Warbirds Online » Blog Archive » This Week In Military/Aviation History 17-23 May

Hello Folks. I hope your week went well. My Computer is still working right and I’m still horizontal and breathing, and since that’s about all I can ask for, my week went well. Let’s just start our weekly stroll down History Lane, shall we? Yes I think we shall.

Tom K.

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20 May 1909
A Frenchman, Paul Tissandier, makes the first officially recognized world speed record for an aeroplane in a Wright biplane, achieving 54kph (34mph).

18 May 1910
International talks open in Paris to form a legal basis for flight between countries.

21 May 1910
Frenchman Jacques de Lesseps wins 12,500 francs for a 37 minute flight from Calais and the £100 Daily Mail cup for the second English Channel flight.

21 May 1911
French Minister of War Maurice Berteaux is killed and Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe is injured when a Train monoplane crashes in Paris at the start of the Paris-Madrid air race.

22 May 1912
A United States Marine Corps (USMC) officer is ordered to commence flying training.

17 May 1913
Domingo Rosillo flies from Key West in Florida to Havana in Cuba, in a Morane-Saulnier monoplane.

18 May 1914
The first regular Airmail service is inaugurated in German South West Africa with a Roland biplane, making its first flight between Swakopmund and Windhoek. The service comes to an end when British forces invade the country at the outbreak of the First World War.

21 May 1915
The Spad A2 biplane fighter undergoes it’s first flight tests in France.

18 May 1916
Lieutenant Kiffin Rockwell of the Escadrille Americaine, becomes the first American pilot to shoot down an enemy aircraft.

19 May 1917
The United States Government agrees to send an Army division to France.

22 May 1917
Italian military air mail service is established between Turin and Rome.

18 May 1918
The 96th Aero Squadron, the first American bomber unit, forms in France.

19 May 1918
In the latest of a series of monthly raids on London and the Home Counties by German Gotha bombers and Staaken airships, 49 civilians are killed and 179 injured as bombs fell in residential areas before midnight

Hauptmann H Kohl receives the Pour le Mérite for flying 800 missions.

20 May 1918
Overman Act creates the Bureau of Aircraft Production and the Division of Military Aeronautics. The United States Army Air Service is formed from these on 24 May.

17 May 1919
The United States War Department orders the use of the national star insignia on all United States military aircraft.

22 May 1919
French born hotelier Raymond Orteig offers a prize of $25,000 for the first non-stop flight, in either direction, between Paris and New York.

19 May 1924
Wing Commander Goble and Flight Lieutenant McIntyre of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) complete their round-Australia flight. The flight took 90 hours in a Fairey IIID.

20-21 May 1927
Captain Charles Lindbergh makes the first solo, west to east transatlantic crossing in a specially-built Ryan NYP (New York to Paris) Monoplane, ‘Spirit of St Louis’.

It took Lindberg 33 hours 39 minutes to complete the flight from Long Island in New York to Paris in France. The distance covered was 5,778 kilometers (3,590 miles).

23 May 1928
The Italian airship ‘Italia’ attempts a flight to North Pole, but crashes on the return flight.

20 May 1929
The Peruvian Army and Naval Air Services are amalgamated into the Cuerpo de Aeronautica del Perú.

18 May 1930
The German airship LZ127 Graf Zeppelin makes its first crossing of the South Atlantic.

19-24 May 1932
A Dornier DoX flying boat flies back from New York to its base at Friedrichshafen in Germany.

20-21 May 1932
Amelia Earhart, flying a Lockheed Vega, becomes the first woman to make solo flight across the North Atlantic. The flight is from Harbor Grace in Newfoundland to Londonderry in Northern Ireland.

18 May 1935
The world’s worst air disaster to date occurs when ANT-20 Maxim Gorky collides with another aircraft near Tushino, causing the death of 56 people..

20 May 1939
The first large scale air battle between Soviet and Japanese aircraft occurs in Outer Mongolia near Khalkin Gol.

22 May 1945
United States authorities disclose that Japanese balloon attacks have been, and continue to be made on the United States. One ballon had come down in Montana and another in British Columbia.

20 May 1948
The Israeli air force is in action against Arab forces for the first time.

18 May 1949
The first New York helicopter station is established at Pier 41 East River.

21 May 1949
A Sikorsky S52 helicopter establishes a new helicopter altitude record of 6,468 meters (21,220 feet) over Stratford in Connecticut.

17 May 1950
Transcontinental & Western Air changes its name to Trans World Airlines (TWA), to reflect its world-wide operations.

20 May 1951
Captain James Jabara of the 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing of the United States Air Force (USAF) in Korea, an F-86 Sabre pilot, becomes the first jet pilot to score five unconfirmed victories over jet aircraft, by destroying two Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15s.

18 May 1953
American airwoman Jacqueline Cochran becomes the first woman to fly faster than the speed of sound, piloting a Canadian built version of the North American F-86E Sabre at a speed of Mach 1.01 (652mph).

20 May 1953
Another Polish pilot lands a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 jet on Bornholm Island.

17 May 1956
Douglas Aircraft Company announces that the DC7C, the first airliner with sufficient range for non-stop crossings of the North Atlantic or North Pacific, has been granted an airworthiness certificate.

18 May 1956
The United States press highlights the ‘Colonel’s revolt’, revealing bitter interservice rivalry.

21 May 1956
The first United States hydrogen bomb is released from an aircraft, a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress eight-engined jet bomber, and exploded over Bikini atoll in the Pacific.

23 May 1958
Frenchwoman Colette Duval sets a new world record by parachuting into the Atlantic without oxygen from an altitude of 40,700 feet.

17 May 1960
Khrushchev angrily denounces American spying activities over the Soviet Union, resulting from the Gary Powers incident, causing the break-up of a Summit conference in Paris.

19 May 1972
An Indian Government spokesman in New Delhi says that Indian security forces have orders to destroy all Pakistani aircraft violating India’s airspace.

23 May 1974
Europe’s first wide-body airliner, an Airbus A300B2 of Air France, makes its inaugural fare paying flight from Paris to London.

21 May 1977
Concorde makes a special flight from New York to Paris on the 50th anniversary of Charles Lindbergh’s flight of the same route. Whereas Lindbergh took 33 hours 29 minutes, Concorde took just 3 hours 44 minutes.

20 May 1978
McDonnell Douglas delivers its 5,000th McDonnell Douglas F4 Phantom aircraft, twenty years after the first flight of the prototype.

21 May 1978
Tokyo’s new Narita International Airport becomes operational 4 years late, largely due to protest action.

20 May 1981
Hughes Helicopters announces the beginning of construction of a prototype helicopter that will use pressurised air instead of a standard tail rotor.

17 May 1982
The crew of Salyut 7 place an amateur radio satellite into earth orbit. This is believed to be the first launch of a satellite from a space station.

20 May 1982
Boeing Vertol delivers the first production CH-47D to the United States Army.

17 May 1987
An Iraqi Exocet missile hits the USS Stark, killing 37 people.

23 May 1988
The first Bell/Boeing V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft is completed.

22 May 1990
The final flight of the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter in Luftwaffe service, before the aircraft is withdrawn from service.

20 May 1998
France and Germany order the first 160 Tiger attack helicopters from Eurocopter.

23 May 2004
Frontier Airlines begins service to Philadelphia, Billings, Montana and Spokane, Washington.

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

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