Warbirds Online » Blog Archive » This Week In Military/Aviation History 26 May

Hello Folks, another seven down the tubes. I don’t know if I mentioned it before, but I’m into putting together aviation-themed jigsaw puzzles. First of all, they’re not very easy to find. Okay, I found 3 on my last search. What I like to do is put them together, frame them and then donate them to the 1941 HAG Museum. my usual piece count is 1,000. Ah yes, put them together, I really strongly dislike turning almost 1,000 pieces over, separating the ones that stuck together and separating out the edge pieces. Yep, I start with the edges and fill them in. Ah yes, frame them, three puzzles, three different sizes. 20″ X 30″, 20″ X 27″ and 19″ X 30″ and all of them approximately. Now I don’t mind a challenge. I once assembled a Jackson Pollack painting that was billed as the “world’s toughest jigsaw puzzle.” One of the new ones is by Minicraft, the plastic model company. They released a series of the boxarts used for their kits. This puzzle is “Hobbyist Quality” (whatever that is) and uses “Japanese-Style” pieces. What this means is that all of the 1,000+ pieces are the same size and shape. How can this stuff possibly be relaxing? Beats me. All I know is, once the turn over and separating is done, the fun begins for me. Once complete, I do my best to stuff it into a frame and off it goes to Geneseo. Then the process starts once again. Let’s get down to some serious history. shall we?
Take Care and Be Safe,
Tom K.;)
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26 May 1904
The Wright brothers begin a series of over 100 flights in Flyer No.II.

30 April 1910
Alberto Santos-Dumont retires from flying, suffering from multiple sclerosis.

30 May 1912
Pioneer aviator Wilbur Wright dies from typhoid fever.

1 June 1912
Lieutenant Hans E. Dons makes the first flight by an aeroplane in Norway, flying a German Start across Oslo Fjord.

28 May 1913
The full-size ‘Aerodrome’, designed by Samuel Pierpont Langley, is flown after modifications during reconstruction.

26 May 1915
Seventeen French Voisin biplanes of Groupe de Bombardment I conduct an attack on a strategic military target at Ludwigshafen in Germany.

Oberleutnant Kastner and Leutnant Georg Langhoff (observer) attack and shoot down a French Voisin in their Halberstadt C-type at Dournai in France. This is the first intentional attack by a German aeroplane on another armed aeroplane.

27 May 1815
Four days after Italy declares war, an Austrian Lohner L1 flying-boat is captured by the Italians off the Italian coast.

31 May 1915
German Zeppelin LZ38 makes the first bombing raid on London, dropping 3,000 pounds of bombs, killing seven civilians and injuring fourteen.

Spring 1915
The German D-type reconnaissance biplane, produced by various firms, is introduced.

June 1915
Rene Paul Fonck joins Escadrille C47 and flies Caudron GIV bombing and reconnaissance aircraft, eventually becoming the highest scoring Allied pilot of the First World War.

1 June 1915
The United States Navy (USN) order their first airship, the A1 (DN1), from the Connecticut Aircraft Company.

30 May 1917
After flying overnight from Chicago, the United States Navy’s B1 dirigible (steerable airship) arrives at Akron, Ohio.

31 May 1917
Austrian pilot Linienschiffleutnant G.Banfield, at the controls of a Pfalz AII fighter, forces down an Italian seaplane, achieving the first Austro-Hungarian victory against enemy night bombers.

June 1917
The first German Staaken RVI four-engined bomber becomes operational.

29 May 1918
Brigadier General Mason Patrick is made Chief of the US Air Service in France.

31 May 1918
1st Lt Douglas Campbell shoots down his fifth German airplane to become the US Army’s first ace.

June 1918
Oberleutnant Ernst Udet receives the Pour le Mérite.

June 1919
The German airline Lloyd Luftverkehr Sablatnig is founded as a domestic operator.

1 June 1919
A permanent forest fire patrol, equipped with Curtiss Jenny aircraft is established at Rockwell Field, near San Diego.

27 May 1927
The first French aircraft carrier, ‘Béarn’, is finally completed after 7 years of construction.

27 May 1933
Japan withdraws from the League of Nations.

1 June 1934
United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) internal mail services end. The service has carried 347 tons of mail and flown about 2.6 million kilometers (1.6 million miles).

29 May 1937
German battleship ‘Deutchland’ is attacked by Spanish Republican air units near Ivaza in the Balearic Islands. 28 people are killed and 71 injured.

