Warbirds Online » Blog Archive » Today In Military/Aviation History 4- 10 May

Hello Folks, it’s about that time where I blatantly use this forum to advertise the two things I’m most involved with. 1. The 1941 Historical Aircraft Group Website Message Board which I moderate. Please stop by and check us out. You may see something you like. 2. The 2009 Greatest Show On Turf. This year’s theme is GO NAVY. Stop by the Museum’s Website for all the details : www.1941hag.org Hope to see you there!! Now, that being said, 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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7 May 1910
The Antoinette Company builds a simulator at Mourmelon air school for pilots to practice the controls of an Antoinette monoplane.

5 May 1911
Anthony Fokker pilots his second Spinne (Spider) monoplane with a 50 horse-power engine.

Baron Sandji Narahara flies a biplane to 196 feet with a 50 horse-power Gnome engine.

7 May 1912
An American Wright biplane, flown by Lieutenant Thomas De Witt Milling at College Park in Maryland, becomes the first aeroplane to be armed with a machine gun.

9 May 1912
In Sydney, William Hart is fined £20 for causing a herd of cattle to stampede by flying over them.

10 May 1913
Didier Masson drops bombs from an aeroplane on Mexican gunships in Guaymas Bay.

4 May 1916
Zeppelin LZ32 is shot down and destroyed by British naval gunfire.

10 May 1916
The French Air Force places an order for 268 Spad VII fighters.

7 May 1917
The first night bombing raid on London by an aeroplane takes place.

2-3 May 1923
Lieutenant O.G. Kelly and Lieutenant J.A. Macready of the United States Army Air Service (USAAS) make the first non-stop flight across the United States. Flying a Fokker T2, the journey time is 26 hours 50 minutes. They leave Roosevelt Field, Long Island and land at Rockwell Field in California.

9 May 1926
Lieutenant Commander Richard E. Byrd of the United States Navy (USN) and Floyd Bennett make the first over-flight of the North Pole, in Fokker F.VIIA-3m ‘Josephine Ford’.

8 May 1927
Charles Eugène Jules Marie Nungesser, the French First World War fighter ace, goes missing in a Levasseur PL8, during an attempted east to west crossing of the North Atlantic.

9 May 1932
The first blind solo-flight, controlled entirely on instruments, is made at Dayton in Ohio by Captain A.F. Hegenberger, flying a Consolidated NY2 trainer.

5 May 1935
Amelia Earhart makes non-stop flight from Mexico City to Newark in New Jersey, in 14 hours 19 minutes.

5 May 1936
Mussolini announces the occupation of Addis Ababa and the end of the Abyssinian war - a war in which modern weapons, such as aircraft and poison gas were used against a primitive poorly equipped enemy.

6 May 1937
German hydrogen-filled airship, the ‘Hindenburg’, is destroyed by fire whilst docking at Lakehurst in New Jersey. 33 of the 97 people on board are killed.

8 May 1937
A new altitude record is set at Montecelio in Italy when Lieutenant Colonel M. Pezzi flies a Caproni 161 to 15,655 meters (51,362 feet).

10 May 1940
The German invasion of the Low Countries begins. There is extensive use of paratroops and airborne Troops and Belgium’s Fort Eban Emael, considered impregnable, is quickly and easily overcome by glider-borne assault troops. Luftwaffe records show their losses for the first day are 304 gliders destroyed and 51 damaged.

10-11 May 1941
Rudolf Hess, Deputy Führer of Germany, flies to United Kingdom in a Messerschmitt Bf 110 and lands by parachute in Scotland. While the purpose of the flight is still a matter of controversy, it is thought that when he eventually identified himself he claimed his mission was one of peace.

7-8 May 1942
The Battle of Coral Sea is fought. This is the first naval action to be fought by opposing carrier-based aircraft where the surface ships on both sides never sight the enemy. The United States Navy (USN) loses USS Lexington and 69 aircraft and the Japanese lose Shoho and 85 aircraft and Shokaku is also damaged.

10 May 1942
USS Ranger, operating off the west African Gold Coast flies off sixty United States Army Air Force (USAAF) Curtiss P-40 aircraft to Accra. They are then flown on by stages, to 10th USAAF in India.

10 May 1944
A major engineering task to construct bomber and fighter airfields in China, the Chengtu Project, is completed. The project used over 400,000 Chinese coolies, often using the most primitive of equipment, to finish the task.

7 May 1945
Documents for the unconditional surrender of all German forces are signed at General Eisenhower’s Headquarters. Ratified in Berlin, the war in Western Europe ends officially at midnight.

5 May 1948
The first carrier-based jet squadron, United States Navy (USN) 17A, is established with sixteen Phantoms and operates from the USS Saipan from 5 to 7 May.

8 May 1950
South African Airways receives its first Lockheed Constellation ZS-DBR, ‘Cape Town’.

7 May 1954
Britain, France and the United States reject a Russian application to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

7 May 1958
Major H.C. Johnson, flying a Lockheed F-104A Starfighter, sets the third new world altitude record in less than three weeks, attaining a height of 27,811 meters (91,243 feet).

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.

7 May 1960
A Lockheed U2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft over-flying the Soviet Union at an altitude of 43,890 meters (144,000 feet), piloted by Gary Powers, is shot down by a Soviet surface-to-air missile near Sverdlovsk.

5 May 1961
Alan B. Shepard becomes the first American in space, when he is carried into a sub-orbital trajectory in a Mercury capsule on a flight lasting 15 minutes 22 seconds.

5 May 1968
A Grumman Gulfstream II lands at London Gatwick after completing a 5,633 kilometer (3,500 mile) flight from Teterboro in New Jersey, becoming the first executive jet to make a non-stop transatlantic flight.

10 May 1972
Lieutenant Randy Cunningham and Lieutenant (Junior Grade) William Driscoll of the United States Navy (USN) shoot down Colonel Toon, the top North Vietnamese ace and two other MiG-17 aircraft and become the first United States aces of the Vietnam war. Later in the same mission, their aircraft, a McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom, is hit by a surface-to-air missile (SAM), but they successfully return to their aircraft carrier.

8 May 2001
The New Zealand Government announces the disbandment of its two squadrons of A-4 Skyhawks and abandons all fast jet training. All flying tasks will end by 1 December 2001.

5 May 2004
Air France and Netherlands-based KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines) merge, the two airlines are now known as Air France-KLM.

9 May 2004
Southwest Airlines begins service to Philadelphia International Airport.

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

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