OCT27
1877 - Birth of Charles Francis Walsh, American pioneer aviator.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Francis_Walsh - http://earlyaviators.com/ewalsh.htm
1888 - Birth of Jean Georges Fernand Matton, French WWI flying ace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Matton - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/france/matton.php
1893 - Birth of Giovanni Nicelli, Italian WWI flying ace.
http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Nicelli - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/italy/nicelli.php
1893 - Birth of Fred Everest Banbury, Canadian WWI flying ace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Everest_Banbury - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/canada/banbury.php
1894 - Birth of Eduardo Aldasoro Suárez (Brother of Juan Pablo Aldasoro), Early mexican aviation pioneer and aircraft designer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldasoro_brothers - http://earlyaviators.com/ealdaedu.htm
1909 - Mrs. Ralph van Denman flies for 4 minutes with Wilbur Wright at College Park, Maryland, becoming the 1st female passenger in the USA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Van_Deman#Military_Information_Division
1910 - Ralph Johnstone set a new American flight altitude record of 8,471. feet at the International Aviation Tournament, Belmont Park race track in Elmont, New York
1913 - French Eugene Gilbert flies a closed-circuit course in a Derperdussin Corsa monoplane at St-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris, at 95mph to win the Deutsch de la Meurthe cup.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coupe_Deutsch_de_la_Meurthe#.C3.89dition_1913
1917 - Death of Arthur Percival Foley Rhys-Davids, British WWI flying ace, killed in action in his S.E.5a.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Rhys_Davids#Final_flight - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/rhys_davids.php
1918 - The Victoria Cross is awarded to Major William George Barker, a Canadian of No.201 Squadron, Royal Air Force, for destroying 4 enemy aircraft (3 Fokker D.VIIs and a Rumpler) during a dogfight over Foret de Mormal in France in a Sopwith Snipe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_George_Barker#Victoria_Cross - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/canada/barker.php
1918 - Death of Karl Paul Schlegel, German WWI fighter ace and balloonbuster, killed in action.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Schlegel_(aviator) - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/schlegel.php
1918 - Death of Guy Wilbraham Wareing, British WWI flying ace, killed in action in his S.E.5a by a Fokker D.VII.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Wareing - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/wareing.php
1918 - Death of Hamilton "Ham" Coolidge, American WWI flying ace, killed in action in his SPAD XIII by a direct hit from an anti-aircraft shell.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton_Coolidge - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/usa/coolidge.php
1925 - 3 de Havilland DH9As of No.47 Squadron, led by Squadron Leader A. Coningham, begin the 1st trans-African flight, from Cairo to Kano in Nigeria and back.
1926 - 1st flight of the Blériot Bl-165, French 4 engine biplane airliner
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bl%C3%A9riot_165 - http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=1674
1927 - Birth of Ronald Jack Layton, American military pilot, test pilot and record setter.
http://roadrunnersinternationale.com/layton.html - http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/rexburgstandardjournal/obituary.aspx?pid=164812651#fbLoggedOut
1927 - 1st flight of the Canadian Vickers Vista, single seat flying boat prototype, 1st Canadian built , metal-hulled flying-boat. It flew from St Lawrence at Montreal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Vickers_Vista
1929 - 1st flight of The Consolidated Model 17 Fleetster, American light transport monoplane aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_Fleetster
1931 - Herbert John Louis 'Bert' Hinkler takes off in a de Havilland Puss Moth from Canada for a solo flight to London, via Central America and the South Atlantic.
http://earlyaviators.com/ehinkler.htm
1931 - Squadron Leader O.R. Gayford and Flight Lieutenant D.L.G. Bett takes off in a Fairey Long Range Monoplane for a non-stop flight from Cranwell in Lincolnshire to Abu Sueir in Egypt.
