Warbirds Online » Blog Archive » This Week In Military/Aviation History 2

Well Folks, did you ever notice that the only time you feel time is slowing down is when you are waiting for something to arrive? It seems forever when you check on something’s delivery date and it has still got 2-4 weeks to go. Amazing isn’t it? I don’t know why I torture myself by buying FineScale Modeler’s Great Scale Modeling special editions. I like to think I’m a pretty good modeler, but when I look at the photo and read the caption of a gorgeous looking kit and find out it’s scratch-built or enhanced with this and that, or even built straight out of the box but weathered with pastels or polished to a mirror-finish, first it inspires me to work smarter and not harder (see last week’s post) and then when that fizzles out, it puts reality right in front of my face. I don’t know how many times, even though I’m really careful, I lose one or two small parts to the rug-monster or glance at the instructions, build something, and find out my glance missed an important part and I have to try taking it apart to add what I missed. It’s always somethin’! Oh well, let’s get down to some serious history, shall we?

Have an AB FAN (ABsolutely FANtastic) week,

Be Safe,

Tom K.

5 February 1911
Vivian C. Walsh makes the first aeroplane flight in New Zealand in his Howard-Wright (type) biplane at Auckland.

7 February 1911
The first French flying certificate is issued to Lieutenant de Rose.

3 February 1913
The Gothaer Waggonfabrik (Gotha railway wagon factory) open an aeroplane division.

3 February 1915
Turkish forces attack the Suez Canal area but are repelled by British troops.

2 February 1916
Zeppelin LZ54 (L19) is shot down by British aircraft over the North Sea.

6 February 1916
German fighter ace Max Immelman takes to the air in a Fokker EIV fitted with three synchronized machine guns.

German airline Deutsche Luft Reederei flies the first service (for freight only) between Berlin and Weimar.

7 February 1917
Zeppelin LZ82 (L36) is wrecked after a forced landing at Rehben-an-der-Aller.

5 February 1919
German airline Deutsche Luft-Reederei begins the first sustained daily passenger airline service, flying modified ex-military AEG and DFW biplanes between Berlin and Weimar in Germany.

8 February 1919
The first airline passengers to be carried from Paris to London are flown by a Farman F60 Goliath from Toussus-le-Noble to Kenley.

7 February 1920
The first post-war world speed record is set by Frenchman Sadi Lecointe in a Nieuport-Delage 29 with a speed of 275kph (171mph).

3-4 February 1925
A distance record of 3,166 kilometers (1,967 miles) in a straight line, is established by a Breguet 19 flown by Captain Ludovic Arrachart and Captain Henri Lemaître.

2 February 1932
The International Disarmament Conference begins in Geneva but fails to ensure world peace.

3 February 1934
The first scheduled trans-ocean airmail service is established between Europe and South America by Deutche Lufthansa. Flying from Stuttgart to Buenos Aires via Seville, Bathurst and Natal. The delivery time is four days.

3 February 1935
It is announced that Dr Hugo Junkers, one of the pioneers of all metal construction, has died.

4 February 1944
The Japanese launch a new offensive in Burma, with a plan to capture the port of Chittagong and then the Allied bases of Imphal and Dimapur in Assam, and then to invade India.

4 February 1948
The United States Air Force (USAF) Military Air Transport Service (MATS) is established.

4 February 1949
The United States Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) authorises the use of Ground-Controlled Approach (GCA) radar as a primary landing aid in bad weather.

8 February 1950
A Lockheed Neptune of the United States Navy establishes a distance record for carrier-launched aircraft flying 5,156 miles in 25 hours 59 minutes, non-stop from the Atlantic to San Francisco.

5 February 1951
The USA and Canada announce their intention to set up a Distance Early Warning (DEW) system for North America.

6 February 1951
The United States Air Force (USAF) announces that it lost 223 aircraft in Korea, mostly through accidents, up to January 1951. The United States Navy (USN) and Marine aircraft losses were 182.

3 February 1955
The official termination of war between Czechoslovakia and Germany is announced.

4 February 1958
The keel of the world’s first nuclear powered aircraft carrier, the USS Enterprise, is laid.

3 February 1959
Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens die when a single-engined Beechcraft Bonanza crashes near Mason City airport.

4-10 February 1982
The Sikorsky company uses an S76II to set twelve new helicopter class records.

7 February 1984
The first un-tethered space-walk is achieved by Captain Bruce McCandless. He leaves the Challenger Space Shuttle 164 miles above Hawaii, wearing a jet powered ‘manned maneuvering unit’ back-pack that he had helped to design and ‘walks’ 300 feet and back without a safety line.

8 February 1998
Former Lockheed test pilot Anthony W. ‘Tony’ LeVier dies aged 84. During his 32 years with Lockheed, he took twenty prototypes into the air on their first flights, survived eight crashes and a mid-air collision.

5-9 February 2003
Euro-India show is held at Bangalore

Fina Air begins services.

3 February 2005
Kam Air Flight 904 crashes. There were no survivors.

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That’s it for this week Folks. See ya in seven.

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