MAY05
1887 - Birth of Charles Richard Fairey, British aircraft manufacturer, involved with the development of many of the companies most important products including; aircraft, rotorcraft, marine craft, mechanical engineering and rocketry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Richard_Fairey
1893 - Birth of Georges Charles Emmanuel Halberger, French WWI flying ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Halberger - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/france/halberger.php
1897 - Birth of Jean Marie Luc Gilbert Sardier, French WWI flying ace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Sardier - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/france/sardier.php
1904 - Birth of Squadron Leader Robert Kronfeld, Austrian-born gliding champion and sailplane designer. He became a British subject and an RAF test pilot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kronfeld
1908 - Birth of Mitsugu Mori, Japanese test pilot, Second Sino-Japanese War and WWII flying ace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsugu_Mori
1908 - Birth of Guido Nobili, Spanish war Italian flying ace and WWII pilot.
http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/italy_nobili.htm
1911 - 1st flight of the Narahara No.2 Aeroplane, Early Japanese biplane.
http://flyingmachines.ru/Site2/Crafts/Craft31293.htm
1912 - Birth of Nikolay Ivanovich Shmelkov, Soviet flying ace of the spanish war who also served in WWII
http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/soviet_shmelkov.htm
1913 - Birth of Robert William 'Bob' Prescott, American WWII flying ace , founder and president of Flying Tiger Line, pioneer of the air cargo industry.
http://www.cnac.org/prescott04.pdf - http://www.cieldegloire.com/014_prescott_r_w.php
1918 - Death of Giovanni Nicelli, Italian WWI flying ace, killed in action
http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Nicelli - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/italy/nicelli.php
1923 - Birth of Nikolai Vasilevich Sutyagin, Soviet WWII fighter pilot, Korean war fighter ace and high ranking officer.
http://acepilots.com/russian/rus_aces.html#sutyagin - http://www.cieldegloire.com/015_sutyagin_n_v.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolay_Sutyagin
1926 - 1st flight of The Wright XF3W 'Apache', American racing aircraft prototype built for the US Navy which setted some records.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_XF3W
1927 - Carleton Cole Champion took off from Hampton Roads, Va., in the Wright XF3W Apache, equipped with a Pratt & Whitney Wasp engine and NACA supercharger, and climbed to an altitude of 33,455 feet, breaking the existing world record for Class C seaplane
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=64501160 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_XF3W
1928 - USN LT’s Arthur Gavin and Zeus Soucek, with a PN-12 seaplane, flew a total of 36 hours and 1 minute, setting the world duration record for Class C seaplanes.
http://www.patriotspoint.org/news_events/naval-aviation-sets-seaplane-record-1928/
1930 - 1st solo flight from England to Australia by a woman begins with British Amy Johnson in her De Havilland D.H.60G Moth 'Jason'. She flies from Croydon, England to Darwin, Australia in 19 days.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Johnson
1930 - Birth of Michael James 'Mike' Adams, American aviator, engineer, USAF astronaut and X-15 Pilot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_James_Adams
1931 - Polish pilots Stanislaw Jakub Skarzynski and Andrzej Markiewicz complete a round-Africa flight with a Polish-designed aircraft PZL L-2, flying a distance of 25,770 km.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislaw_Skarzynski#Early_military_career
1931 - Richard Dick Waghorn lost control of his Hawker Horsley biplane bomber in high winds. He and his passenger parachuted from the aircraft but was seriously injured and died 2 days later.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Waghorn
1931 - Death of George Pearson Glen Kidston,record-breaking aviator and motor racing driver from Britain. His borrowed de Havilland Puss Moth broke up in mid-air while flying through a dust storm over the Drakensberg mountains (South Africa).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glen_Kidston
1934 - Carina Massone Negrone establishes her 1st altitude record (5 544m) with a Seaplane Class C.
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carina_Massone_Negrone
1941 - Birth of Anatoli Semyonovich Levchenko, Soviet cosmonaut.Mir LII-1 (Soyuz TM-4 / Soyuz TM-3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoli_Levchenko
1941 - Two Dutch pilots succeeded in evading an escorting German-flown Fokker G.I and escaped to England. Their G.IB was taken to the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, for examination, and used subsequently by Phillips and Powis (Miles Aircraft) at Reading for research into wooden construction.
http://www.aviastar.org/air/holland/fokker_g-1.php
1941 - Death of George Putnam Moody, Early american Air force pioneer, killed in the crash of a Beechcraft AT-10 Wichita, advanced two-engine training aircraft, he was testing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moody_Air_Force_Base
1942 - Operation Ironclad : British campaign to capture Vichy French-controlled Madagascar begins with a destructive surprise strike at dawn by aircraft from the British aircraft carrier HMS Indomitable on French airfields in the vicinity of Diego Suarez.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Madagascar
1947 - 1st tethered flight of The McDonnell XH-20 'Little Henry', American experimental lightweight helicopter to test the concept of using small ramjets at the tips of the rotor blades.
