OCT05
1751 - Italian Andrea Grimaldi, exhibits a flying carriage: the machine, which remains untested, has a complex structure and a wingspan of 22 feet.
http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/11/assets/flight_chart.html
1882 - Birth of Robert Hutchings Goddard, American professor, physicist and inventor who is credited with creating and building the world's 1st liquid-fueled rocket.
1885 - Birth of Wilhelm Cymera, German WWI flying ace.
http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Cymera - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/cymera.php
1885 - Birth of Henri François Languedoc, French WWI flying ace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Languedoc - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/france/languedoc.php
1887 - Birth of Gustav Dörr, German WWI fighter ace and 1 of the 1st postwar commercial airline pilot with Deutsche Luft Hansa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_D%C3%B6rr - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/dorr.php
1892 - Birth of Archibald "Archie" Buchanan, American WWI flying ace
1893 - Birth of Wilhelm "Willi" Stör, German WWI fighter ace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_St%C3%B6r - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/stor.php
1900 - 1st flight of the 1900 Wright Glider as an unmanned kite. It was Wright brothers' 1st glider to be capable of carrying a man.
1905 - Wilbur Wright flies the Flyer III over Huffman Prairie 24.5 miles (39.4 km) in 38 minutes and 3 seconds, ending with a safe landing when the fuel ran out
1907 - British Army Dirigible No 1, christened Nulli Secundus makes a spectacular flight from Farnborough over the capital city of London. The flight lasted for 3 hours and 25 minutes and covered 50 miles (80 km) overland.
1908 - Zeppelin-airship LZ IV is destroyed by fire at Echterdingen after a storm tore the airship away from its anchorage.
1914 - 1st aircraft to be shot down in a dogfight is a German Aviatik B.I. Victory claimed by French pilot Joseph Frantz et his mechanic Louis Quénault in an Army-owned Voisin III biplane.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Frantz - http://vieillescasseroles.free.fr/1erevictoire.html
1916 - Aircraft Transport and Travel Limited, British airline, is formed. It was the 1st airline to operate a regular international flight (between London and Paris).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Transport_and_Travel
1918 - Death of Girolamo "Gino" Allegri, Italian WWI pilot, killed in a flying accident
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gino_Allegri
1918 - Death of Roland Garros, early French raid aviator and WWI fighter pilot, killed in his Spad XIII.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Garros_(aviator)
1919 - Death of Marcel Joseph Maurice Nogues, French WWI fighter ace and balloon buster.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Nogues - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/france/nogues.php
1919 - Death of Townsend Foster Dodd, American aviation pioneer, Killed in an air crash.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Townsend_F._Dodd
1922 - Lieutenants John Macready and O.G. Kelly takes off in San Diego California in their Fokker T-2 monoplane for a new world flight endurance record.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_A._Macready#Mackay_Trophy - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fokker_T-2
1922 - 1st woman passenger to make a non-stop transcontinental flight, Lillian Gatlin takes off in a Post Office DH-4, from San Francisco, California to Mineola, New York
1929 - 1st flight of The Boeing Model 40B-4, American biplane mail plane, 1st plane in the Model 40 series to use the two-way radio, designed by Thorpe Hiscock, William Boeing's brother-in-law.
http://www.boeing.com/history/chronology/chron03.html
1929 - Birth of Richard Francis 'Dick' Gordon, Jr., USN pilot and NASA astronaut, one of only 24 people to have flown to the Moon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_F._Gordon,_Jr.
1930 - Birth of Pavel Romanovich Popovich, Soviet pilot and Cosmonaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Popovich
1930 - British airship R.101 crashes in France near Beauvais while en route to Egypt and India. Forty-seven people are killed. It ended British airship development.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_airship_R.101
1930 - Death of William Sefton Brancker (commonly known as Sir Sefton Brancker), British civil and military aviation pioneer, Killed in the Airship R-101 crash.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sefton_Brancker
1930 - Laura Ingalls takes off from Roosevelt Field, New York with her D.H. Gipsy Moth bi-plane for the 1st woman transcontinental airplane flight to Grand Central Air Terminal, Glendale, California.
