JUNE12
1897 - Death of Friedrich Hermann Wölfert, German publisher and aviation pioneer, and his mechanic. They are killed in an accident when their airship 'Deutschland' powered by petrol caught fire at a demonstration at the Tempelhof field.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hermann_W%C3%B6lfert
1904 - Death of Henri Lachambre, French manufacturer of balloons and aeronaut
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Lachambre
1908 - Birth 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
1909 - Louis Blériot flies his Blériot XII monoplane at Issy-les-Moulineaux with two passengers, Alberto Santos-Dumont and André Fournier. This is the 1st time a pilot has flown with two passengers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bl%C3%A9riot_XII
1911 - French Alfred Leblanc sets a world speed record of 125 Km/h - 77.640 mph with a Blériot XXIII
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_airspeed_record - http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=9877
1917 - Death of ohn Arthur Vessey, British WWI flying ace, killed in a flying accident in his Sopwith 1½ Strutter .
http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/vessey.php
1918 - American aircraft of the 96th Aero Squadron carry out the 1st bombing raid by US aircraft on the Western Front, attacking the railway yards at Dommany-Baroncourt
1918 - Australian WWI fighter ace Roy Cecil Phillipps scored 4 victories on that single day with his S.E.5a
http://theaerodrome.com/aces/australi/phillipps.php
1919 - French aviatrix Baronne Delaroche sets a new altitude record of 15,748 feet (4,800 m).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Bancroft_Law
1924 – Birth of George Herbert Walker Bush, American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States And WWII Naval aviator.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._W._Bush
1929 - Birth of Joe Bailey Jordan, USAF test pilot
http://thetartanterror.blogspot.fr/2011/12/lt-col-joe-b-jordan-1929-1990.html
1930 - 1st flight of The Handley Page Heyford, twin-engine British biplane bomber of the 1930s. Last biplane heavy bomber to serve with the RAF.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handley_Page_Heyford
1934 - 1st flight of The Bristol Type 123, british prototype single-seat, single-engine biplane fighter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Type_123
1934 - Senator Hugo Black introduced the Black-McKellar Bill, later the Air Mail Act of 1934 to correct abuses of "fraud and collusion" in Air Mail services, causing Boeing Empire to break up into Boeing United Aircraft (Technologies) & United Air Lines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines#History - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Mail_scandal#Congressional_investigation
1940 - 1st flight of The Napier-Heston Racer (Heston Type 5 Racer or Heston High Speed Aircraft J.5), British single-seat racing monoplane prototype, private venture for an attempt on the World Air Speed Record.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napier-Heston_Racer
1942 - Operation ‘Squabble’ : Flight Lieutenant A.K. Gatward and Sergeant G. Fern of No.236 Squadron fly at low level to Paris in a Bristol Beaufighter. They proceed to fly along the Champs Elysees before dropping a large French tricolour over the Arc de Triomphe during routine daily parade of German occupation troops and strafing the Gestapo headquarters in the city.
http://www.unithistories.com/officers/RAFVR_officers_G01.html -
1942 - The U.S. Navy makes its 1st operational test with Loran (long-range navigation) equipment with a receiver mounted in a K-2 airship on a flight from the Lakehurst, N.J. Naval Air Station.
