Portal:Aviation

Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr. (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974), known as "Lucky Lindy" and "The Lone Eagle", was a pioneering United States aviator famous for piloting the first solo non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean in 1927, flying from Roosevelt Airfield (Nassau County, Long Island), New York to Paris on May 20-May 21, 1927 in his single-engine aircraft The Spirit of St. Louis.

He grew up in Little Falls, Minnesota. Early on he showed an interest in machinery, especially aircraft. After training as a pilot with the Army Air Service Lindbergh took a job as lead pilot of an airmail route in a DeHavilland DH-4 biplane. He was renowned for delivering the mail under any circumstances.

Lindbergh is recognized in aviation for demonstrating and charting polar air-routes, high altitude flying techniques, and increasing aircraft flying range by decreasing fuel consumption. These innovations are the basis of modern intercontinental air travel.

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The Avro Lancaster was a British four-engine Second World War bomber aircraft made initially by Avro for the British Royal Air Force (RAF). It first saw active service in 1942, and together with the Handley-Page Halifax it was one of the main heavy bombers of the RAF, the RCAF and squadrons from other Commonwealth and European countries serving within RAF Bomber Command. The "Lanc" or "Lankie," as it became affectionately known, became the most famous and most successful of the Second World War night bombers, "delivering 608,612 tons of bombs in 156,000 sorties." Although the Lancaster was primarily a night bomber, it excelled in many other roles including daylight precision bombing, and gained worldwide renown as the "Dam Buster" used in the 1943 Operation Chastise raids on Germany's Ruhr Valley dams.

• Span: 102 ft (31.09 m)
• Length: 69 ft 5 in (21.18 m)
• Height: 19 ft 7 in (5.97 m)
• Engines: 4× Rolls-Royce Merlin XX V12 engines, 1,280 hp (954 kW) each
• Maximum Speed: 240 knots (280 mph, 450 km/h) at 15,000 ft (5,600 m)
• First Flight: 8 January 1941
• Number built: 7,377

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August 1

• 2013 – Entered in Service: Airbus A400M Atlas with the French Air Force.

• 2012 – In the Syrian Civil War, United Nations observers see Syrian Air Force jets bombing rebel-held districts in the Salheddine area of Aleppo.

• 2011 – The Government of Norway announces that it has completed the withdrawal of its six F-16 Fighting Falcons from Operation Unified Protector, the NATO intervention in the Libyan Civil War. The six Royal Norwegian Air Force fighters had flown 583 of the 6,493 sorties flown by NATO aircraft since NATO took command of the Libyan air campaign on 31 March and dropped 569 bombs.^[1]

• 2010 – All West Freight Fairchild C-123 Provider N7099R crashes at Mount Healy, Alaska killing all three crew.^[2]

• 2002 – First flight of the Scaled Composites White Knight

• 1997 – Boeing and McDonnell Douglas complete a merger, forming The Boeing Company.

• 1983 – America West Airlines begins flying, from Phoenix, Arizona.

• 1977 – Francis Gary Powers, US U-2 pilot, dies at 47.

• 1976 – (August 1 – October 1) After his 1973 RTW attempt was aborted by bad weather between Hokkaidō and the Aleutian Islands, Don Taylor of California successfully circumnavigates the world (Oshkosh eastbound to Oshkosh) in his Thorp T-18, the first aviator to do so with a homebuilt aircraft.

• 1973 – First flight of the Martin Marietta X-24B

• 1972 – Delta Air Lines absorbs Northeast Airlines

• 1966 – (1-25) The U. S. Army’s first Cavalry Division (Airmobile) conducts Operation Paul Revere II, a helicopter and ground assault against enemy forces in the Pleiku area of South Vietnam.

• 1966 – First flight of the McDonnell Douglas DC-9-30

• 1964 – ALM-Antillean Airlines is founded in Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles as an offshoot of KLM Royal Dutch to compete with Pan Am in the Caribbean and South America. Corruption, high debt and public disinterest drive the airline to bankruptcy in 2001.

• 1964 – A/M CR Slemon, the last original RCAF officer, retired after serving as Deputy Commander of NORAD.

• 1962 – The U. S. Marine Corps loses a helicopter in Vietnam for the first time when a South Vietnamese Air Force fighter skids off a runway at Soc Trang, South Vietnam, and damages an HUS-1 Seahorse transport helicopter beyond repair.

• 1959 – In what was intended to be a routine NACA flight but turns out to be the final flight ever of a North American F-107A, the second accident involving the type occurs when pilot Scott Crossfield cannot get 55-5120 to lift off of the dry lakebed at Edwards AFB, California due to improperly set stabilizer trim. Nosewheel tires blow, pilot aborts take-off, tries to taxi airframe into the wind when the left main gear catches fire, airframe suffers fire damage, F-107 flight program ends. Airframe of 55-5120 cut up at Edwards, fuselage shipped to Sheppard AFB, Texas, for use as fire training aid.