1931 - Hugh Herndon and Clyde Pangborn crash-landed their Bellanca Skyrocket J-400 'Miss Veedol' at Wenatchee, Washington, 1st non-stop flight across the Pacific Ocean flying from Samushiro Beach, Japan in 41 hours and 15 minutes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyde_Pangborn#Trans-Pacific_flight
1932 - 1st flight of The Dewoitine D.560, prototype French single-seat fighter.
http://www.aviastar.org/air/france/dewoitine_d-560.php - http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=297
1933 - French Jean Assolant and René Lefevre land their Bernard 81 GR 'Oiseau Canari II' at Karachi. The attempt of a world distance record thus failed due to a consumption higher than expected.
http://aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=9544
1935 - 1st flight of the Loire-Nieuport LN 161 (Nieuport 160), French single seat fighter prototype.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loire-Nieuport_LN_161 - http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=690
1936 - Jean Batten takes off from Lympne to Darwin with her Percival Gull VI.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percival_Gull#Racing_and_record-breaking
1939 - Richard Halliburton, American traveler, adventurer, and author, Best known today for having swum the length of the Panama Canal and paying the lowest toll in its history (36 cents), and having flown round the world (Flying Carpet Expedition) in a Stearman C-3B, is offiaclly declared dead after his disappearance durin the 'Sea Dragon Expedition' across the Pacific since March.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Halliburton#Sea_Dragon_Expedition
1944 - 5 pilots of No. 401 Squadron destroyed a Messerschmitt Me 262, the 1st jet aircraft brought down by either the RAF or RCAF. Pilot Hans- Christoph Buttmann, being killed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._401_Squadron_RCAF#D-day_and_European_Offensive_1944
1945 - National Airlines Flight 16 Lockheed 18-50 Lodestar, due to a faulty missed approach procedure at Lakeland, Florida, overshoot the runway and landed in the water approximately 1,000 feet (300 m) beyond, killing 2 over 15.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Airlines_Flight_16
1947 - Death of Harold Evans Hartney, American canadian born WWI flying ace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Hartney - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/usa/hartney.php
1948 - 1st flight of the Westland-Sikorsky WS-51 Dragonfly, British license-built version of the American Sikorsky S-51 helicopter for civilian use.
http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/west_dragon.php
1951 - 1st flight of the Convair 340, American twin engine airliner, lengthened version of the 240.
http://www.aviastar.org/air/usa/convair_metro.php
1958 - Birth of André Kuipers, Dutch physician and ESA astronaut
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Kuipers
1958 - Birth of Brent Ward Jett, Jr., USN pilot and NASA astronaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brent_W._Jett,_Jr.
1965 - Birth of Kara Spears Hultgreen, USN pilot, 1st female naval carrier-based fighter pilot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kara_Hultgreen
1966 - Ryan XV-5A Vertifan, American jet-powered V/STOL experimental aircraft, crashes at Edwards AFB, California, killing Air Force test pilot Maj. David Tittle. During hover, the aircraft began uncontrolled roll to left, pilot ejected at 50 feet (15.24 m), but chute failed to deploy.
1967 - 1st flight of The Shin Meiwa PS-1 , Japanese large STOL flying boat (which carried its own beaching gear on board) designed for anti-submarine warfare (ASW).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_Meiwa_US-1A
1967 - Death of Clifton Curtis 'C.C.' Williams, USMC test pilot and NASA astronaut, Killed in the crash of his T-38 jet trainer near Tallahassee, Florida. He ejected but the plane was traveling too fast at too low an altitude for the seat to land safely.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifton_Williams
1969 - Cuban Air force pilot Eduardo Guerra Jiminez defected with his MiG-17 to Homestead Air Force Base of Miami.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Cold_War_pilot_defections#Cuba
1984 - Launch of STS-41-G, Space Shuttle Challenger mission, 1st shuttle mission to carry a crew of seven, including the 1st crew with two women (Sally Ride and Kathryn Sullivan), the 1st American EVA involving a woman (Sullivan), and the 1st Canadian astronaut (Marc Garneau).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-41-G
1985 - Death of Fernand Henri Chavannes, French WWI flying ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernand_Henri_Chavannes - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/france/chavannes.php
1991 - Tentara Nasional Indonesia-Angkatan Udara (Indonesian Air Force) C-130H-30 crashed after take-off from Halim-Perdanakasuma, Jakarta, Indonesia due to an engine fire. 134 on board of the aircraft as well as 2 people on the ground were killed, but one passenger on the aircraft survived.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_C-130_Hercules_crashes#.C2.A0Indonesia
1993 - Death of Karl Gordon Henize, Ph.D., American astronomer, space scientist and NASA astronaut, while climbing Mount Everest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Gordon_Henize
1997 - Launch of Sputnik 40 (Sputnik Jr, PS-2 or Radio Sputnik 17 (RS-17)) Franco-Russian amateur radio satellite to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 1.