Warbirds Online » Blog Archive » This Week In Military/Aviation History 3

Let’s take a look at this week, shall we?

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8 August 1908
One of the Wright brothers, Wilbur Wright, makes his first European flight at Le Mans in France in the new two-seat Model A.

8 August 1910
The first aircraft tricycle landing-gear is installed, on a United States Army Wright biplane.

3 August 1911
A Voisin biplane lands on the River Seine using the aircraft’s amphibious landing gear.

5 August 1912
United States Army officers gain double pay for volunteering for flying training, after the Hardwick Bill is passed in Washington, USA.

6 August 1913
Johnny Bryant becomes the first pilot to be killed in Canada when his floatplane disintegrates in flight at Victoria.

8 August 1914
An unnamed observer of a French aircraft, piloted by Sadi Lecointe, is wounded by German rifle fire and becomes the first French casualty of the First World War.

6 August 1915
German Naval Zeppelin LZ28 (L5) is hit by Russian ground fire and forced to land.

6 August 1916
French fighter pilot Rene Paul Fonck claims his first victory by forcing down a German Rumpler biplane.

8-9 August 1917
The first Allied bomber is shot down by German night fighter defenses near Frankfurt in Main.

7 August 1918
The first Fokker E.V parasol wing fighters are received on the Western Front by Jagdgeschwarder I, commanded by Goering. However, wing failures result in the quick withdrawal of the type by August 21.

7-8 August 1919
Captain Earnest Hoy, flying a Curtiss JN4 Jenny, makes the first aeroplane flight across the Canadian Rocky Mountains, from Vancouver to Calgary, in 12 hours 34 minutes.

3 August 1921
The first experiments in aerial crop dusting are carried out by Lieutenant John B. Macready on behalf of the Ohio Agricultural Experimental Station at Troy in Ohio. Using a Curtiss JN6 with a specially designed hopper fitted to the side of the fuselage 175 pounds of powdered arsenate of lead is distributed over 4,815 trees in an orchard.

The flight takes place at 20-35 feet and is accomplished in six nine-second discharges. Two days later C.R. Neillie, the Cleveland entomologist who had suggested the idea, reported “evidences of the wholesale destruction of insects were everywhere apparent.” Less than 1% of the insects in the dusted area had survived.

8-29 August 1929
German LZ127 Graf Zeppelin makes the first airship circumnavigation of the world. It leaves and returns to Lakehurst in New Jersey. The journey takes 21 days 5 hours 31 minutes and goes via Germany, Japan and Los Angeles. The distance covered is 35,200 kilometers (21,873 miles).

5-7 August 1933
French Air Force pilots Lieutenant Maurice Rossi and Paul Codes establish a new world distance record of 9,104 kilometers (5,657 miles) from New York in the United States to Rayak in Syria, using a Blériot Zapata aircraft.

7 August 1936
Six Heinkel He51 fighters, plus pilots and ground crew, arrive in Spain. This is the first consignment of German assistance to the Nationalist forces of General Franco.

7-8 August 1941
A small force of Soviet Naval Aviation Il-4 (DB3F) bombers takes-off from Estonian Islands of Dagö and Saaremaa and attacks the Berlin area. The city was brightly lit and the raid precipitates the introduction of blackout regulations in the German capital.

7-8 August 1942
With considerable early air cover United States Marines begin landings on Guadalcanal.

4 August 1944
The first ‘Aphrodite’ mission is undertaken by the United States Army Air Force (USAAF). Radio-controlled Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses, packed with 9,072 kilos (20,000 pounds) of TNT, are launched against German V2 sites under construction in the Par de Calais in France.

7 August 1944
United States Carrier Division 11 is commissioned. This is the first division intended for night operations and consists of the carriers USS Ranger and USS Saratoga.

8-9 August 1944
Mediterranean Air Forces begin dropping arms and supplies to the Polish Home Army in Warsaw.

