Warbirds Online » Blog Archive » This Week In Military/Aviation History 16

Hello Folks, another seven behind us. I forgot to tell you that the 14th, aside from being Flag Day, was our 39th wedding anniversary. Yep, 39. And my family was sure it wouldn’t last a year. They had a pool. Really! Oh well, that’s one I’m glad no one collected on. The Liberty Belle is in Buffalo and Rochester for its last two tour stops before flying “Over the Pond.” The story in the Buffalo paper kinda concerns me. It starts as follows:

Take a good look at Liberty Belle winging overhead Saturday on its latest visit to the Niagara Frontier. Ride along for the spectacular view if you can afford the $430.

Might be your last chance.

The restored B-17 Flying Fortress survived a 1979 tornado that flipped another airplane on top of it, destroying its midsection, but high fuel and insurance prices may ground it forever once the current 50-city U. S. tour ends this weekend in Buffalo and Rochester.
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Wouldn’t that be a shame? Other tours and even Air Shows are suffering from aircraft no longer traveling due to the price of fuel. People are tending to stay local with their own travels. I sure hope this doesn’t shoot down our Geneseo Airshow, but I’m concerned it will rear its ugly head. There’s only 24 days left until Arrival Day (July 11th) plenty of time to push the price of gas to climb to an even more unaffordable price. Especially for Folks traveling from other states. Well, guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens. In the meantime, ket’s get down to some serious history, shall we?
Take Care and Be Safe,
Tom K.

20 June 1909
Zeppelin LZ3 is delivered to the German Army.

17 June 1910
The Vlaicu I parasol monoplane makes it’s first flight in Romania.

Zeppelin LZ7 ‘Deutschland’ begins passenger services in Germany.

18 June 1911
The Circuit of Europe air race starts in Paris.

21 June 1911
Edouard Nieport flies at 87mph in his Nie-2N monoplane.

17 June 1912
Julie Clark becomes the first American woman to be killed flying when she hits a tree at Springfield in Illinois.

21 June 1913
American Miss Georgia ‘Tiny’ Broadwick is the first woman to descend from an aeroplane by parachute when Glenn L Martin flies her up to 2,000 feet above Griffith Park in Los Angeles.

18 June 1916
Oberleutnant Max Immelman ,’The Eagle of Lille’, is killed in combat with 2nd Lieutenant G.R. McCubbin of No.25 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps (RFC).

H.Clyde Balsley of the Lafayette Escadrille, becomes the first American pilot to be shot down, but although wounded, he survives the engagement.

16 June 1917
93 civilian mechanics sail from the United States for England to study the British and French aviation industries.

17 June 1917
Zeppelin LZ95 (L48) is shot down by British aircraft over Suffolk in England by British aircraft.

Zeppelin LZ28 (L40) is wrecked at Neuenwald in Germany.

16 June 1922
Henry A. Berliner demonstrates his helicopter at College Park in Maryland.

19 June 1931
The Canadian opera singer Lissaint Beardmore uses a Professor glider (sailplane) to make the first cross-Channel glider flight from Lympne in Kent to St. Inglevert near Boulogne.

20 June 1939
The first flight of the Heinkel He 176 is piloted by Flugkapitän Erich Warsitz at Peenemünde in Germany. This is the first flight of a manned, specifically designed rocket-powered aircraft.

20 June 1941
The United States Army Air Force (USAAF) is formed with Major General H.H. Arnold as its Chief.

22 June 1941
Operation Barbarossa: the German invasion of the Soviet Union, opens with a massive air assault. By nightfall Soviet losses amount to 1,811 aircraft of which 1,489 were destroyed on the ground. The Luftwaffe losses are light, with only 35 aircraft destroyed.

At 0430 hrs Lieutenant Kokorev of the 124th Fighter Regiment, Red Air Force deliberately rams a German Messerschmitt Bf 110. This is the first recorded instance of a battering ram attack during the Second Word War.

18 June 1942
Major General Carl Spaatz is appointed to command the 8th United States Army Air Force (USAAF) in the United Kingdom.

22 June 1946
Two United States Army Air Force (USAAF) Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star fighters carry the first United States airmail to travel by turbojet powered aircraft, from Schenectady to Washington DC and Chicago in Illinois.

18-19 June 1948
All road traffic between Berlin and West Germany is halted by Soviet military authorities.

17 June 1951
United States Air Force (USAF) Superfortresses bomb Pyongyang and Sariwon airfields. Air fighting between USAF North American Sabre jet fighters and Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15s results in one enemy aircraft being shot down.

18 June 1951
An agreement is signed between the United States and Saudi Arabia giving the United States special rights to use Dharan airfield on the Persian Gulf for the next 5 years.

In air fighting over Korea between Sabre and Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 aircraft, five North Korean aircraft are destroyed.

20 June 1951
North Korea loses ten planes, including four Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15s, in air fighting over North West Korea.

16 June 1952
Russian Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 jet fighters attack a Swedish Consolidated Catalina amphibian.

17 June 1952
The world’s largest non-rigid airship (ZPN1) is delivered by the Goodyear Aircraft Company to the United States Navy (USN).

18 June 1953
The world’s first air disaster involving more than 100 deaths occurs when a United States Air Force C-124 Globemaster II crashes after take-off in Japan.

20 June 1956
The United States Navy (USN) commissions its first helicopter assault carrier, the USS Thetis Bay.

16 June 1963
The launch of the second Soviet spacecraft in two days. Vostok 6 carries the first woman into space, cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, who makes 48 orbits of the earth.

17 June 1967
The Chinese People’s Republic detonates its first thermonuclear device.

22 June 1975
A new world speed record for women is established in the Soviet Union by Svetlana Savitskaya, flying a Mikoyan Ye-133 at a speed of 2,683kph. (1,667mph)

22 June 1976
The Soviet Union launches the Salyut space station into orbit.

17 June 1977
The Soviet Union’s Cosmos 918 satellite is launched and intercepts the Cosmos 909 target, which was launched on 19 May.

20 June 1980
Beech Aircraft return to the commuter airliner market with the first flight of their C99 aircraft.

18 June 1983
The Space Shuttle Challenger launches on a mission that will see the first satellite retrieval and the first American woman in space. Dr Sally Ride, aged 32, is also the youngest United States astronaut to date.

21 June 1994
The role of women pilots in the French Air Force is extended to include combat flying.

22 June 1995
The result of the United States’ Joint Primary Aircraft Training System (JPATS) joint service trainer competition is announced and the Beech/British Aerospace (BAe) version of the Pilatus PC9 turboprop is the winner.

20 June 2004
Frontier Airlines begins service to Nashville, Tennessee.

21 June 2004
SpaceShipOne is the first non-government built spacecraft to transport a person into space and return safely to earth.
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That’s it for this week Folks. See ya in seven.

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