Warbirds Online » Blog Archive » This Week In Military/Aviation History 6

Hello Folks, for me, not only is another week gone, but another year is gone. I’m another year older and deeper in debt. St. Peter don’t you call me, cause I can’t go, I owe my soul to the medicine/gasoline/electricity/grocery store. Not to mention the bailout. I think the government should give everyone over 60 who are on a fixed income $1 million dollars to get them by. If they don’t use it all before they go west, then they can have it back to put in the social security plan for others their age to use. It would also help the banks and the mortgage companies ’cause they could pay off their mortgages and deposit the rest in the bank and live off the interest. Most people over 60 on a fixed income wouldn’t want much, at least I wouldn’t. Just being able to live comfortably without worrying about where I’m gonna get the money for my medicine/gasoline/electricity and groceries would be nice. Aw, hell, dream on. Let’s get down to some serious history, shall we?
Have an AB FAN week,
Take Care and Be Safe,
Tom K.

7 October 1903
Samuel Pierpont Langley’s full-size ‘Aerodrome’, piloted by Charles M. Manly, attempts a flight from the houseboat launcher moored in the Potomac River. The ‘Aerodrome’ fouls the launcher and crashes into the river.

12-13 October 1907
A.F. Gaudron and two crew members make the first crossing of the North Sea by air in the Mammoth balloon. They travel from Crystal Palace in London to Lake Vänern in Sweden.

9 October 1911
Eugene Ely, a Curtiss pilot, is killed in an air show at Macon in Georgia, USA.

10 October 1911
Morane-Saulnier, an aircraft manufacturing company, is founded by Leon Morane and Louis Saulnier.

A new bombsight and dropping device designed by Riley E. Scott at College Park, USA, is tested by Lieutenant T.D. Milling at Maryland.

8 October 1917
An explosion destroys Zeppelin LZ102 (L57) in its shed at Juterbog near Berlin.

6 October 1918
After a heroic supply dropping mission at Binarville resulted in their deaths, 2nd Lt Erwin R. Bleckley and 1st Lt Harold E Goettler receive posthumous United States Congressional Medals of Honor.

12 October 1918
Pilots of the 185th Aero (Pursuit) Squadron carry out the first United States night fighter operations in France.

7 October 1919
KLM, or Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij voor Nederland an Kolojien (Royal Dutch Airlines) is formed.

8-31 October 1919
The first Army Air Service Transcontinental Reliability and Endurance Test is held in the USA. Seven airmen die in what amounted to an air race between New York, San Francisco and back. The test is won on 18 October by Lieutenant Belvin W. Maynard.

12 October 1924
US Navy ZR3 ‘Los Angeles’, a Zeppelin built as part of German reparations, leaves Friedrichshaven for Lakehurst in New Jersey.

11 October 1928
German airship LZ127 Graf Zeppelin crosses the North Atlantic from Friedrichshafen in Germany to Lakehurst in New Jersey on a journey that took 71 hours.

7 October 1942
German Air Force night harassment units are formed as a direct copy of the Soviet practice.

10 October 1944
A Messerschmitt Me 262 is shot down by the 32nd Fighter Group of the United States Army Air Force (USAAF).

6 October 1946
The first non-stop flight from Hawaii to Egypt over the North Pole is made in a Boeing B-29 aircraft of the United States Army Air Force (USAAF), covering a distance of 17,498 kilometers (10,873 miles).

10 October 1950
The Royal Ceylon Air Force is formed, with British aid.

12 October 1951
Advance parties of a Canadian air division disembark at Liverpool and Southampton. It includes three squadrons of North American F-86 Sabre jet fighters.

12 October 1953
The United States signs an agreement in Athens allowing their armed forces to use Greek air and naval bases.

6 October 1955
The United States Department of Defense announces that the Glenn L. Martin Company has been selected to design and build a launch vehicle to place a satellite into Earth orbit.

8 October 1955
The United States Navy’s aircraft carrier USS Saratoga is launched.

11 October 1958
The United States Air Force (USAF) makes a second attempt to put a research probe, Pioneer IB, in orbit around the moon.

6 October 1959
The Spanish airline Spantax Air Taxis is formed.

10 October 1959
Pan American Boeing 707-321 Clipper Windward inaugurates the first round the world passenger service by turbojet-powered airliners.

12 October 1964
The Soviets launch Voskhod 1 into earth orbit. This is the first launch to carry a multiple crew – Vladimir Komarov, Konstantin Feoktistov and Boris Yegorov, who operate without spacesuits during the mission.

11-22 October 1968
Apollo 7 is launched with astronauts Walter Schirra, Don Eisele and Walter Cunningham.

6 October 1973
Massive air strikes by the Egyptian Air Force against Israeli artillery and command positions herald the beginning of the Yom Kippur War.

6-8 October 1973
Israeli air counter-attacks against Egyptian air and ground forces are frustrated by large scale and effective use of Soviet surface-to-air missiles (SAM) and anti-aircraft artillery (AAA).

8 – 13 October 1973
Aircraft operated by Israel’s El Al airline begin to fly-in supplies from America to support the Israeli war effort. The United States Air Force (USAF) supplement this effort with seven Lockheed C-5A Galaxy transport aircraft, arriving in Israel on the 14th.

11-15 October 1980
The Goodyear company’s airship ‘Europa’ is used to monitor pollution in the Bay of Genoa as part of the Mediterranean Pollution Monitoring Programme.

11 October 1980
Cosmonauts Valeri Ryumin and Leonid Popov return to earth in Soyuz 37 after spending 185 days in space aboard the Salyut 6 laboratory.

9 October 1981
Superchicken III, a helium-filled balloon piloted by Fred Gorrell and John Shoecroft, completes the first non-stop trans-America balloon flight, taking 55 hours 25 minutes.

10 October 1990
France’s Aérospatiale opens its 130 acre ‘Clément Ader’ factory in Toulouse for the manufacture of the Airbus.

7 October 1998
Oslo’s new airport is opened at Gardermoen with a capacity for handling 17 million passengers per annum.

7 October 2001
Four weeks after the attack on the Pentagon and World Trade Centre, American forces begin bombarding targets in Afghanistan linked to the Al’Qaida terrorist Group and the ruling Taliban government, as part of ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’.

6 October 2005
A small plane carrying cargo for FedEx, including six vials of research viruses, crashed in downtown Winnipeg. The only woman on board, the pilot, was killed but there were no injuries on the ground.
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That’s all for this week Folks. See ya in seven

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