http://www.uscg.mil/history/stations/loran_volume_2.pdf
1943 - German Heinkel He 219 Uhu (“Eagle Owl”), German night fighter makes its combat debut in the early morning hours in an experimental flight piloted by Major Werner Streib. Streib shoots down 5 British bombers – 1 Lancaster and 4 Halifaxes – In a single sortie, but his He 219 is wrecked in a landing accident when he returns to base.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinkel_He_219#Operational_history - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Streib
1944 - While attacking Cambrai, France, an Avro Lancaster of No. 419 Squadron was shot down in flames. P/O Andrew Charles 'Andy' Mynarski, the mid upper gunner, made repeated attempts to free the tail gunner trapped in his turret. With clothing and parachute on fire, Mynarski finally gave up and jumped; he succumbed to his burns. Miraculously, the tail gunner survived the crash. Mynarski was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Mynarski#The_last_.22op.22
1948 - 1st flight of The Avro 701 Athena , British side by side advanced trainer aircraft designed to replace the North American Harvard in the RAF.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Athena
1949 - Birth of Yuri Mikhailovich Baturin, Russian cosmonaut and former politician.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Baturin
1950 - Air France Douglas DC-4-1009 'Ciel de Picardie' from Saigon to Paris with a stopover at Karachi Airport, crashed on approach to Bahrain killing 40 over 46
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950_Air_France_multiple_Douglas_DC-4_accidents#Accident_12_June_1950
1951 - 1st flight of The Max Holste MH.152, French 5-seat utility high-wing single engine monoplane prototype. Too small and underpowered it will be modified and will lead to the MH.1521 Broussard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Holste_Broussard
1951 - 1st flight of the English Electric Canberra T Mk.4, Trainer version of the british jet-powered light bomber.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Electric_Canberra#Photo-reconnaissance_and_conversion_roles
1953 - Death of Robert Arthur Grosvenor, British WWI fighter ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Grosvenor_(aviator) - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/grosvenor.php
1958 - Birth of Fernando "Frank" Caldeiro, Argentine-American engineer and NASA astronaut
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Caldeiro
1961 - KLM Flight 823 Lockheed L-188 Electra crashed on approach to Cairo International Airport in Egypt killing 20 over 36.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KLM_Flight_823
1965 - 1st flight of The Britten-Norman BN-2 Islander, British light utility aircraft, regional airliner and cargo aircraft, high-wing cantilever monoplane with a rectangular fuselage, two wing-mounted engines, conventional tail unit and fixed tricycle landing gear.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britten-Norman_Islander
1966 - 1st flight of The Dassault Mirage F2, French prototype two-seat attack fighter which was designed to serve as a test bed for the SNECMA TF306 turbofan engine and influenced the similar variable-geometry Dassault Mirage G.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dassault_Mirage_F2 - http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=1258
1967 - Launch of Venera 4, probe in the Soviet Venera program for the exploration of Venus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera_4
1972 - Cuban Air force pilot Eduardo Guerra Jiminez, who defected with his MiG-17 3 years before to the USA, hijack Delta Air Lines Flight 1061 back to Havana.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Cold_War_pilot_defections#Cuba
1972 - American Airlines Flight 96 McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10 suffered a cargo door failure while flying over Windsor, Ontario. The pilot managed to land safely. Despite this no modifications of the locking mechanism was made until the crash of Turkish Airlines Flight 981 McDonnell Douglas DC-10.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_96
1979 - 1st man-powered aircraft to cross the English Channel is the Gossamer Albatross, designed and built under the leadership of Paul MacCready. Flown by bicyclist Bryan Allen, it crosses from Folkestone, England to the French coast in two hours, 49 minutes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossamer_Albatross
1979 - 1st flight of The Rutan Model 61 Long-EZ, homebuilt aircraft with a canard layout designed by Burt Rutan's Rutan Aircraft Factory. It is derived from the VariEze,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutan_Long-EZ
1982 - 1st flight of The IAR-825 Triumf, Romanian single turbo prop tandem multirole trainer aircraft prototype based on the IAR-823.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAR_825
1982 - Final Black Buck mission, An Avro Vulcan B2 Bomber on Black Buck 7 long range Mission makes a conventional bombing attack on the facilities at Port Stanley airport, using a mixture of 1,000 pound (450 kilo) HE bombs and air-burst anti-personnel bombs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Black_Buck#Black_Buck_Seven
1984 - 1st flight of the Shenyang J-8II 'Finback-B' ,evolution for preseries of the high-speed, high-altitude Chinese-built single-seat interceptor fighter aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenyang_J-8
1985 - 1st flight of the Délémontez-Desjardins D01 'Ibis", French 3 seat low wing sport aircraft for amateur construction.
http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=9060
1994 - 1st flight of The Boeing 777, American long-range, wide-body twin-engine jet airliner, world's largest twinjet commonly referred as the "Triple Seven", Boeing's 1st fly-by-wire airliner and 1st entirely computer-designed commercial aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_777
1998 - STS-91, Space shuttle Discovery mission, final Space Shuttle mission to the Mir space station, is back on earth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-91
1999 - 1st flight of The Eurocopter EC 145, twin-engine light utility helicopter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurocopter_EC_145
1999 - Paris Air Show (Paris, France) – A Russian Air Force Sukhoi Su-30MKI demonstrator '01' (with canards and vectored thrust), crashed at Le Bourget Airport. At the completion of a downward spiralling maneuver, the tail contacted the grass surface. Sukhoi test pilot Vyacheslav Averynov ejected with navigator Vladimir Shendrikh.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_air_show_accidents_and_incidents#1999
2001 - 1st flight of the Westland Super Lynx 300, Evolution of the British multi-purpose military helicopter.
http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/lynx.php
2001 - Jetsgo Corporation, Canadian low-cost carrier begins operations.