6 August 1945
Boeing B-29 ‘Enola Gay’ of the 509th Composite Group, piloted by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets Jr, drops the world’s first operational atomic bomb over the city of Hiroshima. The bomb is dropped at 0815hrs local time at a height of 1,900 feet and generates a yield equivalent to 12,500 tons of TNT.

Of the 76,000 buildings in Hiroshima, 48,000 were destroyed and 22,000 damaged. The bomb destroyed 4.7 square miles of the city and over 80% of its buildings. Japanese estimates put casualties at 71,379 killed or missing and 68,023 wounded.

9 August 1945
Lieutenant Robet H. Gray of the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve (RCNVR) is killed attacking a Japanese destroyer. Attached to the Fleet Air Arm and flying a Corsair, he is posthumously awarded the last air force Victoria Cross to be won.

A second atomic bomb is dropped over Nagasaki from Major Charles W. Sweeney’s Boeing B-29 ‘Bock’s Car’. The primary target is Kokura but weather over this city forces a diversion to the secondary target.

Due to the topography of Nagasaki with its hills and rivers, damage was far less than Hiroshima. However, 1.4 square miles of a built up area of 3.8 square miles was destroyed. Japanese estimates, which were comparatively low, put the casualties at 25,680 killed and 23,345 wounded.

3 August 1947
The first public appearance of the Tupolev Tu4 heavy bomber takes place at the Soviet Aviation Day parade. The aircraft is a reverse engineered copy of the American B-29.

9 August 1949
The first use in the United States of an ejection seat for an emergency escape from an aircraft. Lieutenant J. L. Fruin of the United States Navy (USN) ejects from a McDonnell F2H-1 Banshee flying in excess of 925kph (575mph) near Walterboro in South Carolina.

6 August 1950
A French memorandum on rearmament and defense is given to the United States Ambassador in Paris.

7 August 1951
The United States Navy’s ‘Viking’ single-stage rocket reaches a height of 135 miles at 4,100mph after launching at White Sands in New Mexico. Major William Bridgeman, test pilot for Douglas flies the United States Navy’s Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket research aircraft reaching 1,238mph.

3 August 1954
The 2nd prototype of Convair XF2Y1 Sea Dart exceeds Mach 1 in a shallow dive, becoming the first water-based aircraft in the world to exceed the speed of sound.

7 August 1959
National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Explorer 6 is launched into Earth orbit and returns the first television pictures of the Earth as seen from space.

6 August 1961
The Soviet Union launches its second man into space in Vostok 2. Cosmonaut Herman Titov completes 17 earth orbits before landing 1 day 1 hour 19 minutes after lift off.

5 August 1964
President Johnson orders United States carrier aircraft to attack North Vietnamese naval bases as retaliation for the two earlier attacks on United States destroyers.

7-9 August 1964
Turkish aircraft attack Greek Cypriot positions on Cyprus, but the United Nations intervenes and the attacks stop.

7 August 1980
Janice Brown pilots the MacCready Gossamer Penguin on its first solar powered flight.

8 August 1980
The death of Jacqueline Cochran is announced. A successful businesswoman, she was also the first female to fly an aircraft at more than the speed of sound and held over 200 United States aviation records simultaneously.

3 August 1981
The Boeing company delivers its 4,000th jetliner, a 727-200, for Ansett Airlines of Australia.

6 August 1981
The United States President Ronald Reagan sacks all striking Air Traffic Controllers.

5 August 1982
Australian Dick Smith begins the first solo helicopter flight around the world.

4 August 1995
A new world altitude record for manned, piston-engined aircraft of 18,545 meters (60,867 feet) is set by a Grob G820 Strato 1c high altitude environmental research aircraft.

2 August 2005
Air France Flight 358 bursts into flames after skidding off the end of a runway after landing at Toronto Pearson International Airport. All 309 people aboard survive.

6 August 2005
A Tuninter ATR-72 heading from Italy to Tunisia crashes into the Mediterranean Sea, killing 16 of 39 on board.

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

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