Warbirds Online » Blog Archive » This Week In Military/Aviation History 25

Hello Folks, another seven gone already. I really don’t have anything to say, so, why don’t we get down to some serious history, shall we?
Have an AB FAB week,
Take Care and Be Safe,
Tom K.

27 August 1909
Henry Farman makes the first aeroplane flight of more than 100 miles, covering 180 kilometers (111 miles) in a closed circuit during the Reims meeting.

27 August 1910
The first aircraft radio is used in an aeroplane which flew over the race track at Sheepshead Bay in New York. The aircraft was piloted by a Canadian, J.A.D. McCurdy, who transmitted the following message, which was received by a ground station operated by H.M. Horton. “Another chapter in aerial achievement is hereby written in the receiving of this first message ever recorded from an aeroplane in flight”.

28 August 1910
Swiss Armand Dufaux flies the length of Lake Geneva, a distance of 41 miles, in his tractor biplane. He takes 56 minutes to win the 5,000 Swiss franc prize.

26 August 1914
Staff Captain P.N. Nesterov of the Imperial Russian Army, brings down Leutnant Baron von Rosenthal in an Austrian aeroplane by ramming it. Nesterov is piloting a Morane Type M. Both are killed in the resulting crash.

30 August 1914
Paris is bombed for the first time when Lieutenant Ferdinand von Hiddessen, piloting a Taube monoplane, drops five bombs on the Quai de Valmy, killing a woman and injuring two others.

25 August 1915
62 French bombers make a mass bombing raid against blast furnaces in the Dillingen area of Germany.

26 August 1916
The Brazilian Naval Aviation School is established.

29 August 1916
The United States Naval Flying Corps is established.

30 August 1917
A German Fokker FI (DrI), flown by fighter ace Leutnant Werner Voss, records the first combat victory for the type by shooting down a British aircraft.

28 August 1919
The International Air Traffic Association (IATA) is established at the Hague.

27-28 August 1923
Captain L.H. Smith and Lieutenant J.P. Richter of the United States Army Air Service (USAAS) remain airborne for 37 hours 16 minutes. Their de Havilland DH4B is refuelled 15 times by a DH4B tanker.

25 August 1932
Amelia Earhart, flying Lockheed Vega, becomes first woman to achieve a non-stop transcontinental flight across the United States, from Los Angeles in California to Newark in New Jersey.

27 August 1939
The Heinkel He 178 makes the first flight of a turbojet powered aircraft. Flug Kapitan Erich Warsitz pilots the aircraft from the factory airfield at Rostock-Marienche in Germany.

30 August 1939
A Pan American World Airways flying boat, ‘California Clipper’ lands at Auckland in New Zealand after a flight from San Francisco. This is intended to be the start of a fortnightly service.

28 August 1940
The experimental Italian Caproni-Campini N1 monoplane, which is powered by a turbine driven by a piston engine, makes its first flight.

27 August 1943
The first use of a guided missile in warfare. HMS Egret, a corvette, is sunk by an air-launched Henschel Hs 293 remotely-controlled glide bomb while on patrol in the Bay of Biscay.

31 August 1943
United States Navy (USN) squadron VF-5, operating off USS Yorktown makes the first operational use of the Grumman F6F Hellcat, in an attack on Japanese positions on Marcus Island.

28 August 1944
The 78th Fighter Group of the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) claims the destruction of the first Messerschmitt Me 262 to be shot down in combat.

26 August 1950
At Logan Airport in Boston, General Hoyt S. Vandenberg presents the Bell XI research aircraft to the National Air Museum. It is the first aeroplane to fly faster than the speed of sound.

25-27 August 1950
The North Atlantic treaty Organization (NATO) holds its first large-scale air exercise over Europe. It is called Cupola.

27 August 1951
The first United States Air Force (USAF) Sabre jet F-86 to be sent to Britain arrives at Shepherd’s Grove.

31 August 1951
A Belfast to Gander point to point record is set by Wing Commander R.P. Beaumont flying an English Electric Canberra jet from Aldergrove in Northern Ireland and covering 2,072 miles in 4 hours 18 minutes.

26 August 1952
A Belfast to Gander to Belfast point to point record is set by Wing Commander R.P. Beamont in an English Electric Canberra. He covers 4,144 miles in 10 hours 3 minutes.

25 August 1953
Following successful tests, the United States Air Force (USAF) announces that the Convair B-36 bomber in a GRB-36F configuration is able to launch and retrieve Republic GRF-84F Thunderflash reconnaissance aircraft from an under-fuselage trapeze. Twelve of these bombers are converted, enabling them to launch and control missiles in support of development programs.

31 August 1953
An altitude of 83,235 feet is achieved by Lieutenant Colonel Marion E. Carl of the United States Marine Corps (USMC), flying a Douglas D558-2 Skyrocket research aircraft and launching from a Boeing B-29 Superfortress at 34,000 feet.

26 August 1954
A height of 90,000 feet (17 miles), the greatest height attained to date by a human being, is reached by Major Arthur Murray of the United States Air Force (USAF) in a Bell X-IA rocket propelled research aircraft. The aircraft was launched at 30,000 feet from a Boeing B-29 Superfortress.

28 August 1957
A new world altitude record of 21,430 meters (70,308 feet) is set by M. Randrup flying an English Electric Canberra.

26 August 1959
French flyer Jacqueline Auriol piloting a Mirage III becomes the first woman to attain the speed of Mach 2.

26 August 1966
The famous Swiss mountain rescue pilot Herman Geiger is killed in a flying accident.

28 August 1972
Captain Richard S. Ritchie shoots down his fifth MiG21 and becomes the first United States Air Force (USAF) ace of the Vietnam war.

26 August 1974
Charles Lindbergh, who made the first non-stop solo Atlantic crossing in May 1927, dies of cancer at the age of 72.

26 August 1977
Gossamer Condor, designed by Dr Paul MacCready in the United States and piloted by racing cyclist Bryan Allen, wins the £50,000 Kremer prize for the first 1.6 kilometer (1 mile) figure-of-eight flight by a man-powered aircraft.

31 August 1977
Alexander Fedotov climbs to 123,524 feet in a Mikoyan Ye-266M, a world record altitude for air-breathing craft.

30 August & 5 September 1983
The first night launch and night landing are made during Space Shuttle mission STS8. Also the first black Astronaut, Lieutenant Colonel Guion S. Bluford of the United States Air Force (USAF), is aboard space shuttle Challenger.

30 August 1987
The Israeli Government votes twelve to eleven to terminate the indigenous IAI Lavi fighter program.

28 August 1988
Three Italian Air Force pilots and 39 spectators are killed at the Ramstein Air base when three Aermacchi MB339PANs of the Italian Air Force’s Frecce Tricolori display team collide in mid-air.

27 August 1992
United Nations aircraft begin to enforce a ‘no-fly’ zone over southern Iraq to prevent attacks on Shi’ite Muslims by Iraqi aircraft

29 August 1994
A new $15 billion international airport opens at Kansai, Japan.

28 August 1996
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) awards a $50 million contract to Orbital Sciences for the X34 Reusable Launch Vehicle.
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That’s it for this week, Folks. See ya in seven.

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