Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/August 14

August 14


 * 2013 – UPS Airlines Flight 1354, the Airbus A300F4-622R cargo aircraft N155UP arriving from Louisville, Kentucky, with a crew of two aboard, crashes one-half mile (0.8 m) from the runway at Birmingham–Shuttlesworth International Airport outside of Birmingham, Alabama. Both crew members die.


 * 2012 – An unmanned experimental United States Air Force X-51A Waverider hypersonic aircraft launched from above the Point Mugu Naval Air Test Range in California goes out of control because of a fault in one of its control fins and crashes into the Pacific Ocean 15 seconds into its flight and before igniting its scramjet engine. The crash leaves only one surviving Waverider out of the four constructed.


 * 2009 – Australian airline Strategic Airlines commences operations.


 * 2007 – CH-47D Chinook 89-00171 from B Company, 1–52 Aviation Regiment crashes near the al-Taqaddum air base west of Baghdad, killing five crew on board.


 * 2005 – Helios Airways Flight 522, a Boeing 737-300, crashes near Kalamos, Greece with 115 passengers and 6 crew members on board; there are no survivors.


 * 2003 – A massive electrical blackout darkens much of the northeastern United States and Ontario, Canada, knocking out ticketing systems, baggage carousels and air conditioning at most airports. JetBlue hires Mister Softee trucks at New York-JFK to help cool down stranded, un-air conditioned passengers.


 * 2003 – AH-64D Apache 01-5241 (ex AH-64A 87-0507) of 1–14th Aviation Regiment crashes in Iraq.


 * 1979 – Steve Hinton sets a new piston-engined airspeed record in a specially-modified P-51 Mustang named the Red Baron. He reaches 499 mph (803 km/h) over Nevada.


 * 1974 – (14-16) Turkish Air Force aircraft support the final major Turkish offensive on Cyprus.


 * 1974 – First flight of the Panavia Tornado


 * 1972 – The 1972 Königs Wusterhausen air disaster: an Interflug Ilyushin Il-62, registered DM-SEA crashes near Königs Wusterhausen, all 156 passengers and crew are killed in Germany's worst air disaster.


 * 1968 – Los Angeles Airways Flight 417, a Sikorsky S-61L prototype, crashes in Compton, California resulting in the loss of 21 lives.


 * 1964 – Lockheed U-2A, 56-6955, Article 395, fifth and last airframe of the USAF supplementary production, delivered to the USAF in March 1959. Assigned to the 4080th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, Laughlin AFB, Texas. Crashed near Boise, Idaho, this date. ROCAF pilot successfully ejects.


 * 1953 – A Royal Australian Air Force Sabre fighter scares an unknown number of kangaroos as it becomes the first airplane to break the sound barrier over Australia.


 * 1962 – NASA civilian test pilot Joseph A Walker takes X-15 to 60,000 m.


 * 1962 – An East German Ilyushin Il-62 crashes on takeoff from East Berlin, killing 156.


 * 1959 – Canadair was awarded a contract to manufacture the CF 104.


 * 1959 – Martin XSM-68-1-MA Titan I missile B-5, 57-2692, explodes on launchpad at Launch Complex 19 during sub-orbital flight, Cape Canaveral, Florida, when its tie-down bolts explode prematurely as the vehicle builds up thrust. An umbilical generates a "no-go" signal prompting an engine-kill signal from the flight controls and the Titan loses all thrust, falls back through the launcher ring and explodes. The umbilical tower is damaged in the ensuing fire.


 * 1958 – First flight of the Grumman Gulfstream I


 * 1958 – KLM Flight 607-E, a Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation (named Hugo de Groot) en route from Amsterdam to New York, crashes into the Atlantic Ocean shortly after takeoff from Shannon Airport in Ireland, killing all 99 passengers and crew, including six members of the Egyptian fencing team.


 * 1953 – The sound barrier is broken over Australia for the first time by Flight Lieutenant Bentleigh, Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), in the first Australian-built Sabre fighter at Avalon, Victoria.


 * 1945 – V-J (Victory in Japan) Day.


