Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/August 15

August 15


 * 2012 – A Syrian Air Force strike hits a hospital in Aleppo, Syria, wounding one person. Human Rights Watch calls the attack a violation of international law.


 * 2007 – Lts. Ryan Betton, Cameron Hall and Jerry Smith were killed when their Grumman E-2C Hawkeye from Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron 120, based at the Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, crashed in the Atlantic Ocean off North Carolina at ~2300 hrs. An investigation was unable to determine the cause of the crash, according to a copy of the Judge Advocate General final report — known as a JAGMAN — obtained by Navy Times. The plane catapulted off the deck of the carrier USS Harry S. Truman and crashed into the water moments later. The carrier never received any emergency radio transmissions or acknowledgment by the mishap crew, according to the report.


 * 2006 – First flight of the Boeing EA-18G Growler


 * 2005 – A US Navy Grumman C-2A Greyhound makes successful belly landing at Naval Air Station Norfolk, Virginia after undercarriage refuses to extend. Aircraft had departed Norfolk for NAS Pensacola, Florida, when problems were detected. Aircraft circled for two hours to burn fuel before making successful landing. None of 25 on board were injured.


 * 1988 – First flight of the PZL Bielsko SZD-55


 * 1976 – SAETA Flight 232, a Vickers Viscount 785D, goes missing mid-route from Quito to Cuenca, Ecuador; all 4 crew members and 55 passengers are killed, but the scene remains undiscovered for over 26 years until February 2003, when climbers on the eastern face of the stratovolcano Chimborazo come upon the site.


 * 1975 – Lockheed U-2R, 68-10334, Article 056, sixth R-model airframe, first flown 18 May 1968, N814X allocated, delivered to 100th SRW, 10 June 1968. Crashes into the Gulf of Thailand approximately 50 miles S of U-Tapao, this date, when pilot Capt. Jon T. Little, 32, of Tucson, Arizona, ejects from the aircraft he was ferrying back to the U.S. from U-Tapao. Shortly after departing the Thai base in the company of another U-2R and a KC-135 on a dark night, the autopilot develops problems and Little loses control as it overspeeds. The tail separates and the pilot ejects, being rescued by a fishing boat in the Gulf of Thailand the next morning and takes Little to the Thai village of Patani near the Malaysian border. Although Little survives, he never flies a U-2 again, SAC tradition at the time. This is the second U-2R loss.


 * 1972 – The final USAF mission over Cambodia is flown


 * 1973 – In the Gulf of Tonkin off North Vietnam, USS Constellation (CVA-64) departs Yankee Station for the last time. She is the last aircraft carrier to operate at the station.


 * 1969 – Operation About Face begins in Laos. Air America helicopters airlift Meo and Thai guerrillas led by Vang Pao behind enemy positions while the Royal Lao Army pushes across the Plain of Jars. Heavy American air support peaks at 300 sorties per day.


 * 1958 – Congress approves a bill creating the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) to regulate all US commercial and military aviation.


 * 1957 – USAF Captain Joe Bailey Jordan reaches a new altitude record of 31,513 m (103,389 ft) in a Lockheed F-104C-5-LO Starfighter, USAF serial number 56-885. (According to the online records data base of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, (FAI) this flight occurred 14 December 1959. (FAI Record File # 10354) During this flight Captain Jordan also set an FAI world record for Time to Altitude when his Starfighter reached an altitude of 30,000 meters in 15 minutes, 4.92 seconds. (FAI Record File # 9065)


 * 1951 – William Barton Bridgeman sets a new altitude record in a Douglas D-558-II Skyrocket, Bu. No. 37934, NACA 144, of 79,494 ft (24,230 m)


 * 1951 – British European Airways commences turboprop freight services


 * 1949 – A de Havilland Tiger Moth makes the first service flight by an aircraft of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.


 * 1947 – The Royal Pakistan Air Force is formed.


 * 1945 – Task Force 38 launches its last strike of the war, targeting Tokyo. A second strike jettisons its bombs in the sea when it receives word of the ceasefire agreement with Japan. In the final large dogfight of World War II, 15 to 20 Japanese planes jump six F6 F Hellcats of U.S. Navy Fighter Squadron 88 (VF-88) from USS Yorktown (CV-10); the Hellcats shoot down nine Japanese plans in exchange for four of their own.


