Warbirds Online » Blog Archive » This Week In Military/Aviation History 22

Well Folks, seven more gone and here we are again. Quite a week, eh? Big Business getting bailed out by who? The Government? Nah, just us struggling taxpayers. As if we weren\’t doing enough already, ya know? The KC-X aerial tanker fiasco has now been shoved over to the new administration when it comes in, with this bailout, that new administration won\’t have as much money to work with. It just never ends does it? Catch 22 over and over. Oh well, let\’s get down to some serious history, shall we?
Have an AB FAN week,
Take Care and Be Safe,
Tom K.

23 September 1910
Peruvian Georges Chavez flies over the Alps, from Brig to Domodossola, in a Blériot monoplane but is killed when he crash-lands.

27 September 1910
Roger Sommer flies in his unique twin-engined biplane.

23 September 1911
The first official airmail flight in the USA is piloted by Earle L. Ovington in his Blériot monoplane, flying from Nassau Air Park to Mineola in Long Island. It is also the first airmail to fly on a set route.

25 September 1911
Pole Scipio del Campo pilots the Cywinski and Zbieranski biplane on a flight for 12½ miles.

23 September 1913
Roland Garros makes the first flight across the Mediterranean in his Morane-Saulnier monoplane, from Saint-Raphael to Bizerte in Tunisia, a distance of 453 miles.

27 September 1914
The first French bomber Groupe is formed and is equipped with Voisin biplanes.

24 September 1916
A German LVG biplane becomes the first victim of a Sopwith Pup fighter.

26 September 1916
Hauptmann Rudolf Berthold, one of Germany\’s highest-rated fighter pilots during the First World War One, receives the Pour le Mérite. He achieves 44 air victories before being injured in 1918, when his Fokker DVII collides with an enemy aircraft and crashes into a house.

23 September 1917
German fighter ace Leutnant Werner Voss is shot down and killed by Captain James McCudden of 56 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps (RFC).

25 September 1918
Captain Edward V. Rickenbacker is awarded the US congressional Medal of Honor.

26 September 1918
Frenchman Capitaine René Paul Fonck shoots down six German aircraft in a day, including four Fokker DVIIs and an Albatros DV.

28 September 1918
Leutnant F. Büchner is awarded the Pour le Mérite.

25 November 1920
Captain Corliss C. Moseley of the United States Army Air Service (USAAS), wins the first Pulitzer Trophy Race, flying a Verville-Packard 600. The race took place at Mitchell Field, Long Island, New York.

23 September 1921
Brigadier General William \’Billy\’ Mitchell provides another demonstration of aeroplane bombing against surface ships when aircraft under his command bomb and sink three unwanted United States Navy (USN) vessels, including the battleship USS Alabama.

27 September 1922
Naval Aircraft Radio Laboratory technicians at Anacostia demonstrate radar signatures for the first time.

28 September 1923
The United States wins first and second place in Schneider Trophy Contest with Curtiss CR3 biplanes.

28 September 1924
The first round the world aeroplane flight is completed. Douglas World Cruisers \’Chicago\’ and \’New Orleans\’ arrive back at Seattle. With an actual flying time of 371 hours 11 minutes, the flight required 57 stops.

24 September 1929
\’Blind flying\’ Lieutenant James H. Doolittle flies on instruments only, at Mitchell Field in New York.

25 September 1932
A new altitude record is set for autogyros when Captain Lewis A. Yancey, flying a Pitcairn PCA2, climbs to 6,553 meters (21,500 feet).

28 September 1933
G. Lemoine flies a Potez 50 to a new world record altitude of 13,661 meters (44,820 feet) at Villacoublay in France.

28 September 1934
Deutche Lufthansa carries its 1,000,000th passenger.

28 September 1939
Warsaw surrenders.

27 September 1940
Germany, Italy and Japan conclude a pact, each pledging total aid to the others.

23 September 1941
A Junkers Ju 87 pilot, Oberleutnant Hans-Ulrich Rudel, succeeds in hitting the 26,170 ton Soviet battleship Marat at Kronstadt with a 1,000 kilo bomb. The ship is badly damaged and sinks in shallow water in what is probably the greatest success achieved by a dive bomber pilot in the Second World War.

23 September 1942
Brigadier General J.H. Doolittle is appointed to command the 12th United States Army Air Force (USAAF) .

22 September 1947
A United States Air Force (USAF) C-54 Skymaster makes a fully-automatic flight from Stephenville in Newfoundland to the United Kingdom.

23 September 1949
The Soviet Union detonates its first atomic bomb and ends the United States nuclear monopoly.

26 September 1952
The German Government approves the formation of a company to make preparations for establishing and equipping a new Lufthansa airline.

27 September 1953
Three defense agreements are signed by the United States and Spain.

28 September 1954
There is an announcement that China has tested its first home built plane on 26 July 1954. It is claimed as the successful start of China\’s aircraft industry.

24 September 1956
The formation date of the post war German air force, the Luftwaffe der Deutschen Bundesrepublik.

27 September 1956
The Bell X-2 crashes after being dropped by from a Boeing B-50 bomber and the pilot, Captain Milburn G. Apt, is killed. It is later reported that the aircraft reached a speed of 2,100 mph before it crashed.

24 September 1966
The Russian Marina Solovyeva sets a new women\’s world speed record of 2,044 kph (1,270 mph) in a Ye-76 (MiG-21) aircraft.

22 September 1972
Delta Airlines orders fourteen Boeing 727 aircraft, bringing the total sales of the airliner to a record 1,000.

25 September 1978
A mid-air collision between a Boeing 727 and a Cessna light aircraft results in the deaths of 144 people. All the airliner\’s passengers and crew, the two occupants of the Cessna and six people struck by falling wreckage, die in the accident.

22-24 September 1981
An Ilyushin Il-86, captained by G. Volokhov, sets new class speed records in the 1,000 kilometers and 2,000 kilometers closed circuit categories at 962 kph (597 mph) and 975 kph (606 mph) respectively.

28 September 1987
Three of the six crew of a United States Air Force (USAF) Rockwell B-1B bomber are killed when their aircraft collides with a bird, probably a large Pelican.

27 September 1990
United Airlines becomes the first commercial operator to use satcoms (satellite data communications) on a flight between San Francisco and Hong Kong.

27 September 1993
James \’Jimmy\’ Doolittle, famous American record-breaking pilot and United States Air Force General, dies aged 96.

25 September 1998
The Boeing EC-135 Looking Glass retires from United States Air Force (USAF) service after 40 years. It will be replaced in the role of strategic airborne command and control post by another derivative of the Boeing 707, the Boeing E-6B Mercury.
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That\’s it for this week Folks. See ya in seven.

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