Warbirds Online » Blog Archive » This Week In Military/Aviation History: 24

Hello Folks, once again it’s time for a history lesson. I’m typing this on the second full day of Fall and it hit 91 degrees today. Shattered the record of 90 degrees set in, I think, 1891. This is the last week of September already. This is my 32nd post. I’m gonna hit 60 in a week or so. AAAAGGGGHHH!!! Enough of this, let’s get down to some serious history, shall we?

30 September 1906
The first international balloon race started from Les Tuileries in Paris and was won by Lieutenant Frank P. Lahm of the United States Army. Lahm flew his balloon ‘United States” a distance of 402 miles (637 kilometers) to Fylingdales Moor in North Yorkshire, England.

29 September 1907
The Brequet-Richet helicopter lifted off but had to be steadied by ground crew using poles.

27 September 1910
Roger Sommer flew in his unique twin-engined biplane.

25 September 1911
Pole Scipio del Campo piloted the Cywinski and Zbieranski biplane on a flight of 12-1/2 miles. (This one is for us, Folks, both Polish and Polish-American )

29 September 1913
A Deperdussin monoplane piloted by Maurice Prevost flew at 126 m.p.h. to win the Gordon Bennett cup at Reims in France. This was the last speed record before the outbreak of the First World War.

27 September 1914
The first French bomber Group was formed and was equipped with Voisin biplanes.

26 September 1916
Hauptmann Rudolf Berthold, one of Germany’s highest-rated fighter pilots during World War I, received the Pour le Merite. He achieved 44 air victories before being injured in 1918, when his Fokker DVII collided with an enemy aircraft and crashed into a house.

25 September 1918
Captain Edward V. Rickenbacker was awarded the U.S. Congressional Medal of Honor.

26 September 1918
Frenchman Captaine Rene Paul Fonck shot down six German aircraft in one day, including four Fokker DVIIs and an Albatros DV.

28 September 1918
Leutnant F. Buchner was awarded the Pour le Merite.

29 September 1918
2nd Lieutenant Frank Luke Jr. was posthumously awarded the U.S. Congressional Medal of Honor. He was killed on the 28th after destroying three balloons, and having been wounded, he landed behind enemy lines and engaged German ground troops. His score of 21 victories made him the second ranking American ace of the war.

29 September 1919
The Polskie Wojska Lotnicze (Polish Air Force) was formed.

27 September 1922
Naval Aircraft Radio technicians at Anacostia demonstrated radar signitures for the first time.

28 September 1923
The United States won first and second place in the Schneider Trophy Contest with Curtiss CR3 biplanes.

28 September 1924
The first round the world airplane flight was completed. Douglas World Cruisers ‘Chicago’ and ‘New Orleans’ arrived back at Seattle. With an actual flying time of 371 hours 11 minutes, the flight required 57 stops.

30 September 1929
Opel-Hatry Rak-1, a rocket-powered glider flew 1.1 miles near Frankfurt in Germany. The glider, piloted by Fritz von Opel, reached a speed of 100 m.p.h.

25 September 1932
A new altitude record for autogyros was set when Captain Lewis A. Yancey, flying a Pitcairn PCA2, climbed to 21,500 feet.

28 September 1939
Warsaw surrendered.

27 September 1940
Germany, Italy and Japan concluded a pact, each pledging total aid to the others.

30 September 1941
The Luftwaffe claimed to have destroyed more than 4,500 Soviet aircraft since the opening of hostilities.

29 September 1946
A USN Lockheed P2V Neptune crewed by Commander T. Davis and E.P. Rankin set a new non-stop world distance record of 11,235 miles flying from Perth in Australia to Columbus in Ohio.

30 September 1949
The Allied Berlin Airlift ended. During 15 months of operation, 2.25 million tons of supplies and equipment had been flown into Berlin.

29 Semptember 1950
Captain Richard V. Wheeler made a parachute jump of 42,449 feet at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.

29 September 1952
The German Government approved the formation of a company to make preparations for establishing and equipping a new Lufthansa airline.

30 September 1952
The Bell GAM-62 Rascal air-to-surface missile was launched for the first time.

27 September 1953
Three defense agreements were signed by the United States and Spain.

28 September 1954
There was an announcement that China had tested its first home-built plane on 26 July, 1954. It was claimed as the successful start of China’s aircraft industry.

24 September 1956
The formation date of the post war German air force, the Luftwaffe der Deutschen Bundesrepublik.

27 September 1956
The Bell X-2 crashed after being dropped from a Boeing B-50 bomber and its pilot Captain Milburn G. Apt, was killed. It was later reported that the aircraft reached a speed of 2,100 m.p.h. before it crashed.

24 September 1966
Russian Marina Solovyeva set a new woman’s world speed record of 1,270 m.p.h. in a Ye-76 (MiG-21) aircraft.

30 September 1968
The New York City Police celebrated 20 years of helicopter use in law enforcement.

25 September 1978
A mid-air collision between a Boeing 727 and a Cessna light aircraft resulted in the death of 144 people. All the airliner’s passengers and crew, the two occupants of the Cessna and six people struck by falling wreckage died in the accident.

30 September 1983
The first production McDonnell Douglas (Hughes) AH-64A Apache attack helicopter was completed.

28 September 1987
Three of the six crew members of a USAF Rockwell B-1B bomber were killed when their aircraft collided with a bird, probably a large Pelican.

27 September 1990
United Airlines became the first commercial operator to use satcoms (satellite data communications) on a flight between San Francisco and Hong Kong.

27 September 1993
James ‘Jimmy’ Doolittle, famous American record-breaking pilot and United States Air Force General, died aged 96.

30 September 1995
The Fiat G.91 was retired by the Italian air force after over 30 years service.
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That’s it for this week Folks. See ya in seven.

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