OCT21

1929 - The Do-X, german Long-range twelve engine airliner flying boat, broke the world record for the number of persons carried on a single flight. it lifted 150 passengers, a crew of 10 and 9 stowaways.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornier_Do_X#Operation

1930 - 1st flight of the Couzinet 30, French 3-engined low wing 4 seat monoplane tourer prototype.

http://aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=9500

1931 - 1st flight of the Bernard 74.02, french single-seat low wing monoplane fighter aircraft prototype.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_70 - http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=9540

1934 - During the MacRobertson Air Race, England to Australia, Amy Johnson With Jim Mollison in their de Havilland Comet 'Black Magic' retired in India with engine problems.

http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/archive-exhibitions/wonderful-amy/other-flights/other-flights.aspx

1934 - Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and Captain Taylor takes off from Archerfield Airport in their Lockheed Altair 'Lady Southern Cross' for the 1st aeroplane flight between Australia and the USA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Southern_Cross#Trans-Pacific_flight

1936 - Birth of James Kent "Jimmy" Leeward, American air racer, Actor and stunt pilot, owner of the Leeward Air Ranch in Ocala, Florida, and the pilot of the heavily modified North American P-51 Mustang racing aircraft, The Galloping Ghost.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Leeward

1937 - A Float mounted Yakovlev UT-1 (AIR-14), Russian Compact monoplane aerobatic trainer with open cockpit, flew from Moscow to Ufa, covering 1174km non-stop with Fedoseev at controls.

http://www.aviastar.org/air/russia/yak_ut-1.php

1941 - The 1st Saunders-Roe A.36 Lerwick, British twin engine flying boat, hit telegraph wires before crashing into a hillside above Faslane after an engine failure, killing six RAF personnel and a civilian technician.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saro_Lerwick#Operational_losses

1942 - Death of Toshio Ota, Japanese WWII fighter ace, killed in his A6M2 Zero during a dogfight with USMC F4F Wildcats over Guadalcanal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshio_%C5%8Cta - http://cieldegloire.com/010_ota_t.php

1942 – On a flight from Hawaii to Canton Island, a B-17D Flying Fortress carrying the top-scoring U.S. WWI ace, Eddie Rickenbacker, on a tour of U.S. Pacific bases strays hundreds of miles off course due to faulty navigational equipment and ditches in the Pacific Ocean due to fuel exhaustion. All seven men aboard get into life rafts. They will remain adrift for 22 days before being rescued.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Rickenbacker#Adrift_at_sea - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Aviation/Historical_anniversaries/October_in_aviation/October_21

1944 – 1st deliberate kamikaze attack: A Japanese plane (a Aichi D3A dive-bomber or a Mitsubishi Ki-51)carrying a 200 kilograms (440 lb) bomb attacks HMAS Australia off Leyte Island, as the Battle of Leyte Gulf began.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze#Leyte_Gulf:_the_first_attacks

1945 - Death of Albert James Enstone, British WWI fighter ace

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Enstone - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/england/enstone.php

1947 - 1st (glide) Flight of the Leduc 010, French research ramjet aircraft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leduc_0.10

1947 - 1st flight of The Northrop YB-49, American prototype jet-powered heavy bomber aircraft featuring a flying wing design, development of the piston-engined Northrop XB-35 and YB-35.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YB-49

1948 - KLM Lockheed L-049-46-25 Constellation crashed on approach at Glasgow Prestwick Airport, Scotland killing all 40 on board. Pilot was Koene Dirk Parmentier, widely regarded as one of the great flyers of the era, and KLM's chief pilot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_KLM_Constellation_air_disaster - http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koene_Dirk_Parmentier

1949 - Death of George Ivan Douglas Marks, Canadian WWI flying ace

http://theaerodrome.com/aces/canada/marks.php

1950 - 1st flight of the Martin 4-0-4, American pressurized passenger twin engined short/medium range airliner, improved version of the 2-0-2 and 3-0-3.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_4-0-4

1950 - Birth of Ronald Ervin McNair, American physicist and NASA astronaut.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_McNair

1958 - Death of John Lightfoot Trollope, British WWI fighter ace.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lightfoot_Trollope - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/trollope.php

1960 - 1st tethered flight of the Hawker Siddeley P.1127, British Experimental V/STOL aircraft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_P.1127#P.1127