http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/mcdonnel_henry.php
1949 - Birth of Oleg Yur'yevich At'kov ,Russian cosmonaut.(Soyuz T-10/Soyuz T-11)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleg_Atkov
1950 - 1st production of Supermarine Attacker F.1 makes its 1st flight.
http://www.aviastar.org/air/england/supermarine_attacker.php
1950 - 1st flight of the Prototype Scottish Pioneer II (VL515) , civil registered as G-AKBF, re-engined version of the british STOL former prototype Pioneer I.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Aviation_Pioneer
1953 - Christopher Draper, WWI Ace & WWII Pilot, ("the Mad Major"), upset at the government's treatment of veterans, protest by flying under the Thames bridges.He flew a rented, 100 h.p. Auster monoplane under 15 of the 18 bridges. It was a spectacular stunt; the bridge arches were only 40 to 50 feet high; Draper was flying 90 mph and dodged around a ship. According to news accounts, he pulled off his stunt as a means of seeking attention and soliciting job offers. He was arrested, charged with flying too low in an urban area, and assessed a nominal ten guineas court costs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Draper
1958 - Birth of Lieutenant Colonel Ron Arad, Israeli Air Force weapon systems officer (WSO) who is officially classified as missing in action since October 1986, but widely presumed dead.(lost on a mission over Lebanon, captured by Shiite group Amal and was later handed over to the Hezbollah)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Arad_(pilot)
1958 - 1st flight of the Sud Aviation SE-116 'Voltigeur', french 3 seat antiguerilla twin engine low wing monopkane prototype.
http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=7352
1959 - A Kamov Ka-15S, Soviet 2 seat Helicopter, Set a record of 170.455km/h over 500km.
http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/ka-15.php
1960 - Birth of Douglas Harry "Wheels" Wheelock, American astronaut and the commander of International Space Station (ISS) Expedition 25.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_H._Wheelock
1961 - Commander Alan B. Shepard, Jr., U.S. Navy, becomes the 2nd man to explore space when he rides his Mercury Freedom 7 capsule, launched by a Redstone missile, to 115 miles above the Earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Shepard
1965 - Birth of Colonel Fei Junlong, Chinese military pilot and an astronaut. He flew on the 2nd manned spaceflight of the Shenzhou program.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fei_Junlong
1965 - Iberia Airlines Flight 401 Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation, on an aborted landing due to fog, struck a tractor about 50 meters (164 feet) from the runway centerline at Los Rodeos Airport in Tenerife. Unable to gain altitude, the plane crashed in the Los Rodeos gorge beside the runway, killing 30 over 49.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iberia_Airlines_Flight_401
1966 - BOAC Flight 911 crashed near Mount Fuji, Japan, after it encountered severe clear-air turbulence associated with lee waves, causing a sudden structural failure that initiated the in-flight breakup sequence, killing all 124.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOAC_Flight_911
1967 - Launch of Ariel 3, 1st artificial satellite designed and constructed in the UK.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_3
1968 - A Grumman Gulfstream II becomes the 1st executive jet to make a non-stop Atlantic crossing after completing a 3,500-mile (5,633 km) flight from Teterboro, New Jersey to London Gatwick.
1972 - Alitalia Flight 112 (McDonnell Douglas DC-8-43) crashed into Mount Longa, about 5 km (3 mi) south-west of Palermo while on approach.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alitalia_Flight_112
1983 - En route from Miami International Airport to Nassau International Airport, a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar, registration N334EA, experienced the loss of all three engines. Its pilot succeeded in restarting one engine in time to safely land the aircraft at Miami International Airport
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Air_Lines_Flight_855
1987 - Death of Roland Robert Stanford Tuck, British WWII fighter ace and test pilot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Stanford_Tuck - http://www.cieldegloire.com/002_raf_tuck_r_r_s.php - http://www.stanfordtuck.com/
1988 - Birth of Jessica Whitney Dubroff, a seven-year-old pilot trainee who died attempting to become the youngest person to fly an airplane across the United States.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Dubroff
1993 - Jet Airways, 2nd largest Indian airline, begin operations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_Airways
1998 - Fuerza Aérea del Peru Boeing 737-282 crashed on Approach in bad weather near Andoas, Peru killing 75 of the 88 people on board.
http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19980505-0&lang=en
2002 - Soyuz TM-33, manned Russian space to the ISS, is back on earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_TM-33
2004 - Air France and Netherlands-based KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines) merge, the two airlines are now known as Air France-KLM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France-KLM
2005 - Launch of Cartosat-1 (or IRS-P5), Indian stereoscopic Earth observation satellite.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartosat-1
2005 - 1st flight of the Dassault Falcon 7X ,large-cabin, long range business jet manufactured by Dassault Aviation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dassault_Falcon_7X
2007 - Kenya Airways Flight KQ 507, a Boeing 737-800, crashes after take off at Douala International Airport due to excessive bank following take-off.