Warbirds Online » Blog Archive » This Week In Military/Aviation History 28 September

Well Folks another seven in the books, and what do I have to show for it? Nut ‘n Honey. Oh well, one of these days I’ll get around to doin’ what I plan to, but in the meantime, let’s get down to some serious history, shall we?

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30 September 1906
The first international balloon race starts from Les Tuileries in Paris and is won by Lieutenant Frank P. Lahm of the United States Army.

Lahm flies his balloon ‘United States’ a distance of 637 kilometers (402 miles) to Fylingdales Moor in North Yorkshire, England.

29 September 1907
The Bréguet-Richet helicopter lifts off but has to be steadied by ground crew using poles.

October 1910
Romanian Henri Coanda exhibits a propellerless biplane. It fails.

The first fighter aircraft, a Voisin biplane fitted with a machine gun, is exhibited at the Paris Aero Show.

2 October 1910
The first officially recorded mid-air collision between two aeroplanes occurs in Milan. An Antoinette piloted by Rene Thomas strikes a Henry Farman biplane piloted by Englishman Captain Bertram Dickson. Both pilots survived.

1 October 1912
The German Military Aviation Service is formed.

29 September 1913
A Deperdussin monoplane piloted by Maurice Prevost flies at 203kph (126mph) to win the Gordon Bennett cup at Reims in France. This is the last speed record before the outbreak of the First World War.

October 1913
A recommendation is made by the United States Navy (USN) Secretary’s Aeronautic Board that an aeronautics centre should be established, assigning a ship for sea aviation training and assigning one aeroplane for every major combat ship.

October 1914
The French Aéronautique Militaire has expanded to 34 escadrilles, by far the largest air arm in the world.

October 1915
The Bulgarian Army Aviation Corps is reformed, after being disbanded following the Balkan War, 1912-1913.

1 October 1915
German passenger airship LZ11 ‘Viktoria Luise’ is wrecked while docking.

2 October 1916
Zeppelin LZ72 (L31) is shot down over Potter’s Bar, killing Heinrich Mathy, Germany’s foremost airship captain.

28 September 1918
Leutnant F. Büchner is awarded the Pour le Mérite.

29 September 1918
2nd Lieutenant Frank Luce Jr is posthumously awarded the US Congressional Medal of Honor. He was killed on the 28th after destroying three balloons, and having been wounded, he landed behind enemy lines and engaged German ground troops. His score of 21 victories makes him the second ranking American ace of the war.

29 September 1919
The Polskie Wojska Lotnicze (Polish Air Force) is formed.

1 October 1919
The Australian Aircraft and Engineering Company is established to manufacture and sell Avro aircraft under license.

28 September 1923
The United States wins first and second place in Schneider Trophy Contest with Curtiss CR3 biplanes.

28 September 1924
The first round the world aeroplane flight is completed. Douglas World Cruisers’ ‘Chicago’ and ‘New Orleans’ arrive back at Seattle. With an actual flying time of 371 hours 11 minutes, the flight required 57 stops.

30 September 1929
Opel-Hatry Rak-1, a rocket-powered glider (sailplane) flies 1.8 kilometers (1.1 miles) near Frankfurt in Germany. The glider, piloted by Fritz von Opel, reaches a speed of 1,260kph (100mph),

October 1931
Air France becomes the first European airline to recruit air hostesses.

3-5 October 1931
Clyde Pangborn and Hugh Herndon make the first non-stop flight between Japan and the United States. They used a Bellanca aircraft.

28 September 1933
G. Lemoine flies a Potez 50 to a new world record altitude of 13,661 meters (44,820 feet) at Villacoublay in France.

28 September 1934
Deutche Lufthansa carries its 1,000,000th passenger.

October 1934
A demonstration of Dr Rudolph Kühnold’s apparatus, to high ranking naval staff at Pelzerhaken near Lübeck, picks up echoes of a ship 7 miles away, but at the same time accidentally picks up a German seaplane. This is the first detection of an aircraft by radio location.

3 October 1935
Italy invades Abyssinia without warning, using aircraft from the beginning of the invasion.

28 September 1939
Warsaw surrenders.

3 October 1939
Poland capitulates with Germany and the Soviet Union partition the country.

October 1940
German Air Force Gruppe Rowehl is instructed to begin high altitude reconnaissance and mapping of western Russia.

30 September 1941
The Luftwaffe claims to have destroyed more than 4,500 Soviet aircraft since the opening of hostilities.

2 October 1941
The third prototype of the Messerschmitt Me163A rocket fighter, piloted by Heini Dittmar, achieves a speed of 1,004kph (623mph), an unofficial world speed record that remains a secret until the end of the war.

3 October 1942
The first fully successful launch of a German A4 (V2) rocket takes place and reaches 56 miles from Peenemünde in 296 seconds.

