Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/August 11

August 11


 * 2009 – Airlines PNG Flight 4684, a de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter carrying 11 passengers and 2 crew crashes into a mountain at Isurava, Papua New Guinea whilst attempting a go around at Kokoda Airport, Papua New Guinea; all passengers and crew perished in the accident.


 * 2004 –CH-53E Super Stallion 164782 from HMM-166 (Reinforced) crashes in the Al-Anbar province, killing two Marines and wounding three others.


 * 2003, The Spirit of Butts Farm becomes the first flight across the Atlantic by a computer-controlled model aircraft.


 * 2002 – U. S. Airways filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.


 * 2001 – First flight of the Hawker 4000


 * 1995 – First flight of the Embraer ERJ-145


 * 1993 – 11-14 – Two B-1 Lancers complete a round-the-world trip in 47 hours.


 * 1991 – Space Shuttle Atlantis lands after completing mission STS-43.


 * 1986 – A modified Westland Lynx sets a new helicopter world speed record of 249 mph (401 km/h)


 * 1985 – Space Shuttle Challenger is flown to Kennedy Space Center via Davis-Monthan AFB, Ariz.


 * 1984 – President Ronald Reagan jokes during a radio sound check that he had “signed legislation that would outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in 5 min. ” The joke is not broadcast live (contrary to some accounts) but when word of it spreads, the Soviet Army is put on high alert for about 30 min.


 * 1982 – A bomb explodes in a seat cushion aboard Pan Am Flight 830, killing 16-year-old Toru Ozawa and injuring 15 others. The plane, a 747-100 (Clipper Ocean Rover, N754 PA), makes an emergency landing in Honolulu and is repaired. The perpetrator, Mohammed Rashed, is arrested in Greece seven years later and convicted of murder, but freed eight years later. Rashed has also been indicted in the US, and is currently on the FBI’s most wanted list.


 * 1979 – The 1979 Dniprodzerzhynsk mid-air collision between two Aeroflot Tupolev Tu-134s kills 178.


 * 1972 – NATO signs a development contract for the MRCA (Multi-Role Combat Aircraft) programme, which will eventually result in the Panavia Tornado


 * 1972 – First flight of the Northrop F-5E


 * 1967 – F-105 Thunderchiefs of the 355th Tactical Fighter Wing USAF cut the Paul Doumer bridge, using 100 tons of bombs.


 * 1962 – The Soviet Union launched cosmonaut Andrian Nikolayev on a 94-hour flight.


 * 1956 – First flight of the 4-motor Cessna 620.


 * 1955 – First flight of the Bell XV-3 (Bell 200), American tilt rotor aircraft (the three-bladed rotors replaced by two-bladed rotors)


 * 1955 – Two United States Air Force C-119 Flying Boxcars collide near Stuttgart, Germany, killing 66.


 * 1952 – British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) inaugurates its new weekly service between London and Colombo, the capital of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).


 * 1945 – First of only two Nakajima Kikka twin-jet fighters, completed on 25 June, first flown 7 August for eleven minutes by Lt. Cdr. Sasumu Tanaoka out of Kisarazu Naval Air Base, crashes on second flight this date. Second unflown Kikka is shipped to the U.S. after the Japanese capitulation.


 * 1943 – Eight German Focke Wulf Fw 190 s attack USS Philadelphia and two American destroyers off Brolo, Sicily; they score no hits. Philadelphia shoots down five of them and destroyer USS Ludlow (DD-438) and a U. S. Army Air Forces fighter shoot down one each. Allied aircraft break up a German counterattack against U. S. Army forces at Brolo, but seven U. S. Army Air Forces A-36 bombers mistakenly attack the American positions, destroying the command post and four artillery pieces.


 * 1943 – Nine U. S. Army Air Forces B-24 Liberators of the Eleventh Air Force make the second raid of World War II against the Kurile Islands, again attacking the Japanese base at Paramushiro, causing noteworthy damage. Japanese fighters shoot down one B-24 and damage the other eight; the B-24 s shoot down 13 Japanese fighters. The Eleventh Air Force decides not to raid the Kuriles again without fighter escort of its bombers.


 * 1942 – Axis opposition to Operation Pedestal – An Allied resupply convoy to Malta escorted by the British aircraft carriers HMS Victorious, HMS Indomitable, and HMS Eagle, against which 1,000 Axis aircraft have gathered in Sicily and Sardinia – begins when the German submarine U-73 hits Eagle with four torpedoes in the Mediterranean Sea about 141 km north of Algiers. Eagle sinks in eight minutes, with the loss of 131 of her crew and 16 Sea Hurricane fighters. German torpedo planes launch ineffectuve attacks on the convoys, and a strike by Royal Air Force Beaufighters destroys five and damages 14 of the German aircraft on the ground after they return to base


 * 1941 – (11-12) The Soviet Air Force makes its first raid on Berlin, as 11 Petlyakov Pe-8 s arrack the city. German defenses shoot down five Pe-8 s, and Soviet antiaircraft artillery mistakenly shoots down another as it returns to base.


 * 1939 – Pan American World Airways begins scheduled flights from New York, New York to Southampton, England.


 * 1937 – First flight of the Boulton Paul Defiant


 * 1926 – Second Lieutenant Eugene Hoy Barksdale is killed when the Douglas O-2 observation plane, 25-350, McCook Field project number P-441, he was testing went into an uncontrollable spin over McCook Field, Dayton, Ohio. His parachute snagged on the wingstruts, preventing escape from the aircraft. Barksdale Field, later Barksdale Air Force Base, is named for him upon establishment at the Military Reservation, Bossier Parish, Louisiana on 2 February 1933.


 * 1921 – The 1921 Schneider Trophy race is flown at Venice, Italy. In an all-Italian field, Giovanni De Briganti wins the race in a Macchi M.7 with an average speed of 189.7 km/h.


 * 1918 – Royal Air Force Flight Sub-Lieutenant Stuart Culley shoots down Zeppelin L 53 after taking off from a barge towed behind the destroyer HMS Redoubt.


 * 1918 – The first use of a parachute from a combat aircraft occurs when a German pilot escapes his burning Pfalz D.III after being attacked by a pilot from No. 19 Squadron RAF.


 * 1915 – The U. S. Naval Observatory asks Eastman Kodak to develop a special aerial reconnaissance camera that could be used from an airplane flying at heights of 3000 ft to 6000 ft.


 * 1909 – The first flight of the Baddeck No. 1, a Canadian-built aircraft, by the Canadian Aeroplane Company, took place at Petawawa, Ontario.


 * 1906 – Mrs. C. J. S. Miller becomes the first woman passenger in an airship. The 40-hp craft is owned and operated by her husband, Major Miller.