JUNE17
1876 - Birth of Robert Joseph Collier, American aviator, editor of Collier's Weekly and president of the Aero Club of America.
1888 - Birth of Anthony Herbert William Wall, British WWI fighter ace as rear gunner.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Wall_(aviator) - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/wall.php
1894 - Death of Hermann Lattemann, German balloon pilot and inventor who experimented with an early prototype of a parachute. The main invention was to have parachutes folded and packed in bags. Lattemann died during a test. His parachute failed to open, although his wife's parachute did open, when they both jumped out of a balloon named "Fin de Siècle".
1896 - Birth of Cedric Ernest "Spike" Howell, Australian WWI fighter ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedric_Howell - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/australi/howell1.php
1897 - Birth of Sumner Sewall, American WWI fighter ace, Airline executive and politician.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumner_Sewall - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/usa/sewall.php
1905 - 1st flight of the 1st italian airship 'Italia'.
1909 - Handley Page Limited was founded.
1910 - 1st flight of The A. Vlaicu No. 1, Romanian reconnaissance aircraft.
1912 - Death of Julia Clark, 3rd woman to receive a pilot's license from the Aero Club of America (though British), and 1st female pilot to die in an air crash in the USA. Visibility was poor, and, on takeoff, one wing struck a tree limb, and the plane, a Curtiss pusher, tumbled to the ground, pinning her beneath the wreckage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Clark - http://www.earlyaviators.com/eclarkju.htm
1915 - Death of Reginald Alexander John Warneford, WWI Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) Pilot, killed with his passenger, American journalist H.A. Needham, when his Henri Farman F27 two-seat reconnaissance bomber of rolled over during a steep turn near Paris, the righthand wings collapsing and leading to a catastrophic failure of the airframe.
1916 - Jean Navarre, WWI french ace, is shot down and wounded, sustaining severe head injuries from which he never fully recovered. This ended his combat career with 12 confirmed kills.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Navarre - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/france/navarre.php
1916 - 1st flight of The Royal Aircraft Factory R.E.8, British two-seat biplane reconnaissance and bomber aircraft.
1917 - Zeppelin Lz95 (L 48) is intercepted and destroyed by British fighters over sea near Great Yarmouth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Zeppelins#Zeppelins_constructed_during_World_War_I
1918 - Death of John Seymour Turnbull, Australian WWI flying ace, killed in action in his S.E.5a
http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/australi/turnbull.php
1918 - Death of Frank Leaman Baylies, American WWI flying ace, killed in his SPAD XII against Fokker DRI Triplanes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Baylies - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/usa/baylies.php
1919 - Birth of Robert William Deiz, American WWII fighter pilot with the Tuskegee Airmen.
1921 - Birth of Margaret Ray Ringenberg, American aviator who logged more than 40,000 hours of flying time during her career.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Ringenberg
1922 - 1st Finnish parachute jump is made by E. Erho from a Grigorovich M-16 (ShCh M-16, sometimes also Shchetinin M-16), Russian biplane flying boat of the Farman type.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigorovich_M-16
1922 - To mark the centennial of Brazil's independence, Portuguese naval aviators Gago Coutinho and Sacadura Cabral lands their Fairey III-D MkII seaplane specifically fitted with an artificial horizon for aeronautical use in Rio de Janeiro. This invention revolutionized air navigation at the time. It was the 1st aerial crossing of the South Atlantic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_aerial_crossing_of_the_South_Atlantic
1923 - Birth of Stuart Row Childs, American WWII pilot, and chief test pilot who flew the X1-B and the X-18
http://www.astronautix.com/astros/childs.htm
1928 - Death of Oliver Henry Douglas Vickers, British WWI flying ace.
http://theaerodrome.com/aces/england/vickers.php
1928 - Amelia Earhart becomes the 1st woman to fly across the Atlantic as a passenger as she accompanies pilot Wilmer Stiltz and mechanic Louis Gordon on their flight from Newfoundland to Wales in a Fokker F.VIIb/3m 'Friendship', from Trepassey Harbor, Newfoundland and landing at Burry Port (near Llanelli), Wales, United Kingdom, exactly 20 hours and 40 minutes later.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_Earhart - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fokker_F.VII#Pioneers_and_explorers
1929 - Imperial Airways Handley Page W.10 'City of Ottawa' suffered an engine failure and subsequently ditched in the English Channel off Dungeness with the loss of 7 lives over 13.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Imperial_Airways_Handley_Page_W.10_crash
1934 - French aviatrix Maryse Hilsz sets a woman altitude record of 11800 m with a Morane
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryse_Hilsz#Liste_non_exhaustive_de_records
1936 - 1st flight of The Vickers Type 279 Venom, british prototype low-wing monoplane single-seat, single-engined, eight-gun fighter, powered by a radial engine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickers_Venom
1940 - RMS Lancastria is sunk by Luftwaffe Junkers 88 near Saint-Nazaire, France, while taking part in Operation Ariel, the evacuation of British nationals and troops from France, two weeks after the Dunkirk evacuation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Lancastria
1940 - General Charles de Gaulle fly to England as chief of the Free French Forces with the de Havilland Flamingo lent by Winston Churchill for the ultimate negociations.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_de_Gaulle#Seconde_Guerre_mondiale
1940 – 1st RCAF Operation in Newfoundland: A detachment of 5 Douglas B-18 Digby’s from No. 10 (BR) Squadron at Dartmouth, commenced operation from Gander Airport.
