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

Hello Folks, the magic seven have passed and like usual here I am. Christmas has passed also and a brand new year is just around the corner. I hope you Folks got what you wanted from jolly ol’ St. Nick. I got a nice WWI flight sim to spend the new year with. This time next year I hope to be an experienced pilot who can fly over “No-man’s land” without getting his butt shot out of the sky in a heartbeat. We’ll see, won’t we? On behalf of the 1941 Historical Aircraft Museum and myself, may you all have a safe and Happy New Year. In the meantime shall we delve into some serious history? Yes, I think we shall.

Tom K.

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31 December 1908
One of the Wright brothers, Wilbur Wright, wins the Michelin prize with a flight of 124 kilometers (77 miles) at Camp d’Auvours in France. The flight lasts 2 hours 20 minutes 23 seconds.

31 December 1910
John Moisant is killed when his aeroplane crashes at New Orleans.

28 December 1913
The first flight at an altitude of over 20,000 feet is made by Georges Legagneux, flying at 6,120 meters (20,079 feet) in his Nieuport Type IIN at St Raphael in France.

29 December 1913
The first flight from France to Egypt is completed after a month by Frenchman Jules Vedrines in a Blériot monoplane.

28 December 1916
Zeppelins LZ53 (L17) and LZ69 (L24) are destroyed in a fire at their shed at Tondem. In a separate incident Schutte-Lanz SL12 (E5) is also wrecked.

29 December 1916
In Russia, Zeppelin LZ84 (L38) makes a forced landing.

31 December 1922
A Dornier Komet of Deutshe Luft Reederei makes the first landing of a German aircraft on English soil since the Armistice, when it arrives at Lympne.

31 December 1933
The Polikarpov I-16 makes its first flight. It is the first monoplane fighter with an enclosed cockpit and retractable undercarriage.

31 December 1934
Helen Richey becomes first woman in the United States to pilot an airmail transport on a regular schedule. She flies a Ford Tri-motor aircraft on a route from Washington DC to Detroit in Michigan.

30 December 1936
French woman Mademoiselle Marye Bastié flies from Dakar in Senegal to Natal in Brazil, in a time of 12 hours 5 minutes.

31 December 1938
The first flight of an airliner with a pressurized passenger cabin is made by the Boeing 307 Stratoliner. The aircraft is a forerunner of the military bomber aircraft that would become the B-17 Flying Fortress.

28 December 1939
Germany’s Lufthansa and Russia’s Aeroflot agree to resume air services in 1940 between the two capitals.

28 December 1941
Australian National Airlines begins evacuation of civilians from Rabaul in the Solomon Islands.

29 December 1948
The United States Defense Secretary announces that work has begun on ‘an earth satellite vehicle program’.

29 December 1952
A civil aviation agreement between Britain and Japan is signed.

28 December 1955
Air France announces its order for 24 nationally built Caravelles and ten Boeing 707s.

28 December 1956
The first CL28, a maritime reconnaissance version of the Bristol Britannia, is completed by Canadair in Montreal.

31 December 1962
The United States Navy (USN) announces that it has stopped all activity related to lighter-than-air craft and has disposed of its last airship.

The United States Department of Defense announces the cancellation of the Skybolt ballistic missile program.

31 December 1968
A prototype Tupolev Tu144 Super Sonic Transport (SST) makes its first flight and the Soviets become the first nation to fly a supersonic transport aircraft.

31 December 1970
Colonel Jeanne M. Holm becomes the first female Brigadier General in the United States Air Force (USAF).

29 December 1972
It is revealed at a press conference in Montevideo that the survivors of a Uruguayan airliner crash in the Andes, which occurred on October 13, were forced to eat those who died in the crash in order to stay alive.

29 December 1987
Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Romanenko lands in Soyuz TM3 after spending 326 consecutive days in space.

31 December 1990
The build-up of Coalition airpower in Saudi Arabia continues in preparation for strikes against Iraq following the invasion of Kuwait.

29 December 1996
Two United States Air Force (USAF) Joint Surveillance and Target Attack System (JSTARS) modified Boeing 707s are deployed to assist NATO ground forces in Bosnia.

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Well, that’s it for this YEAR Folks. See ya in seven.

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