 * 1945 – Seven Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft make the last kamikaze attack of World War II.


 * 1945 – Hirohito delivers a radio address telling his populace that Japan is surrendering. The formal signing of the surrender agreement aboard the USS Missouri would occur on Sept. 20th.


 * 1945 – First flight of the Ilyushin Il-12


 * 1944 – 1,300 Allied land-based bombers from Italy, Corsica, and Sardinia with escorting fighters strike targets in southern France against no German air opposition on the first morning of Operation Dragoon, the Allied amphibious invasion of southern France. The 1st Airborne Task Force makes a parachute landing as part of the invasion. Flying from the escort aircraft carrier USS Tulagi (CVE-72), U.S. Navy Observation Fighter Squadron 1 (VOF-1)—The first U.S. Navy fighter squadron with pilots trained as naval gunfire observers—makes its combat debut, relieving the more vulnerable battleship- and cruiser-based floatplanes of this duty. The only effective German air raid of the entire operation takes place that evening when a Junkers Ju 88 sinks the fully loaded tank landing ship USS LST-282 with a glide bomb off Cap Dramont.


 * 1944 – The first air-to-air victory by a jet is scored by Feldwebel Helmut Lennartz, shooting down a B-17 Flying Fortress in a Messerschmitt Me 262


 * 1943 – In Operation Cottage, American and Canadian forces invade Kiska, only to find that all Japanese had evacuated the island secretly on July 28. Employing 359 combat aircraft – The most it ever had during World War II – The Eleventh Air Force has conducted a continuous bombing campaign and dropped surrender leaflets for three weeks before the invasion, mostly against an uninhabited island Since June 1, the Eleventh Air Force has made 1,454 sorties against Kiska, dropping 1,255 tons (1,138,529 kg) of bombs.


 * 1943 – The landings on Kiska end the 439-day-long Aleutian Islands campaign, during which the Eleventh Air Force has flown 3,609 combat sorties, dropped 3,500 tpns (3,175,179 kg) of bombs, lost 40 aircraft in combat and 174 to other causes, and suffered 192 aircraft damaged. U.S. Navy patrol aircraft have flown 704 combat sorties, dropped 590,000 pounds (267,622 kg) of bombs, and lost 16 planes in combat and 35 due to other causes. Including transport aircraft, the Allies have lost 471 aircraft during the campaign to all causes, while the Japanese have lost 69 aircraft in combat and about 200 to other causes.


 * 1943 – U.S. forces land on Vella Lavella. The Japanese respond with air raids of 54, 59, and eight planes during the day, but do little damage, and U.S. Marine Corps F4U Corsair fighters strafe Kahili Airfield on Bougainville Island. The Japanese claim to have lost 17 planes, but U.S. forces claim 44 shot down.


 * 1940 – First RCAF victory in the Battle of Britain was scored by S/L EA McNab who destroyed a Dornier Do 215 while with No. 111 Squadron RAF.


 * 1940 – The heaviest fighting of the Battle of Britain occurs, with the loss of 46 British and 76 German aircraft.


 * 1939 – Thirteen Junkers Ju 87s of 1 Gruppe, 76 Sturmkampfgeschwader, commanded by Captain Walter Sigel, crash during a demonstration on training area Neuhammer (now Świętoszów, Poland). All 26 crew members were killed. The planes dived through cloud, expecting to release their practice bombs and pull out of the dive once below the cloud ceiling, unaware that on that particular day the ceiling was too low and unexpected ground mist formed, leaving them no time to pull out of the dive.


 * 1937 – 1937 – Lufthansa begins seaplane services between the Azores and New York with the assistance of seaplane tenders stationed along the route.


 * 1935 – First flight of the Seversky P-35


 * 1935 – Wiley Post and passenger Will Rogers died in the crash of Post's modified seaplane en route from Fairbanks to Point Barrow, Alaska, while taking off from a lagoon, after landing to ask directions.