Warbirds Online » Blog Archive » This Week In Military/Aviation History 21

Hello Folks, another seven dead and gone. Let’s try something different. I’m not very typeative tonight so let’s get down to some serious history, shall we?
Take Care and Be Safe,
Tom K.

23 July 1905
The first flight of the Wright Flyer No.III. This is the first fully controllable and practical version of the original Flyer.

25 July 1909
A Frenchman, Louis Blériot, becomes the first man to fly across the English Channel by aeroplane. Flying his Blériot Type XI he takes off from Les Baraques near Calais at 0441hrs and lands at Northfall Meadow next to Dover Castle 36½ minutes later. Blériot wins the Daily Mail £1,000 prize.

21 July 1910
The Wright brothers begin experimenting with wheeled landing gears.

24 July 1910
German August Euler patents a machine-gun armament arrangement for an aeroplane.

21 July 1911
Whilst on a solo flight in a Farman, Denise Moore becomes the first woman to be killed in an aeroplane when she crashes at Chalons in France.

27 July 1912
The first wireless message is transmitted from an airship to a ship, the torpedo boat USS Stringham. Lieutenant John Rodgers and Ensign Charles Maddox send it from a Wright B1 Flyer.

23 July 1917
Major B.D. Foulois takes command of United States Army Signal Corps’ Airplane Division.

24 July 1917
The United States Congress in Washington DC passes a bill earmarking $640 million for expenditure on military aviation.

26 July 1917
German Jagdgeschwader I, comprising Jastas 4, 6, 10, and 11 is formed and led by Manfred von Richthofen, it soon acquires the nickname of the ‘Flying Circus’.

27 July 1917
In Washington DC a naval aircraft factory is approved for Philadelphia.

A British Airco (de Havilland) DH4 bomber arrives in USA for evaluation and the first American manufactured DH4, powered by a Liberty engine, appears in February 1918.

21 July 1919
Anthony Fokker founds the Dutch aircraft company of the same name at Schiphol near Amsterdam.

21 July 1921
United States Army MB2 biplane bombers bomb and sink the German battleship Ostfriesland with six 2,000 bombs. The aircraft were under the overall command of Brigadier General William ‘Billy’ Mitchell.

24 July - 26 September 1926
Two Junkers G24s fly from Berlin to Peking and back.

25 July 1929
The Dornier DoX makes its first flight.

23 July 1931
Russell N. Boardman and John Boardman establish a distance record of 8,065 kilometers (5,011 miles) in a Wright J6.

21 July 1932
A Dornier Wal, piloted by von Gronau, begins the first round the world flying boat flight and is completed in 111 days.

25 July 1932
The Soviet Union signs non-aggression pacts with Estonia, Finland, Latvia and Poland.

26 July 1936
The Imperial Japanese Army Air Force is established as a separate arm of Japanese defense forces.

25-29 July 1939
A plane of Deutche Lufthansa flies from Berlin to Bangkok in Siam, inaugurating a regular service operated by Focke Wulf Fw 200 aircraft.

21-22 July 1941
Luftwaffe bombers make their first night attack on Moscow.

25 July 1943
Benito Mussolini is overthrown and King Victor Emmanuel takes over command of the Italian Armed Forces.

25 July 1944
The first jet aircraft combat takes place, when a German Messerschmitt Me 262 from the experimental unit Ek262 intercepts a Royal Air Force (RAF) Mosquito reconnaissance aircraft from No.544 Squadron over Munich. The British plane managed to survive the encounter.

21 July 1945
Japanese forces are decimated by air attacks as they attempt to retreat across the Sittang river in Burma.

21 July 1946
A McDonnell XFD-1 Phantom jet takes off from, and lands on, an aircraft carrier, the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt, while she lies off Cape Henry in Virginia. The aircraft is piloted by Lieutenant Commander James J. Davidson.

25 July 1946
Just over 10 years after his death, Brigadier General William ‘Billy’ Mitchell is posthumously awarded the United States Congressional Medal of Honor.

26 July 1947
President Truman signs the United States Armed Forces Unification Act.

23 July 1948
The United States Air Force (USAF) Military Air Transport Command is ordered to establish an Airlift task force for the possible long term support of Berlin and its citizens.

24 July 1950
The first rocket is launched at Cape Canaveral test range.

27 July 1953
The Korean war ends.

23 July 1954
A Douglas DC4 airliner of Cathay Pacific Airways is shot down by Communist Chinese fighters.

26 July 1954
Two United States Navy (USN) carrier-borne Douglas Skyraiders shoot down two Chinese fighters who attack them whilst searching for the Cathay Pacific airliner.

27 July 1954
An Anglo-Egyptian agreement on the evacuation of British forces from the Suez Canal zone is initiated.

26 July 1956
Egypt seizes control of the Suez Canal from the privately owned Suez Canal Corporation.

23 July 1958
It is announced that the Boeing Vertol VZ2A has made its first successful transition from vertical to horizontal flight and vice versa.

21 July 1961
The United States puts a second man, Virgil Grissom, into sub-orbital flight in the Mercury capsule Liberty Bell 7.

25 July 1962
Air-to-ground public telephone service are started on Trans World Airlines (TWA) St Louis to Chicago-East Coast route.

25 July 1963
A nuclear test ban treaty is finalized after 3 years of discussion, bringing an end to tests in the Earth’s atmosphere.

26 July - 7 August 1971
Apollo 15 makes the fourth successful United States Moon landing and makes first use of the Lunar Roving Vehicle, driven by Apollo 15 commander David R. Scott.

21 July 1975
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Launches Viking 1, which subsequently lands on, and transmits pictures of, the surface of Mars back to Earth.

23 July 1981
A new helicopter altitude record is set by Charles Praether, flying an Augusta A109A at a height of 6,096 meters (20,000 feet).

23 July 1982
Japan unveils plans to purchase over 500 new aircraft as part of a £35 billion defense review.

22 July 1983
Australian Dick Smith achieves the first solo circumnavigation of the globe in a helicopter. Smith makes the 56,742 kilometer (35,258 mile) journey in stages using a Bell JetRanger III named ‘Australian Explorer’.

26 July 1993
The 1,000th Boeing 747 comes off the production line 26 years after the first 747 was built.

25 July 2000
An Air France Concorde crashes onto a hotel shortly after take-off from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, killing 114 people, including the crew and passengers of the aircraft. It is the first crash involving Concorde. The crash is later attributed to a debris from another aircraft causing an explosive tyre puncture that ruptures a fuel tank in the wing.
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That’s it for this week Folks. See ya in seven.

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