Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/April 16

April 16


 * 2010 – A Spanish Air Force Bell 212 crashed in Haiti near the border with the Dominican Republic killing all 4 crew on board.


 * 2004 – CH-47D Chinook 92-0301 from C Company/193rd Aviation Brigade (Hawaii Army National Guard) makes hard landing during sandstorm and was later destroyed. Crew memberssafe.


 * 1994 – A Royal Navy Sea Harrier is shot down over Serbia by a SA-7 Grail. The pilot was later rescued


 * 1988 – First flight of the McDonnell Douglas T-45 Goshawk


 * 1980 – A contract was signed at CFB Uplands for 173 CF-18 A Hornet fighter aircraft.


 * 1973 – The Florida State Senate votes unanimously to restore the name “Cape Canaveral” to the NASA establishment which was renamed “Cape Kennedy” shortly after the President’s assassination.


 * 1973 – Entered Service: Embraer EMB 110 Bandeirante with Transbrasil


 * 1972 – President Richard M. Nixon's administration lifts most restrictions on bombing North Vietnam, and U. S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortresses bomb targets near Haiphong for the first time since 1968.


 * 1970 – US Navy McDonnell Douglas TA-4F Skyhawk from NAS Oceana, Virginia, and USAF North American T-39A-1-NA Sabreliner, 61-0640, c/n 265-43, en route from Shaw AFB, South Carolina to Langley AFB, Virginia, collided in mid-air, the T-39 coming down over residential area of Weldon, North Carolina, but no one on the ground was injured and wreckage missed homes. Skyhawk crew, Lts. George D. Green, 27, and Walter G. Young, 27, both of Virginia Beach, Virginia, were killed as it came down in a swamp area ~20 miles away, near Enfield, North Carolina. Pilot Lt. Col. Francis George Halturewicz, Jr. of the Sabreliner, was credited with minimizing ground damage as he jettisoned most of its fuel before impact. Killed were Col. Ivey J. Lewis, Stockton, California, LTC Halturewicz, Maj. Ronald L. Edwards, and T. Sgt. Joseph R. Brown, all of MacDill AFB, Florida.


 * 1969 – First flight of the Let L-410 Turbolet


 * 1961 – First flight of the Beagle Airedale.


 * 1958 – U.S. Air Force pilot 1st Lt. Robert Yoshizumi, 26, of Honolulu, survives ejection from his disabled North American F-100C-25-NA Super Sabre, 54-1982, at 300 feet (91 m) altitude. Fighter, of 36th Fighter-Day Wing, 22nd Fighter-Day Squadron, Bitburg Air Base, crashes in eastern suburb of Matzen, West Germany after entering spin. He suffers only minor injuries as his parachute swings one time before landing.


 * 1956 – David McDowell Brown, American astronaut, was born (d. 2003). Brown was a United States Naval Captain and a NASA astronaut. He was killed on his first space flight, when the Space Shuttle Columbia (STS-107) disintegrated during orbital reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere.


 * 1956 – Entered Service: Douglas F4D Skyray, the United States Navy’s first supersonic fighter, with Composite Squadron 13 (VC-13)


 * 1949 – First flight of the Lockheed F-94 Starfire


 * 1945 – The final Soviet assault against Berlin begins with strikes by 150 Soviet Air Force night bombers of the 4th and 16th Air Armies against German positions in the early morning hours, coordinated with mortar and artillery attacks. By 1500 hours, 647 Soviet combat aircraft are in the air. The day ends with the Soviet Air Force having flown 5,300 sorties, claiming 131 German aircraft shot down in exchange for 87 Soviet aircraft.


 * 1944 – Fifth Air Force aircraft stage their final attack against Japanese airfields around Hollandia. They have essentially destroyed the Japanese force of 351 aircraft that had been on the airfields at the end of March.


 * 1943 – Believing they had sunk a cruiser, two destroyers, and 25 transports and shot down 175 Allied aircraft, the Japanese end the I Operation air offensive. Actual Allied losses have been one destroyer, one tanker, one corvette, and two cargo ships sunk and about 25 planes shot down.


 * 1941 – Lt. j.g. Yasushi Nikaido, fighter squadron leader of the Imperial Japanese Navy carrier Kaga, survives close call when Mitsubishi A6M, number 140, loses both port and starboard ailerons as well as part of the upper wing surface while performing dive of 550 km/h at 2,300 rpm, but pilot makes skilful emergency landing at Kisarazu Air Field. Accident is reported to Naval Aeronautical Headquarters, the Naval Aeronautical Technical Establishment, and the Yokosuka Air Corps.


 * 1941 – Igor I. Sikorsky impressively demonstrates the capabilities of his VS-300 helicopter by hovering virtually motionless over Stratford (Connecticut) Airport for one hour, five minutes. Powered by a large, 90-hp engine, it sets a new helicopter record.


 * 1941 – London comes under intense bomber attack, with nearly 900 tonnes of high explosive dropped on the city.


 * 1937 – Entered Service: Supermarine Stranraer


 * 1935 – 16-17 – A Pan Am Sikorsky S-42 makes the first airline flight from the continental US to Hawaii.


 * 1935 – Flying Officer Clive Newton Edgerton takes off from Laverton in RAAF Westland Wapiti, A5-31, but after entering a steep dive from 15,000 feet is unable to recover. "The structure of the aircraft failed during the test flight and the aircraft crashed at Werribee." Witnesses reported that the wings failed and folded back along the fuselage. The lower starboard wing landed in a paddock 1½ miles from the fuselage. The Aircraft Accident Investigation Committee (AAIC) reported that "The tailplane actuating gear was in full forward position...the aircraft had five ballast weights in the tail...when there should have been six, and in addition another four in the passenger's cockpit, so that the aircraft was obviously tail light and nose heavy. Apparently the pilot had his tail actuating gear into the full forward, giving maximum lift to the tail to enable him to go into a dive." The speed of Edgerton's dive was so great that the blades of the airscrew were pulled from the boss by the centrifugal force.


 * 1929 – First flight of the Short Gurnard(two-seat biplane naval fighter) in his landplane form.


 * 1923 – 17 – Lt John A. Macready and Lt Oakley G. Kelly establish a new endurance record, staying aloft for 36 hours 5 min in a Fokker T-2, covering a distance of 2,518 miles (4,052 km).


 * 1922 – Taking advantage of the Treaty of Rapallo, a flying school for German pilots is set up at Lipetsk. By 1933, 450 German military pilots will have trained here.


 * 1915 – The United States Navy conducts the first catapult launch of an aircraft (an AB-2 seaplane) from a floating platform, launching an airplane from Navy Coal Barge No. 214 at Naval Air Station Pensacola at Pensacola, Florida.


 * 1914 – The Canadian Aviation Corps is formed.


 * 1913 – First contest for the Schneider Trophy. Maurice Prévost wins in a Deperdussin monoplane, completing the 28 circuits of the 10 km (6.2 mile) course with an average speed of 73.63 km/h (45.75 mph)


 * 1912 – Harriet Quimby becomes the first woman to fly the English Channel.