1941 - 1st flight of The Brewster SB2A Buccaneer, US single-engined mid-wing monoplane scout/bomber aircraft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewster_SB2A_Buccaneer
1943 - Birth of Elbert Leander "Burt" Rutan, American aerospace engineer noted for his originality in designing light, strong, unusual-looking, energy-efficient aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burt_Rutan
1944 - Death of Tomesaku Igarashi, Sino-Japanese and WWII Japanese fighter ace, known as the 'P-38 killer', killed in action by Spitfires above Bishenpur.
http://www.cieldegloire.com/010_igarashi_t.php
1946 - 1st flight of The Lockheed Model 75 Saturn, American high wing twin engine small feeder airliner prototype.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Saturn
1947 - Pan American World Airways opened the 1st ever regularly scheduled around-the-world service with Constellation L749 Clipper America. Pan Am westbound Flight 1 originated in San Francisco with stops including Honolulu, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Manila, Kolkata, Delhi, Beirut, Istanbul, Frankfurt, London, and finally New York.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_American_World_Airways
1948 - 1st flight of the The Bréguet Br 900 'Louisette', French short span, single seat competition sailplane.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%C3%A9guet_Br_900_Louisette - http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=9763
1948 – United Airlines Flight 624 Douglas DC-6 crashes near Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, killing all 43 people on board.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_624
1952 - Death of John Whiteside Parsons (born Marvel Whiteside Parsons), better known as Jack Parsons, American rocket propulsion researcher at the California Institute of Technology. He was one of the principal founders of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Aerojet Corp.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Whiteside_Parsons
1955 - 1st flight of The Tupolev Tu-104 (NATO reporting name: Camel) twin-engined medium-range turbojet-powered Soviet airliner and world's 1st successful jet airliner
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-104
1955 - 1st flight of The Bensen B-7, American small rotor kite marketed for home building.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bensen_B-7
1956 - Convair F-102 Delta Dagger after many modifications and design changes is redesignated F-106 Delta Dart.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convair_F-106_Delta_Dart
1959 - The Kamov Ka-22 Vintokryl, soviet rotorcraft developed by Kamov for the Soviet Air Force makes its 1st lift from the ground. This experimental transport aircraft combined the capabilities of a helicopter for vertical take-off and landing with those of a fixed-wing aircraft for cruise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamov_Ka-22
1959 - 1st flight of The Dassault Mirage IV, French jet supersonic strategic bomber and deep-reconnaissance aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dassault_Mirage_IV - http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=9669
1961 - 1st flight of The Hindustan Aeronautics HF-24 Marut, Indian fighter-bomber and India's 1st jet aircraft. The wooden mock-up of the aircraft was flyable as an air-launched glider.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_HF-24_Marut
1962 - Death of August Delling, German WWI flying ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Delling - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/delling.php
1965 - US Navy F-4 Phantoms from VF-21 shoot down 2 North Vietnamese Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17s. 1st confirmed kills achieved by a USN squadron during the course of vietnam War.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VF-21
1977 - Death of Evander Shapard, American WWI flying ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evander_Shapard - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/usa/shapard.php
1982 - 1st flight of The Kamov Ka-50 "Black Shark" (NATO reporting name: Hokum A), single-seat Russian attack helicopter with the distinctive coaxial rotor system of the Kamov design bureau
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamov_Ka-50
1983 - 1st flight of The Robin ATL prototype (Avion Très Léger), French two-seat light aircraft designed to meet a need for an economical 2-seat aircraft to equip flying clubs, single-engined monoplane with a fixed undercarriage fitted with a V-tail.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_ATL - http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=9857
1985 - Death of Friedrich-Wilhelm "Fritz" Morzik, German WWI pilot, Sports pilot, and WWII luftwaffe high ranking officer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Morzik
1985 - Launch of STS-51-G with Space Shuttle Discovery. Sultan Salman Al Saud of Saudi Arabia was on board as a payload specialist; Al Saud became the 1st Arab, the 1st Muslim, and the 1st member of a royal family to fly into space.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-51-G
1986 – Last flight ever by a Boeing B-47E Stratojet, restored to flight status for a one-time-only ferry move from Naval Weapons Center China Lake, California to Castle Air Force Base, California for museum display.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-47_Stratojet#Later_years
1988 - Soyuz TM-4, soviet space mission to dock with the space station Mir, is back on earth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_TM-4
1989 - Death of Stanley David Griggs, USN officer and NASA astronaut, in the crash of a vintage WWII training aircraft he was piloting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._David_Griggs
1993 - Death of Ramón Salas Larrazábal, Spanish officer, parachutism pionneer and historian.
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram%C3%B3n_Salas_Larraz%C3%A1bal
1997 - 1st flight of The Eurocopter EC155B, long-range medium-lift passenger transport helicopter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurocopter_EC155 - http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=9343
2005 - The sole CarterCopter, American experimental compound autogyro to demonstrate slowed rotor technology, crashed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CarterCopter
2007 - Death of Edward Hamilton "Easy Ed" Taylor, USAF WWII and Korean War fighter pilot.
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/statesman/obituary.aspx?n=edward-hamilton-taylor&pid=89434708