Warbirds Online » Blog Archive » Today In Military/Aviation History 21

Well Folks, that’s another seven gone that we’ll never get back and here I am again. I’m still horizontal so all is well. (At least as far as I’m concerned.) Let’s get down to some serious history, shall we?

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21 September 1908
Wilbur Wright makes first significant long distance flight by covering 66 kilometers (41 miles).

23 September 1910
Peruvian Georges Chavez flies over the Alps, from Brig to Domodossola, in a Blériot monoplane but is killed when he crash-lands.

27 September 1910
Roger Sommer flies in his unique twin-engined biplane.

23 September 1911
The first official airmail flight in the USA is piloted by Earle L. Ovington in his Blériot monoplane, flying from Nassau Air Park to Mineola in Long Island. It is also the first airmail to fly on a set route.

25 September 1911
Pole Scipio del Campo pilots the Cywinski and Zbieranski biplane on a flight for 12½ miles.

21 September 1913
The first sustained upside-down flight is made by Adolphe Pegoud in his Blériot monoplane.

23 September 1913
Roland Garros makes the first flight across the Mediterranean in his Morane-Saulnier monoplane, from Saint-Raphael to Bizerte in Tunisia, a distance of 453 miles.

27 September 1914
The first French bomber Groupe is formed and is equipped with Voisin biplanes.

24 September 1916
A German LVG biplane becomes the first victim of a Sopwith Pup fighter.

26 September 1916
Hauptmann Rudolf Berthold, one of Germany’s highest-rated fighter pilots during the First World War One, receives the Pour le Mérite. He achieves 44 air victories before being injured in 1918, when his Fokker DVII collides with an enemy aircraft and crashes into a house.

23 September 1917
German fighter ace Leutnant Werner Voss is shot down and killed by Captain James McCudden of 56 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps (RFC).

25 September 1918
Captain Edward V. Rickenbacker is awarded the US congressional Medal of Honor.

26 September 1918
Frenchman Capitaine René Paul Fonck shoots down six German aircraft in a day, including four Fokker DVII’s and an Albatros DV.

23 September 1921
Brigadier General William ‘Billy’ Mitchell provides another demonstration of aeroplane bombing against surface ships when aircraft under his command bomb and sink three unwanted United States Navy (USN) vessels, including the battleship USS Alabama.

27 September 1922
Naval Aircraft Radio Laboratory technicians at Anacostia demonstrate radar signatures for the first time.

24 September 1929
‘Blind flying’ Lieutenant James H. Doolittle flies on instruments only, at Mitchell Field in New York.

25 September 1932
A new altitude record is set for autogyros when Captain Lewis A. Yancey, flying a Pitcairn PCA2, climbs to 6,553 meters (21,500 feet).

27 September 1940
Germany, Italy and Japan conclude a pact, each pledging total aid to the others.

23 September 1941
A Junkers Ju87 pilot, Oberleutnant Hans-Ulrich Rudel, succeeds in hitting the 26,170 ton Soviet battleship Marat at Kronstadt with a 1,000 kilo bomb. The ship is badly damaged and sinks in shallow water in what is probably the greatest success achieved by a dive bomber pilot in the Second World War.

23 September 1942
Brigadier General J.H. Doolittle is appointed to command the 12th United States Army Air Force (USAAF) .

22 September 1947
A United States Air Force (USAF) C-54 Skymaster makes a fully-automatic flight from Stephenville in Newfoundland to the United Kingdom.

23 September 1949
The Soviet Union detonates its first atomic bomb and ends the United States nuclear monopoly.

26 September 1952
The German Government approves the formation of a company to make preparations for establishing and equipping a new Lufthansa airline.

27 September 1953
Three defense agreements are signed by the United States and Spain.

24 September 1956
The formation date of the post war German air force, the Luftwaffe der Deutschen Bundesrepublik.

27 September 1956
The Bell X-2 crashes after being dropped by from a Boeing B-50 bomber and the pilot, Captain Milburn G. Apt, is killed. It is later reported that the aircraft reached a speed of 2,100mph before it crashed.

24 September 1966
The Russian Marina Solovyeva sets a new women’s world speed record of 2,044kph (1,270mph) in a Ye76 (MiG21) aircraft.

22 September 1972
Delta Airlines orders fourteen Boeing 727 aircraft, bringing the total sales of the airliner to a record 1,000.

25 September 1978
A mid-air collision between a Boeing 727 and a Cessna light aircraft results in the deaths of 144 people. All the airliner’s passengers and crew, the two occupants of the Cessna and six people struck by falling wreckage, die in the accident.

22-24 September 1981
An Ilyushin Il86, captained by G. Volokhov, sets new class speed records in the 1,000 kilometers and 2,000 kilometers closed circuit categories at 962kph (597mph) and 975kph (606mph) respectively.

27 September 1990
United Airlines becomes the first commercial operator to use satcoms (satellite data communications) on a flight between San Francisco and Hong Kong.

27 September 1993
James ‘Jimmy’ Doolittle, famous American record-breaking pilot and United States Air Force General, dies aged 96.

21 September 2005
JetBlue Airways Flight 292, an Airbus A320 makes an emergency landing at Los Angeles International Airport after its nose wheels got stuck at a 90 degree angle. All 145 people on board survived.

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

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