June 1938
Pabst von Ohain’s Heinkel HeS 3B turbojet is test flown beneath a Heinkel He 118.

31 May 1939
A German/Danish non-aggression pact is signed in Berlin.

June 1943
The Messerschmitt Me 262 is ordered into production.

1 June 1944
A United States Navy (USN) airship crosses from South Weymouth in Massachusetts to Port Lyautey in Morocco via the Azores, to complete the first Atlantic crossing by a non-rigid airship.

29 May 1945
An advance party of the 509th Composite Group of the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) arrives in the Mariana Islands.

31 May 1945
The United States War Department announces that a woman and five children have been killed by a Japanese bomb-carrying balloon on 5 March at Lake View in Oregon.

1 June 1946
A Pan American World Airways (Pan-Am) Constellation lands at London Heathrow on the Airline’s first scheduled New York to London service.

31 May 1950
The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) is to send a squadron of Douglas Dakota transport aircraft to assist British forces in Malaya.

29 May 1951
The first solo trans-Polar flight is made by American C. Blair, flying a North American P-51 Mustang from Bardufoss in Norway to Fairbanks in Alaska. He covers 3,375 miles in 10 hours 29 minutes.

31 May 1951
Captain Charles F. Blair lands at Idlewild Airport in New York after flying non-stop in a Mustang from Fairbanks in Alaska, covering 3,450 miles in 9 hours 31minutes. This is the first solo flight across the North Pole in a single engined aircraft.

26 May 1953
Twelve Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 jet fighters are shot down over North Korea.

31 May 1955
Jacqueline Auriol flies the Dassault Mystere IVN to a speed of 715mph to obtain the women’s world speed record.

27 May 1956
Performance figures for Russian Tu-104 twin jet airliner are published at the Zurich airshow.

29 May 1956
The formation of Air League of New Zealand is announced.

1 June 1956
The Douglas DC-7C long range piston-engined airliners goes into service on Pan American World Airways between the United States and Europe.

30 May 1957
The United States Air Force (USAF) discloses the development of the Hughes Falcon air-to-air guided missile armed with a nuclear warhead.

28 May 1959
Two monkeys, Able and Baker are recovered unharmed after a 483 kilometer (300 mile) flight in a compartment in the nose cone of a Jupiter rocket.

1 June 1964
The Kenya Air Force is officially established, with British assistance.

29 May 1969
Following the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Airbus program, France and Germany sign an agreement to initiate joint development of the A300B.

26 May 1972
The Cessna aircraft company announces the completion of the company’s 100,000th aircraft, the first company in the world to achieve this figure.

30 May 1972
Three Japanese terrorists kill 25 people and injure 72 at Tel Aviv Airport in Israel when they remove guns and grenades from their luggage and begin shooting. The terrorists had just stepped off a flight from Rome.

30 May 1975
The European Space Agency (ESA) is founded.

1 June 1980
The Dutch Fokker company changes its name to Fokker BV with the end of the merged activities of VFW-Fokker.

Braniff International terminates its agreement to lease Concorde aircraft from British Airways and Air France citing fuel costs, which have almost doubled since the lease began.

29 May 1985
The world’s largest aircraft, the Antonov An-124 arrives at Le Bourget airport for the Paris Air Show, and makes its first public appearance.

June 1986
Eurofighter Jagdflugzeug GmbH is formed in Munich. The company will oversee the production of the European Fighter Aircraft program.

29 May 1987
19 year old West German Mathias Rust lands a light plane in Moscow’s Red Square.

27 May 1988
The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom celebrates 30 years of flying and is still operational with twelve air forces.

June 1988
Personal television sets for airline passengers are introduced by Northwest Airlines on the Detroit to Tokyo route.

1 June 1988
Per Lindstrand establishes a new balloon altitude record, reaching an altitude of 19,810 meters (65,000 feet) over Texas. His balloon has a capacity of 17,000 cubic meters (6,000,000 cubic feet).

June 1991
For the first time the secrets of a current Russian combat aircraft are openly displayed to a Western audience as a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG31 goes on show at the Paris Air Show.

June 2000
Four MiG-27 ‘Flogger’ ground attack aircraft are delivered to the Sri Lankan Air Force (SLAF) for use in the ongoing conflict against the insurgent group the Tamil Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE).

27 May 2004
Delta Air Lines begins service between Cincinnati and New Haven.

1 June 2004
America West Airlines starts service between Phoenix and Anchorage.
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That’s it for this week Folks. See ya in seven.

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