Warbirds Online » Blog Archive » Today In Military/Aviation History 6

Hello Folks, another seven yadda yadda. I’ve got stuff to do tonight, so let’s get down to some serious history, shall we?

Have an AB FAN Week,

Take Care and Be Safe,

Tom K.

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11 April 1911
The United States Army flying school is established at College Park.

12 April 1911
Frenchman Pierre Prier makes the first non-stop flight from London to Paris, carrying passengers. He flies a Blériot for 3 hours 45 minutes from Hendon to Issy-les-Moulineaux in Paris.

6 April 1912
Belgian M.V. de Jonckheere demonstrates that aeroplanes can follow ships at night as he flies his monoplane in experiments at League Island in California.

9 April 1915
The first meeting of the Australian Aero Club is held at the Café Francais in Melbourne.

11 April 1915
The prototype German Zeppelin-Staaken VGO1 heavy bomber flies for the first time. This later becomes the Zeppelin-Staaken R1.

6 April 1917
The United States declares war on Germany. The United States Army Signal Corps possesses 250 aircraft and the United States Marine Corps (USMC) has a further 54.

7 April 1917
Cuba declares war on Germany.

12 April 1917
Breguet 14s are introduced into service with French squadrons on the Western Front.

12 April 1918
German Gotha bombers bombed Paris, hitting a hospital and killing a mother, baby and a nurse. Bombs also exploded in the city and northern suburbs. A further attack that night left 26 dead and 72 injured.

The Loughead brothers fly their F1 Seaplane from Santa Barbara to San Diego.

6 April 1919
Customs examination of airline passengers begins at Brussels.

7 April 1922
The first airliner collision takes place when a French Farman Goliath of Grands Express flies into the path of a de Havilland DH18 operated by Daimler Airways. The collision takes place over Poix in northern France.

12-13 April 1928
The first east-west transatlantic flight is made from Baldonnel in Dublin to Greenly Island, just off the coast of Labrador by Captain James Fitzmaurice of the Irish Free State Air Service, Captain Hermann Köhl and Baron von Hünefeld in a Junkers W33 Bremen.

11 April 1934
Commander R. Donati, flying a modified Caproni 113, establishes a new altitude record of 14,433 meters (47,352 feet) at Rome.

6-9 April 1937
Mitsubishi Type 97 (Ki125) J-BAAI ‘Kamikaze’ is flown by Masaaki Iinuma, with Kenji Tsukagoshi as his navigator, from Tashikawa to Croydon to capture the Japan to England record. The flight takes 51 hours 17minutes 23 seconds and covers a distance of 15,356 kilometers (9,542 miles).

7-9 April 1939
Italy occupies Albania.

9 April 1940
German forces overrun and occupy Denmark.

The German invasion Norway includes the use of paratroop assaults on Oslo and Stavanger.

6 April 1941
The first aircraft ejection seat, a compressed air unit, is fitted to the German Heinkel He280 jet fighter.

9 April 1941
An agreement is reached between the Danish government in exile and the United States, allowing the United States to build and operate airfields in Greenland.

6 April 1942
Japanese carrier aircraft make the first air attack on India.

12 April 1942
United States Army Air Force (USAAF) Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses and North American B-25 Mitchells based in Australia make the first attack against Japanese shipping and installations in the Philippines.

7 April 1945
The 71,000 ton Japanese battleship ‘Yamato’, a cruiser, and four of eight destroyers are sunk by endless air attacks from United States Navy (USN) carrier aircraft as they fruitlessly attempt to disrupt the United States landings on Okinawa.

United States Army Air Force (USAAF) Boeing B-29s receive fighter escort for all future missions against the Japanese Home Islands.

10 April 1945
The last wartime sortie over the United Kingdom is made by an Arado Ar 234B reconnaissance aircraft operating from Norway.

In an attack on targets in the Berlin area the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) loses 19 bombers and 8 fighters to German Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighters.

12 April 1945
The destroyer USS Mannert L. Abele is sunk by a Japanese Ohka suicide aircraft off Okinawa.

8 April 1950
Russian fighters shoot down an unarmed United States Navy (USN) aircraft over the Baltic, killing ten airmen.

11 April 1952
No.14 Squadron, Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF), equipped with de Havilland Vampire jet fighters, will be stationed with British forces in the Middle East area.

11 April 1955
An Indian Constellation airliner is brought down by a bomb on board with the loss of fifteen lives.

12 April 1957
The United States announces that the Ryan X-13 Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) aircraft has completed a full transition.

6 April 1959
It is announced in the United States that seven pilots have been selected from the nation’s armed services for training as space vehicle pilots.

12 April 1961
The Soviet Union launches Vostok 1 into earth orbit from Baikonur in Western Siberia and Flight Major Yuri Alexeyvich Gagarin becomes the first man in space. He lands successfully after one orbit of the Earth. The flight time is 1 hour 48 minutes.

6 April 1965
The Hughes Early Bird I communications satellite is launched into geo-stationary earth orbit. It becomes operational on 28 June and is the world’s first commercial satellite for public telephone calls.

11-17 April 1970
Apollo 13 suffers an oxygen tank explosion during the outward flight of an attempt to land on the Moon. The resulting emergency is resolved through brilliant improvisation and returns Astronauts James Lovell, John Swigert and Fred Haise to Earth.

6 April 1971
Dutch airline KLM inaugurates a trans-Siberian service with aircraft leased from the Russian state airline, Aeroflot.

6 April 1978
Eastern Airlines orders 25 Airbus A300B4 airliners.

12 April 1981
Space Shuttle Columbia is successfully launched from Cape Canaveral for its first mission.

6 April 1986
Lufthansa flies its restored pre-Second World War Junkers Ju52/3m transport and the aircraft receives passenger-carrying certification on 6 June.

9 April 1996
The EMD Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 Raptor is rolled out.

9 April 1997
The first production Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22A Raptor is rolled out.

7 April 1998
McDonnell Douglas AH-64D Longbow Apache attack helicopters are ordered by the Dutch Government.

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

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