1931 - The Detroit Aircraft Corporation files for bankruptcy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_Aircraft_Corporation
1941 - Death of Viktor Vasilevich Talalikhin, Soviet flying ace during the Winter War and WWII, 1st to perform aerial ramming at night, killed in action during an aerial dogfight with Bf-109s in his Polikarpov I-16 near Podolsk.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Talalikhin - http://cieldegloire.com/015_talalikhin_v_v.php
1942 - USS Hornet CV-8, US Navy Yorktown-class aircraft carrier, irreparably damaged during the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, is sunk.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Hornet_(CV-8)
1944 - 1st flight of The Bristol Buckmaster, advanced British training twin engine aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Buckmaster
1946 - Birth of Steven Ray Nagel, USAF pilot and NASA astronaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_R._Nagel
1946 - Birth of Terry Jonathan 'TJ' Hart, USAF pilot and NASA astronaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Hart
1953 - Birth of Michael Allen 'Mike' Baker, American engineer, US Navy test pilot and NASA astronaut
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_A._Baker
1954 - Benjamin Oliver Davis Jr., WWII and Korean war fighter ace, becomes the 1st African-American general in the USAF and the United States Army.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_O._Davis_Jr.
1957 - Death of Giovanni 'Gianni' Battista Caproni, Italian aeronautical engineer, civil engineer, electrical engineer, and aircraft designer who founded the Caproni aircraft-manufacturing company.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Battista_Caproni
1958 - French test pilot Andre Turcat set a closed circuit speed record of 1,638 kmh flying the Nord Aviation 1500 'Griffon' II.
http://aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=6781
1959 - 1st flight of The Myasishchev M-50 (NATO reporting name Bounder), Soviet prototype 4-engine supersonic bomber
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myasishchev_M-50
1960 - Société Nationale Air Mali, national airline of the Republic of Mali, is founded.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Mali_(1960%E2%80%931985)
1961 – NASA launches the 1st Saturn I rocket in Mission Saturn-Apollo 1.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SA-1_(Apollo)
1962 - Death of Irnerio Bertuzzi, WWII italian aviator, in the crash of the Morane-Saulnier MS.760 Paris executive jet along with Enrico Mattei, head of the Italian petroleum company Agip. There is speculation that the fuse of an explosive device was triggered by the mechanism of the landing gear.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irnerio_Bertuzzi#Flying_for_Mattei - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrico_Mattei#Death
1962 - In flight from McCoy AFB, a Lockheed U-2F is shot down over Cuba by two SA-2 Guideline surface-to-air missiles, killing the pilot, Major Rudolf Anderson, Jr
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Anderson - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_U-2#Operational_history
1965 - Birth of Oleg Valeriyevich Kotov, Russian pilot and Cosmonaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleg_Kotov
1967 - Launch of Kosmos 186, unmanned Soviet spacecraft that incorporated a Soyuz programme descent module for landing scientific instruments and test objects.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_186_and_Kosmos_188
1972 - 1st flight of The Beechcraft Super King Air (model 200), American twin-turboprop aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_Super_King_Air
1972 - 1st flight of the CH-53D Sea Stallion, specialised minesweeping version of the American heavy-lift transport helicopter.
http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/sik_s-65.php
1979 - 1st flight of The Panavia Tornado Air Defence Variant (ADV), long-range, twin-engine interceptor version of the swing-wing Panavia Tornado.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panavia_Tornado_ADV
1986 - Sukhoi test pilot V.G.Pugachov climbed to an altitude of 3,000 m in 25.4 seconds flying the Su-27.
http://www.aviastar.org/russian-aircraft/flanker/flanker_2.html
1988 - 1st flight of The ATR 72-200, French-Italian twin-engine turboprop short-haul regional airliner.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATR_72 - http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=6760
1993 - Widerøe Flight 744 de Havilland Canada DHC-6-300 Twin Otter crashed in bad weather on approach to Namsos Airport, Høknesøra in Norway, killing 6 over 19
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wider%C3%B8e_Flight_744
2005 – The SSETI (Student Space Exploration & Technology Initiative) Express micro-satellite, 1st spacecraft to be designed and built by European students is launched by the European Space Agency (ESA)from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome.