Portal:Aviation

Erich Alfred "Bubi" Hartmann (19 April 1922 – 20 September 1993), also nicknamed "The Blond Knight of Germany" by friends and "The Black Devil" by his enemies, was a German fighter pilot and still is the highest scoring fighter ace in the history of aerial combat. He scored 352 aerial victories (of which 345 were won against the Soviet Air Force, and 260 of which were fighters) in 1,404 combat missions and engaging in aerial combat 825 times while serving with the Luftwaffe in World War II. During the course of his career Hartmann was forced to crash land his damaged fighter 14 times. This was due to damage received from parts of enemy aircraft he had just shot down, or mechanical failure. Hartmann was never shot down or forced to land due to enemy fire.^[1]

Hartmann, a pre-war glider pilot, joined the Luftwaffe in 1940 and completed his fighter pilot training in 1942. He was posted to Jagdgeschwader 52 (JG 52) on the Eastern front and was fortunate to be placed under the supervision of some of the Luftwaffe's most experienced fighter pilots. Under their guidance Hartmann steadily developed his tactics which would earn him the coveted Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds on 25 August 1944 for claiming 301 aerial victories.

He scored his 352nd and last aerial victory on 8 May 1945. He and the remainder of JG 52 surrendered to United States Army forces and were turned over to the Red Army. Convicted of false "War Crimes" and sentenced to 25 years of hard labour, Hartmann would spend 10 years in various Soviet prison camps and gulags until he was released in 1955. In 1956, Hartmann joined the newly established West German Luftwaffe and became the first Geschwaderkommodore of Jagdgeschwader 71 "Richthofen". Hartmann resigned early from the Bundeswehr in 1970, largely due to his opposition of the F-104 Starfighter deployment in the Bundesluftwaffe and the resulting clashes with his superiors over this issue. Erich Hartmann died in 1993.

The de Havilland Canada DHC-8, popularly the Dash 8, is a series of twin-turboprop airliners designed by de Havilland Canada in the early 1980s. They are now made by Bombardier Aerospace which purchased DHC from Boeing in 1992. Since 1996 the aircraft have been known as the Q Series, for "quiet", due to installation of the Active Noise and Vibration Suppression (ANVS) system designed to reduce cabin noise and vibration levels to near those of jet airliners.

Notable features of the Dash 8 design are the large T-tail intended to keep the tail free of propwash during takeoff, a very high aspect ratio wing, the elongated engine nacelles also holding the rearward-folding landing gear, and the pointed nose profile. First flight was in 1983, and the plane entered service in 1984 with NorOntair. Piedmont Airlines (formerly Henson Airlines) was the US launch customer for the Dash 8 in 1984.

The Dash 8 design had better cruise performance than the earlier Dash 7, was less expensive to operate, and more notably, much less expensive to maintain. The Dash 8 had the lowest costs per passenger mile of any feederliner of the era. The only disadvantage compared to the earlier Dash 7 was somewhat higher noise levels, but only in comparison as the Dash 7 was notable in the industry for extremely low noise due to its four very large and slow-turning propellers.

• Length: 107 ft 9 in (32.84 m)
• Wingspan: 93 ft 3 in (32.84 m)
• Height: 27 ft 5 in (8.34 m)
• Powerplant: 2× Pratt & Whitney Canada PW150A turboprops, 5,071 shp (3,781 kW) each
• Cruise speed: 360 knots (414 mph, 667 km/h)
• Maiden Flight: June 20, 1983

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.^[2]

• 2010 – All West Freight Fairchild C-123 Provider N7099R crashes at Mount Healy, Alaska killing all three crew.^[3]

• 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.