• 1958 – The North American Air Defence Agreement (NORAD) came into effect.

• 1957 – NORAD is formed to co-ordinate US and Canadian air defense

• 1952 – No. 427 Squadron was reformed at St. Hubert, Quebec and equipped with North American Sabre fighters.

• 1951 – Japan Air Lines is formed

• 1949 – First flight of the Northrop YC-125 Raider

• 1946 – British European Airways is established as state-owned corporation.

• 1945 – A USAAF Canadian Vickers OA-10A Catalina, 44-34096, en route from Hunter Field, Georgia, to Mather Field, California, crashes in the Cibola National Forest, 25 miles SW of Grants, New Mexico, after apparent engine failure, killing the seven crew, Lt. Wilson Parker, Lt. William Bartlett, Lt. James Garland, Sgt. Irwin Marcus, Sgt. Robert Crook, Sgt. Harold Post and Sgt. John Jackson. The airframe was so heavily damaged that no determination of the cause could be made.

• 1943 – The first Canadian-built four-engined aircraft, the Avro 683 Lancaster X, was flown at Malton, Ontario.

• 1943 – USAAF B-24 Liberators flying from Libya attack the Ploesti oil refineries in Romania.

• 1943 – Soviet fighter ace Lydia Litvak is shot down and killed. She had 12 victories at the time of her death.

• 1943 – 48 German aircraft make a surprise attack on ships in the harbor at Palermo, Sicily, dropping 60 large bombs and sinking a cargo ship.

• 1943 – During a demonstration flight of an "all St. Louis-built glider", a WACO CG-4A-RO, 42-78839, built by sub-contractor Robertson Aircraft Company, loses its starboard wing due to a defective wing strut support, plummets vertically to the ground at Lambert Field, St. Louis, Missouri, killing all on board, including St. Louis Mayor William D. Becker, Maj. William B. Robertson and Harold Krueger, both of Robertson Aircraft, Thomas Dysart, president of the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce, Max Doyne, director of public utilities, Charles Cunningham, department comptroller, Henry Mueller, St. Louis Court presiding judge, Lt. Col. Paul Hazleton, pilot Milton Kiugh, and mechanic J. M. Davis.[216] The failed component had been manufactured by Robertson subcontractor Gardner Metal Products Company, of St. Louis, who, ironically, had been a casket maker.

• 1941 – The United States embargoes the sale of aviation fuel to Japan.

• 1941 – The Soviet Union makes the first operational use of parasite fighters, attacking Constanța, Romania with modified Polikarpov I-16s carried into action by Tupolev TB-3s.

• 1936 – Ten more German Junkers Ju 52 transports and six Heinkel He 51 fighters arrive at Cadiz for service with the Spanish Nationalist faction.

• 1929 – Dr. Hugo Eckener commands the first airship flight to circumnavigate the globe when the flight leaves Friedrichshafen, Germany. Graf Zeppelin arrives back at Friedrichshafen on September 4, having logged 21,000 mi. 12 days, 12 hours, 20 min flying time.

• 1921 – First flight of the Curtiss CR

• 1919 – World War I Russian ace Aleksandr Kazakov (32 kills, but only 20 officially) is killed in the crash of what was probably a Sopwith Camel. On 1 August 1918 Kazakov became a major in the Royal Air Force and was appointed to be commanding officer in charge of an aviation squadron of the Slavo-British Allied Legion made up of Camels. After the British withdrawal from Russia which left the Russian White Army in a desperate situation, Kazakov died in a plane crash during an air show on this date which was performed to boost the morale of the Russian anti-Bolshevik troops. Most witnesses of the incident thought Kazakov committed suicide.

• 1916 – The first issue of America’s most influential and long-running aircraft magazine appears at a price of 5 cents. Called Aviation and Aeronautical Engineering, it is ancestor of Aviation Week & Space Technology and is published twice a month.

• 1915 – Lt Max Immelmann shoots down his first aircraft, beginning his career as an ace and the period that will become known as the "Fokker scourge"

• 1914 – Germany and Russia enter World War I with Germany’s declaration of war on Russia.

• 1911 – The Aero Club of America grants Harriet Quimby the first U. S. pilot’s license issued to a woman.

• 1909 – Entered Service: Wright Military Flyer into the US Army as Aeroplane No. 1

• 1907 An Aeronautical Division is formed in the U.S. Army Signal Corps to oversee "all matters pertaining to military ballooning, air machines, and all kindred subjects".

• 1799 – The French ship-of-the-line Orient has gear of the French Army‘s Company of Aeronauts on board when she is destroyed during the Battle of the Nile.