Warbirds Online » Blog Archive » Today In Military/Aviation History 23

Hello Folks, well, seven more up in smoke. Speaking of up in smoke, (Blatant Segue) I hear a pack of smokes is going up $0.61 per pack. $6.10 per carton. Well, If the government can get more Folks to smoke instead of discouraging them, there would be enough revenue to go around. Ya think? Let ‘em smoke until everything clears up and THEN help ‘em to stop. Hmmmm. Maybe this is a “It sounded like a good idea at the time” dealie. I think we just better get down to some serious history, ASAP, shall we?

Have an AB FAN week,

Take Care and Be Safe,

Tom K.

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23 March 1903
The Wright brothers file a patent for an aeroplane based on their No.III glider.

26 March 1910
Plans for Aeropolis, an aerodrome at Le Bourget in France, are announced.

28 March 1910
Frenchman Henri Fabre makes the world’s first take-off from water at La Mede harbour near Marseilles. in the ‘Hydravion’, a powered seaplane.

23 March 1911
Louis Breguet flies the world’s first flight with 11 passengers a distance of 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) in his Breguet biplane.

24 March 1911
Roger Sommer flies the world’s first flight with 12 passengers a distance of 800 meters (2,625 feet) in his Sommer biplane.

29 March 1912
The French Aéronautique Militaire is reorganized into three Groupes, based in Lyon, Reims and Versailles.

23 March 1914
The Royal Siamese Flying Corps is formed.

27 March 1915
Mancia, a kite balloon ship, sails for the Dardanelles, equipped with a kite balloon for use as an observation platform.

27 March 1918
A Curtiss H16 flying boat, the first production aircraft built by the United States Naval Aircraft Factory, makes its first flight.

24 March 1919
Airplane designer Igor Sikorsky, who fled to France after the Russian Revolution, sails for the United States. The French Government did not take up the offer of his services.

23 March 1923
The Italian Regia Aeronautica is formed.

23-26 March 1932
A World Distance Record, in a closed circuit, is established by Frenchmen Lucien Bossoutrot and Maurice Rossi flying a Blériot 110 a distance of 10,601 kilometers (6,587 miles) at Oran in Algeria.

28 March 1935
The first successful flight of one of Dr Robert Goddard’s rockets takes place in the United States.

27-29 March 1938
Deutche Luft Hansa’s Dornier Do18F D-ANHR is catapulted from a seaplane carrier at Star Point in Devon and is flown by Captain H.W. von Engle to Caravellas in Brazil. This non-stop flight of 8,392 kilometers (5,125 miles) establishes a new world distance record for flying boats and takes 43 hours 5 minutes.

28 March 1939
Madrid and Valencia surrender to General Franco’s Nationalist forces.

25 March 1940
United States Army Air Force (USAAC) contractors are authorized to sell to anti-Axis governments modern types of Army combat aircraft.

26 March 1940
A United States report, reviewing the 1939 civil airline year in the United States records that it was entirely free from any air fatalities.

27 March 1941
Following a coup d’etat by anti-Nazi elements in Yugoslavia, Hitler orders the invasion of both Yugoslavia and Greece.

27 March 1942
The United States Navy (USN) is given sole charge of anti-submarine warfare off the United States coastline.

25 March 1944
The 15th United States Army Air Force (USAAF) makes the first operational use of the VB1 Azon bomb, a general purpose bomb with a pair of radio controlled rudders in the tail.

23-24 March 1945
Allied forces make large scale crossings of the Rhine in Operation Varsity, which sees a large scale Allied airborne landing take advanced positions.

27 March 1945
The last V2 rocket to fall on the United Kingdom lands at Orpington in Kent at 1654hrs, killing one person and injuring 23 others.

28 March 1951
The Federal Bureau of Statistics in Bonn announces figures relating to German casualties at home and on the battle fronts in the Second World War. These total over 5 million (3,200,000 in action or missing, 500,000 civilians during bombing raids and 200,000 disabled war veterans) but they state that the exact numbers will never be known and the figures are probably higher.

24 March 1953
A Dakota of the Czechoslovakian State airline, on a flight from Prague to Brno, is seized and landed in the United States zone of Germany. The people responsible and two others seek political asylum.

27 March 1953
The Royal Netherlands Air Force is established as an independent service.

23 March 1955
Two Saab 29C photographic reconnaissance jet aircraft of the Royal Swedish Air Force, flying in formation, set a new record of 560mph over a closed course of 621 miles. They claim it to be the first speed record made in formation.

23 March 1965
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Gemini 3 spacecraft carries the first American multiple crew into earth orbit. Virgil Grissom and John Young undertake the 4 hour 53 minute mission.

28 March 1968
Colonel Yuri Gagarin, first man in space, is killed when his Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 UTI crashes near Kirzhatsk, north of Moscow.

28 March 1969
Panavia GmgH, a new aerospace company, is created by the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC), Fiat, Fokker and Messerschmitt-Bölkow, to develop and manufacture the Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MRCA).

24 March 1971
The United States Government cancels funding for a Supersonic Transport Aircraft and the program is officially terminated in May.

24 March 1976
A Boeing 747SP lands at Cape Town after setting a world non-stop distance record for a civil aircraft of 10,290 miles.

24 March 1977
The first operational Boeing E-3A Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft is delivered to the United States Air Force (USAF).

27 March 1977
The world’s greatest air tragedy occurs when two Boeing 747′s collide on the runway at Santa Cruz Airport in Tenerife, killing 579 people.

23 March 1978
Captain Sandra M. Scott becomes the first woman to fly an alert duty in Strategic Air Command, when she is assigned to the 904th Air Refueling Squadron, which flies KC-135 tankers.

23 March 1979
The Boeing 757 enters into production, after an order from Eastern Airlines.

28 March 1980
Gates Learjet announce that they have delivered their 1,000th Learjet.

28 March 1981
Air France flies it’s last service using the Aérospatiale (Sud-Aviation) Caravelle, almost 22 years after the type entered service.

25 March 1982
The 35th anniversary of the start of Beech Bonanza by the Beech Aircraft Corporation. Almost 15,000 aircraft have been sold in this period, two-thirds of these being the V-tailed Model 35.

26 March 1982
Funding is approved for the Hughes AH-64A Apache attack helicopter.

29 March 1983
Lufthansa and Swissair receive the first Airbus A310s for commercial service.

23 March 1987
Japan Air Lines announces that it is going to install automatic course guidance alarms on its aircraft. An alarm will sound should the aircraft deviate from the correct flight path.

28 March 1988
Airbus Industrie begins deliveries of A320s to Air France.

23 March 2001
The Russian space station Mir ends its 15 year career in space at 0559hrs GMT with a successful de-orbit and re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. Most of the space station disintegrates on re-enty, but 27 tons of debris fall into the ocean 2,800 kilometers (1,700 miles) east of New Zealand. During its career, Mir made 86,320 orbits, travelled 3.5 billion kilometers, was visited by 104 individuals and 110 spacecraft, conducted some 23,000 experiments and 140 spacewalks.

27 March 2001
Boeing announces it is planning the development of new series of airliners that will be designed to fly higher, further and faster than current commercial airliners.

Investigators are unable to determine the ignition source of an explosion in a Thai Airways International Boeing 737 on 3 March. There was no evidence to support the notion of sabotage.

27 March 2004
NASA’s X-43 pilotless plane breaks world speed record for an atmospheric engine by briefly flying at 7,700 kilometers (4,780 miles) per hour (seven times the speed of sound).

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

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