 'Flora', Soviet jet fighter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakovlev_Yak-23
1947 – Reports are broadcast that a UFO crash landed in Roswell, New Mexico.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unidentified_flying_object#The_Kenneth_Arnold_sightings
1947 - 1st flight of The Boeing 377 'Stratocruiser', American large long range airliner, developed from the C-97 Stratofreighter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_377
1948 – The USAF accepts its 1st female recruits (Sergeant Esther McGowin Blake) into a program called Women in the Air Force (WAF).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_Air_Force_(WAF)#Recruits - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esther_Blake
1948 - 1st flight of The Ilyushin Il-28, Soviet jet bomber aircraft of the immediate post war period. It was the USSR's 1st such aircraft to enter large-scale production.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilyushin_Il-28
1953 – Sabena begins the 1st international helicopter service, linking Belgium, the Netherlands and France
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Aviation/Historical_anniversaries/July_in_aviation/July_8
1957 - 1st flight of The Bensen B-8M , small US single-seat autogyro.
http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/bensen_b-8m.php
1958 - 1st flight of The Borgward Kolibri, German three-seated utility helicopter, 1st German helicopter after WWII.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borgward_Kolibri
1959 - 1st Argentine Navy Carrier, ARA Independencia (V-1), is commissioned. Colossus-class light aircraft carrier, former HMS Warrior (R31),
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARA_Independencia_(V-1)
1960 - 1st flight of the Mikoyan-Gurevich Ye-150, prototype single-seat fighter/interceptor , part of the Mikoyan-Gurevich Ye-150 family.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_Ye-152
1961 - Death of Leonard Thomas Eaton 'Taps' Taplin, Australian WWI flying ace, aviation pioneer and commercial pilot, he pioneered the use of aerial photography for cartography.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Taplin - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/australi/taplin.php
1965 - Death of Albert Paul Mantz, American noted air racing pilot and movie stunt pilot, while flying the very unusual aircraft (Tallmantz Phoenix P-1) for the movie 'The Flight of the Phoenix'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Mantz
1965 - Canadian Pacific Airlines Flight 21 Douglas DC-6B from Vancouver to Prince George, crashed after three "mayday" calls. All 58 passengers and crew were killed. An inquest determined that the explosion was the result of a bomb, but the source of the bomb was never determined.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Pacific_Airlines_Flight_21
1972 - Death of Jan Willem Hugo Lambach, Dutch physics engineer and aircraft designer.
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Frank_Lambach
1976 - Launch of Palapa A1, Indonesian communication satellite.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palapa
1977 - Death of Katherine Stinson, US early female flier and aviation pioneer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Stinson
1983 - 1st flight of the Airbus A300-600, French short- to medium-range widebody jet airliner.
http://www.aviastar.org/air/inter/airbus-300.php
1985 - 1st flight if the Airbus A310-300, french medium- to long-range twin-engine widebody jet airliner.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A310#Variants - http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=3965
1988 - Death of Judith Margaret Chisholm (Born Lowe), British record aviatrix.
http://www.wingnet.org/rtw/RTW007R.HTM
1988 - 11-year old Chris Marshall takes off with a Mooney M20 for a flight from San Diego to Paris.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Aviation/Historical_anniversaries/July_in_aviation/July_8
1991 - A US Navy F/A-18 Hornet is forced to shoot down an E-2 Hawkeye after its crew abandons it following an engine fire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Aviation/Historical_anniversaries/July_in_aviation/July_8
1992 - 1st flight of The Bede BD-10, US attempt to introduce the world's 1st kit-built jet-powered general aviation supersonic aircraft
http://www.aviastar.org/air/usa/bede_bd-10.php
1994 - Launch of STS 65, Space Shuttle program mission of Columbia, Spacelab (SL) flight designed to conduct research in a microgravity environment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-65
1999 - Death of Charles "Pete" Conrad, Jr., American naval officer, test pilot, astronaut and engineer, and the third person to walk on the Moon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Conrad
2000 - Aerocaribe Flight 7831 British Aerospace Jetstream 32 struck the ground in a mountainous area near Chulum Juarez, Mexico in an attempt to circumvent severe weather, killing all 19 on board.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerocaribe_Flight_7831
2003 - Sudan Airways flight 139 Boeing 737-2J8C, plunged into a hillside 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) east of Port Sudan after a missed approach to the airport of Port Sudan, when the pilots attempted to land the aircraft following the loss of power on one of its engines that forced them to return.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudan_Airways_Flight_139
2006 - Aerospace scientists in Toronto conduct the 1st confirmed flight of a manned ornithopter (UTIAS Ornithopter No.1) operating under its own power. Assisted by a turbine jet engine, it flies of around 300 metres for 14 seconds.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTIAS_Ornithopter_No.1
2010 - Solar Impulse, Swiss long-range solar powered aircraft, sets an endurance record, landing after a 26-hour flight including nearly 9 hours of night flying, 1st entire diurnal solar cycle flight and 1st manned flight over night of a solar plane.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Impulse
2011 - Hewa Bora Airways Flight 952 Boeing 727-30 crashed at Bangoka International Airport, Kisangani, Democratic Republic of the Congo as it attempted to land during weather conditions that included heavy rain, and limited visibility, killing 74 over 118.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hewa_Bora_Airways_Flight_952
2011 - Launch of STS-135, last Atlantis Shuttle Mission and also last Space Shuttle Mission.