29 September 1946
A United States Navy (USN) Lockheed P2V Neptune crewed by Commander T. Davis and E.P. Rankin, sets a new non-stop world distance record of 18,081 kilometers (11,235 miles) flying from Perth in Australia to Columbus in Ohio.

1 October 1946
The Belgian Air Force is re-established.

United States experiments in postal delivery by helicopter are made in the Chicago suburbs, in a combined operation by the United States Post Office and the United States Army Air Force (USAAF), using a Sikorsky helicopter.

1 October 1947
Los Angeles Airways inaugurates its first scheduled helicopter airmail service using Sikorsky S51s.

30 September 1949
The Allied Berlin Airlift ends. During 15 months of operation, 2.25 million tons of supplies and equipment has been flown into Berlin.

29 September 1950
Captain Richard V. Wheeler makes a parachute jump of 12,938 meters (42,449 feet) at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.

1 October 1950
The Danish Air Arm becomes the Royal Danish Air Force.

3 October 1951
Squadron HS1, the United States Navy’s first Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) helicopter squadron is commissioned at Key West in the Florida Keys.

The explosion of a 2nd atomic bomb in the Soviet Union is announced by President Truman.

30 September 1952
The Bell GAM-63 Rascal air-to-surface missile is launched for the first time.

1 October 1953
A defense treaty is signed by the United States and South Korea.

3 October 1953
Lieutenant Commander J.B. Vardin sets a new world speed record, flying a Douglas F4D1 Skyray, averaging 1,211kph (752mph) in four runs over a 3 kilometer course.

4 October 1953
A de Havilland Comet IA of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) flies non-stop from Goose Bay in Labrador to London covering the 2,460 miles in 5 hours 56 minutes.

28 September 1954
There is an announcement that China has tested its first home built plane on 26 July 1954. It is claimed as the successful start of China’s aircraft industry.

4 October 1957
The Soviet Union puts the world’s first artificial satellite, named Sputnik 1 (Fellow Traveller), into Earth orbit.

1 October 1958
The United States’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is established.

4 October 1959
The Soviet Luna 3 space probe launched and becomes the first to photograph the Moon’s hidden surface.

4 October 1961
The United States launches the world’s first active communication satellite, Courier 1B.

1 October 1963
A ski-equipped Lockheed C130 Hercules, under the command of Rear Admiral James R. Reedy, makes a first transpolar non-stop flight from Capetown in South Africa to McMurdo Sound in Antarctica.

3 October 1967
Major William Knight of the United States Air Force (USAF) flies the North American X15A-2 to its highest speed 7,297kph (4,534mph).

30 September 1968
The New York City Police celebrate 20 years of helicopter use in law enforcement.

30 September 1973
Pan American World Airways (Pan-Am) opens a huge new terminal at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport, to accommodate it’s Boeing 747 aircraft.

30 September 1983
The first production McDonnell Douglas (Hughes) AH64A Apache attack helicopter is completed.

2 October 1984
Soviet Space vehicle Soyuz T10B lands after setting a new space endurance record of 237 days.

3 October 1985
Space Shuttle Atlantis makes its first launch, on mission 51J.

28 September 1987
Three of the six crew of a United States Air Force (USAF) Rockwell B1B bomber are killed when their aircraft collides with a bird, probably a large Pelican.

2 October 1990
A highjacked Boeing 737 collides with two airliners on the ground at White Cloud Airport in Canton, killing 127 passengers.

30 September 1995
The Fiat G91 is retired by the Italian Air Force after over 30 years service.

October 2000
A report from a Russian defense analyst announces that the once feared Russian Air Force has been reduced in size to such an extent that it would nno longer gain air superiority over a force the size of Turkey’s.

Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer invests $150 million to erect a new factory in São Paulo, to carry out flight testing and final assembly of aircraft for defense and corporate aviation markets.

A Gulf Air Airbus S320 crashes into the sea near Bahrain whilst on a flight from the Egyptian capital, Cairo. The crew had reportedly made two failed attempts to land at Bahrain and crashed on the third attempt.

The United States Government Senate Commerce Committee opposes a $11.6billion bid to buy the United States Airways group, from the UAL Corporation, owner of United Airways. The committee decides that the deal, which would combine United States Airways and United Airlines, would harm competition.

Lufthansa announces that it will place an order for ten Airbus A3XX aircraft by the end of the year.

October 2001
Alitalia agrees to join Air France and Delta Airlines in the SkyTeam alliance.

2 October 2001
Switzerland’s National Airline, Swissair, is grounded as it is declared bankrupt, the largest company to fall victim to the downturn in air travel and the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11th.

4 October 2004
SpaceShipOne successfully makes her 3rd flight into space and proves to be a plausible option for space tourism, thus winning the Ansari X-Prize.

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