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

Hello Folks, who knew seven days could pass so quickly? Well, Spring has sprung and the weather is starting to get nice for this time of year (for us) with high 30s to mid 40s and maybe a 50 thrown in for the heck of it. Our new Governor is already in “hot water” for his admitted indiscretions and alleged misuse of public funds. Geez, what happened to the old days when we knew they were crooked, but it was easier to put up with it ’cause occasionally something good would get done. Nowadays, they are so busy defending themselves, they don’t have time to get anything good done. I listen to the city fire channel for Rochester which also covers the airport. Just heard a call for an Aztec 200 coming in with the landing gear down, one soul on board, 75 pounds of fuel. Now, I thought landing gear down was a good thing, unless it’s not down as in deployed, but down as in broken. Moot point. The aircraft landed safely. I would have thought landing gear malfunction would have been a better way of clearing it up for me. As you can tell, I’m rambling, so, let’s get down to some serious history, shall we?
Take Care and Be Safe,
Tom K.

26 March 1910
Plans for Aeropolis, an aerodrome at Le Bourget, France were announced.

28 March 1910
Frenchman Henri Fabre made the world’s first take-off from water at La Mede harbor near Marseilles, in the “Hydravion”, a powered seaplane.

24 March 1911
Roger Sommer flew the world’s first flight with 12 passengers a distance of 2,625 feet in his Sommer biplane.

29 March 1912
The French Aeronautique Militaire was reorganized into three groups, based in Lyons, Reims and Versailles.

27 March 1915
Manda, a kite balloon ship, sailed for the Dardanelles, equipped with a kite balloon for use as an observation platform.

30 March 1917
German Schutte-Lanz airship SL9 (E2) was destroyed during a storm with the loss of all hands.

French aircraft designer, Armand Deperdussin, was jailed for five years for embezzling 32,000,000 francs from his own company.

27 March 1918
A Curtiss H16 flying boat, the first production aircraft built by the United States Naval Aircraft Factory, made its first flight.

24 March 1919
Airplane designer Igor Sikorsky, who fled to France after the Russian Revolution, sailed for the United States. The French government did not take up the offer of his services.

30 March 1928
Major Mario di Benardi of the Italian Air Force established a new world speed record. Flying a Macchi M52bis, he achieved 318 m.p.h.

30 March 1933
Boeing Model 247, the first airliner with retractable undercarriage, entered service with United Air Lines.

28 March 1935
The first successful flight of one of Dr. Robert Goddard’s rockets took place in the United States.

27-29 March 1938
Deutche Luft Hansa’s Dornier Do 18F D-ANHR was catapulted from a seaplane carrier at Star Point in Devon and was flown by Captain H.W. von Engle to Caravellas, Brazil. This non-stop flight of 5,125 miles established a new world’s distance record for flying boats and took 43 hours 5 minutes.

28 March 1939
Madrid and Valencia surrendered to General Franco’s Nationalist forces.

30 March 1939
Piloted by Flugkapitan Hans Dieterle, a Heinkel He 100V-6 established a new world speed record of 463 m.p.h. at Oranienburg, Germany.

25 March 1940
USAAF contractors were authorized to sell to anti-Axis governments modern types on Army combat aircraft.

26 March 1940
A report, reviewing the 1939 civil airline year in the United States recorded that it was entirely free from any air fatalities.

27 March 1941
Following a coup d’etat by anti-Nazi elements in Yugoslavia, Hitler ordered the invasion of both Yugoslavia and Greece.

27 March 1942
The United States Navy was given sole charge of anti-submarine warfare off the United States coastline.

25 March 1944
The 15th USAAF made the first operational use of the VB1 Azon bomb, a general purpose bomb with a pair of radio controlled rudders in the tail.

27 March 1945
The last V2 rocket to fall on the United Kingdom landed at Orpington in Kent at 1654 hrs., killing one person and injuring 23 others.

30 March 1949
A bill in the USA authorized the establishment of a permanent radar defense network.

28 March 1951
The Federal Bureau of Statistics in Bonn announced figures relating to German casualties at home and on the battlefronts in the Second World War. These totaled over 5 million (3,200,000 in action or missing, 500,000 civilians during bombing raids and 200,000 disabled war veterans) but they stated that the exact numbers will never be known and the figures are probably higher.

24 March 1953
A Dakota of the Czechoslovakian State airline, on a flight from Prague to Brno, was seized and landed in the United States zone of Germany. The people responsible and two other sought political asylum.

27 March 1953
The Royal Netherlands Air Force was established as an independent service.

30 March 1961
NASA test pilot Joe Walker reached a height of 169,600 feet in the North American X-15A research aircraft.

28 March 1968
Colonel Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, was killed when his MiG-15UTI crashed near Kirzhatsk, north of Moscow.

28 March 1969
Panavia GmgH, a new aerospace company, was crested by the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC), Fiat, Fokker and Messerschmitt-Bolkow, to develop and manufacture the Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MRCA).

24 March 1971
The United States Government cancelled funding for the Supersonic Transport Aircraft and the program was officially terminated in May.

14 March 1976
A Boeing 747SP landed at Cape Town after setting a world non-stop distance record for a civil aircraft of 10,290 miles.

24 March 1977
The first operational Boeing E-3A Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft was delivered to the USAF.

27 March 1977
The world’s greatest air tragedy occurred when two Boeing 747s collided on the runway at Santa Cruz Airport in Tenerife, Killing 579 people.

28 March 1980
Gates Learjet announced that they had delivered their 1,000th Learjet.

28 March 1981
Air France flew it’s last service using the Aerospatiale (Sud-Aviation) Caravelle, almost 22 years after the type entered service.

25 March 1982
The 35th anniversary of the start of the Beech Bonanza by the Beech Aircraft Corporation. Almost 15,000 aircraft had been sold in this period, two-thirds of these being the V-tailed Model 35.

26 March 1982
Funding was approved for the Hughes AH-64A Apache attack helicopter.

29 March 1983
Lufthansa and Swissair received the first Airbus A310s for commercial service.

28 March 1988
Airbus Industrie began deliveries of A320s to Air France.

30 March 1999
The 1,000th McDonnell Douglas AH-64 Apache was delivered. The Apache had been in service with the United States Army for 15 years.

27 March 2001
Boeing announced it was planning the development of a new series of airliners that will be designed to fly higher, further and faster then current commercial airliners.

Investigators were unable to determine the ignition source of an explostion in a Thai Airways International Boeing 737 on 3 March. There was no evidence to support the notion of sabotage.

27 March 2004
NASA’s X-43 pilotless plane broke the world speed record for an atmospheric engine by briefly flying at 4,780 m.p.h. (seven times the speed of sound)
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That’s it for this week Folks. See ya in seven.

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