 * 1943 – Japanese aircraft raid the Allied air base at Marilinan, New Guinea.


 * 1943 – Curtiss XP-60E-CU, 42-79425, is damaged in a forced landing just before being released to the USAAF for official trials. Becomes XP-60C when it is retrofit with wings, undercarriage, and other items from the XP-60A-CU, 42-79423. Meanwhile, original XP-60C-CU, 42-79424, becomes second XP-60E with removal of 2,000 hp (1,500 kW) R-2800-53 engine and contraprops, replaced with R-2800-10 engine and four-blade prop. Whole P-60 project is essentially a dead-end, being nothing more than Curtiss' attempt to stretch pre-war design that started out as the P-36, and the company's unwillingness or inability to start fresh with a new fighter design will force them out of the airframe business a few short years after the war.


 * 1942 – A German Focke-Wulf Fw 200 C-4 Condor patrol bomber, NT+BY, had been tracked near Iceland by an RAF Northrop N-3B Nomad of No. 330 Squadron. When the bomber flew west of Reykjavik, it was attacked and damaged by 2LT Joseph D.R. Shaffer of the 342nd Composite Group, flying a Curtiss P-40C Warhawk. Shaffer's attack was followed up by two Lockheed P-38F Lightnings of the 27th Fighter Squadron which had stopped at Iceland to refuel while being ferried across the Atlantic Ocean to England. The P-38s, flown by MAJ John H. Weltman and 2LT Elza E. Shahan, shot down the Condor, which exploded and crashed into the sea. The crew of six were killed. Lieutenants Shaffer and Shahan were both credited with the victory and were awarded the Silver Star. This was the first U.S. Army Air Forces air combat victory in the European Theater of Operations.


 * 1937 – (14-15) Imperial Japanese Navy Mitsubishi G3 M bombers based at Taihoku on Formosa and Ōmura on Kyūshū conduct over-ocean raids on Nationalist Chinese bases 400 to 500 miles (644 to 805 km) inland, demonstrating an operational range that astonishes both foreign observers and those of the Imperial Japanese Army. It is the first transoceanic bombing raid in history.


 * 1937 – A Nationalist offensive in northern Spain against Basque forces defending Santander, begins, supported by 70 German – Including the latest models, being evaluated in combat for the first time – 80 Italian, and 70 Spanish Nationalist aircraft. Republican forces opposing them have only 33 fighters – only 18 of them modern Soviet aircraft – And 11 reconnaissance planes. The Nationalist aerial bombardment will overwhelm the defenders of Santander, which will fall to the Nationalists on August 26.


 * 1937 – Vice Admiral Kiyoshi Hasegawa orders Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carriers to begin strikes against the coast of China, beginning several months of such operations.


 * 1937 – Six Imperial Japanese Mitsubishi G3 M bombers are shot down while raiding Chinese air bases, marking the first air-to-air combat of World War II.


 * 1932 – First successful single-lift rotor helicopter: Alexei Cheremukhin & Boris Yuriev’s TsAGI-1 EA, which flew to a record altitude of 605 m (1,985 ft).


 * 1932 – 14-23 – Frances Mersalis and Louise Thaden set a women's endurance record of 8 days 4 hours.


 * 1932 – 14-28 – The third International Tourist Aircraft Contest Challenge 1932 in Berlin, won by the Polish crew Franciszek Zwirko and Stanislaw Wigura on the RWD-6 plane.


 * 1931 – Piloted by M. M. Gromov, the Tupolev ANT-14 large passenger aircraft makes its first flight. The largest landplane of its day, it could carry 36 passengers.


 * 1915 – First flight of the Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.9


 * 1914 – The first true bomber, the French Voisin III, is used in combat for the first time in an attack on German airship hangars at Metz-Frascaty, Germany.


 * 1909 – The first woman passenger to fly in a powered airplane in Great Britain is the wife of Samuel F. Cody. She is taken for a 3-minute flight from the Royal Engineers Balloon Factory at Farnborough in Cody’s British Army Aeroplane No.1.