Warbirds Online » Blog Archive » This Week In Military/Aviation History 17

Hello Folks, here I am again. Whew! what a week. Our governor got caught with his BEEP where it shouldn’t have been and now we have a brand-new Governor. I guess he should have been satisfied with screwing the taxpayers like almost every other New York Governor did in one way or another. That’s a joke, no offense intended.We New Yorkers have to find humor wherever we can. In New York, a penny saved is a government oversight. After about two weeks of daily updates, the KC-X competition and choice seems to have dropped off the radar. Last I read, the project was halted until the reasons for Boeing’s protest are investigated by the GAO. As of March 16, there have been 2,827 air refueling sorties flown between Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. This has got to be taking a toll on the airframes involved. I hope this can be cleared up quickly, so this can be taken care of. Well, let’s get down to some serious history, shall we?
Take Care and Be Safe,
Tom K.

23 March 1903
The Wright Brothers filed a patent for an airplane based on their No. III glider.

20 March 1910
Gaspard-Felix Tournachon, alias Nadar, the photographer and balloonist, died. He had taken his first aerial (balloon) photographs in 1863.

17 March 1911
The Curtiss D pusher-engined biplane with a tricycle landing gear was demonstrated to the United States Army. Later it became their Army Aeroplane No. 2.

23 March 1911
Louis Brequet flew the world’s first flight with 11 passengers a distance of 3.1 miles in his Brequet biplane.

23 March 1914
The Royal Siamese Flying Corps was formed.

20 March 1915
The Belgian Aviation Militaire was formed.

17 March 1917
Zeppelin LZ86 (L39) was brought down over Compiegne in France by anti-aircraft fire.

19 March 1918
While on patrol near Heligoland, Ensign Stephen Potter Became the first USN airman to shoot down a German aircraft.

21 March 1918
The German spring offensive began and hundreds of aircraft took part in Kaiserschlacht (’Emperor’s Battle’).

22 March 1919
The first international passenger service was opened between Paris and Brussels by Lignes Aeriennes Farman. The weekly service used Farman F60 Goliath biplanes and the flying time was 2 hours 50 minutes. The fare was 365 francs.

20 March 1922
The USS Langley, the first U.S. aircraft carrier was commissioned.

23 March 1923
The Italian Regia Aeronautica was formed.

23-26 March 1932
A World Distance Record, in a closed circuit, was established by Frenchmen Lucien Bossoutrot and Maurice Rossi flying a Bleriot 110 a distance of 6,587 miles at Oran in Algeria.

17 March 1945
307 Boeing B-29s dropped 2,300 tons of incendiaries on Kobe, Japan.

18 March 1945
The largest USAAF daylight raid on Berlin took place, with 1,250 bombers and an escort of 670 fighters.

20-21 March 1945
The Luftwaffe mounted its last manned aircraft attack on the United Kingdom.

21 March 1945
The first, unsuccessful, sortie was made by Japanese Yokosuka Ohka suicide aircraft.

21-24 March 1945
A combined effort by Allied air forces in Europe was mounted against the Luftwaffe and its bases and virtually destroyed the Luftwaffe as an effective force.

23-24 March 1945
Allied forces made large scale crossings of the Rhine in Operation Varsity, which saw a large scale Allied airborne landing take advanced positions.

21 March 1946
The USAAF established its Air Defense Command, Strategic Air Command and Tactical Air Command.

22 March 1950
The first of 70 Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers allocated to Britain under the U.S. military aid program landed at Marham, Norfolk for No. 149 Squadron.

21 March 1951
The conclusion of a Franco-American civil aviation agreement was announced.

23 March 1955
Two Saab 29c photographic reconnaissance jet aircraft of the Royal Swedish Air Force, flying in formation, set a new record of 560 m.p.h. over a closed course of 821 miles. It was claimed to be the first speed record made in formation.

21 March 1962
A black bear named “Yogi” became the first living creature ejected from a supersonic aircraft when the U.S. Air Force tested the B-58’s escape capsule. Ejected at 35,000 feet from a B-58 flying at 870 mph, the bear landed unharmed seven minutes 49 seconds later.

23 March 1965
NASA’s Gemini 3 spacecraft carried the first American multiple crew into earth orbit. Virgil Grissom and John Young undertook the 4 hour 53 minute mission.

23 March 1978
Captain Sandra M. Scott became the first woman to fly an elert duty in the Strategic Air Command, when she was assigned to the 904th Air Refuelling Squadron, which flew KC-135 tankers.

23 March 1979
The Boeing 757 entered into production after an order from Eastern Airlines.

23 March 1987
Japan Air Lines announced it was going to install automatic course guidance alarms on its aircraft. An alarm would sound if the aircraft deviated from the correct flight path.

21 March 1999
Hot air balloon ‘Breitling Orbiter 3′ completed the first non-stop, round the world balloon flight. This set a new distance record for any type of aircraft of 25,360 miles.

23 March 2001
The Russian space station Mir ended its 15 year career in space at 0559 hrs GMT with a successful de-orbit and re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. Most of the space station disintegrated on re-entry, but 27 tons of debris fell into the ocean 1,700 miles east of New Zealand. During its career, Mir made 86,320 orbits, travelled 3.5 billion kilometers, was visited by 104 individuals and 110 spacecraft, conducted some 23,000 experiments and 140 spacewalks.

17 March 2005
A judge found millionaire Sikh businessman Ripudaman Singh Malik and sawmill worker Ajaib Singh Bagri not guilty of conspiracy and murder in the 1985 Air India bombing that killed 329 people.
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That’s it for this week Folks. See ya in seven.

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