1960 - 1st flight of The Grumman E-2 Hawkeye, American all-weather, aircraft carrier-capable tactical airborne early warning (AEW) twin-turboprop aircraft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_E-2_Hawkeye

1961 - 1st flight of The Breguet Br.1150 Atlantic, French long-range reconnaissance, patrol and anti-submarine twin engine aircraft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breguet_Atlantic - http://aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=2416

1961 - Launch of Midas IV, American early-warning satellite that provided limited notice of Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile launches. It could Deployed subsatellites.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_Defense_Alarm_System#MiDAS_launches

1966 - 1st flight of The Yakovlev Yak-40 'Codling', russain small, three-engined airliner that is often called the 1st regional jet transport aircraft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakovlev_Yak-40

1966 - Birth of Douglas Gerald Hurley, American engineer, USMC pilot and NASA astronaut.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_G._Hurley

1968 - Death of Frederick Sowrey, british WWI fighter ace.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Sowrey - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/sowrey.php

1970 - Philippine Airlines Flight 215 Hawker Siddeley HS-748-209 Srs. 2 exploded in mid-air. The explosion occurred in the aircraft's lavatory, the tail section separated from the aircraft and the aircraft crashed, killing all 36.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Airlines_Flight_215

1971 - 1st flight of the Italair F.20 Pegaso, Italian twin-engine utility aircraft prototype.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italair_Pegaso

1973 - The Militky MBE1 becomes the 1st electrically powered, piloted airplane to fly. It is powered by an electric motor driven by four rechargeable batteries.

http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/history-of-aviation-timeline/interactive-aviation-timeline/world-aviation/1973.aspx -

http://panlogieaviation.ca/index.php/electric-aircraft/background-information

1973 - Death of Sir Alan John Cobham, English aviation pioneer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Cobham

1978 – Australian civilian pilot Frederick Valentich vanishes in a Cessna 182L over the Bass Strait south of Melbourne, after reporting contact with an unidentified aircraft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentich_Disappearance

1989 - Tan-Sahsa Flight 414 Boeing 727-224 crashed into a hill near Toncontin International Airport, honduras, because of a bad landing procedure, killing 127 over 146.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tan-Sahsa_Flight_414

1994 - 1st flight of the Little Wing Roto-Pup (LW-1), American autogyro ultralight kitbuilt, using a Piper PA-11 fuselage.

http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/little_wing.php - http://articles.janes.com/articles/Janes-All-the-Worlds-Aircraft/Little-Wing-Roto-Pup-United-States.html

1998 - The Advanced Reentry Demonstrator (ARD), French suborbital reentry test flown on the third Ariane 5 flight, is launched and is released shortly after separation of the launcher's cryogenic main stage (at an altitude of about 216 km) 12 minutes after lift-off from the Guiana Space Centre, Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. It reached an altitude of 830 km and, after a guided entry, splashed down succesfully to within 4.9 km of its target point.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_Reentry_Demonstrator

2000 - Launch of Thuraya 1, 1st of 3 communications satellites built by Boeing, international mobile satellite services provider.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuraya#Satellites

2001 - Launch of Soyuz TM-33, manned Russian space to carry a new crew and supplies to the International Space Station.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_TM-33

2007 - Soyuz TMA-10, human spaceflight mission using a Soyuz-TMA spacecraft to transport personnel to and from the International Space Station (ISS), is back on earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_TMA-10

2009 - Azza Transport Flight 2241 Boeing 707-330C crashed just after takeoff 2 miles (3.2 km) north of Sharjah International Airport, killing all 6 on board. It is reported that a piece of the aircraft fell off shortly after it became airborne. This was later identified as a part of a cowling from one of the engines.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azza_Transport_Flight_2241

2011 - 1st flight of the e-Volo VC1, German single place experimental electric multirotor helicopter, 1st manned flight world-wide with a purely electrically powered volocopter.

http://www.e-volo.com/ - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-volo_VC2

2011 - 1st two Galileo In-Orbit Validation satellites are launched by Soyuz ST-B flown from Guiana Space Center, (Galileo-PFM and Galileo-FM2, global navigation satellites system).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_(satellite_navigation)#Funding_again.2C_governance_issues

2012 - Death of William Louis Buchanan Walker, British WWII fighter pilot and poet (Our Wall) who was the oldest surviving pilot from the Battle of Britain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walker_(Battle_of_Britain_pilot)