Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/August 20

August 20


 * 2011 – First Air Flight 6560, a Boeing 737, crashes while on approach to Resolute Bay Airport, Nunavut, Canada, killing 12 of 15 on board.


 * 2011 – A BAE Systems Hawk T.1 of the RAF's Red Arrows aerobatic team crashed during a public display at Bournemouth Air Festival, killing the pilot.


 * 2011 – As the Battle of Tripoli begins, Libyan rebels capture Tripoli International Airport and launch an assault on Mitiga International Airport east of Tripoli.


 * 2008 – Spanair Flight 5022, a McDonnell Douglas MD-82 crashes on takeoff at Barajas Airport in Madrid, Spain. Of the 172 people on board, 154 are killed.


 * 2007 – Loch Lomond Seaplanes launches scheduled services from Glasgow Seaplane Terminal to Oban in Scotland.


 * 2007 – China Airlines Flight 120, a Boeing 737-809 with 165 people on board, catches fire after landing at Naha Airport on Okinawa, Japan. There are no fatalities; three people on the aircraft one member of the ground crew are injured.


 * 2002 – First flight of the KAI T-50 Golden Eagle


 * 1992 – First flight of the HAL Dhruv


 * 1986 – First test-flight of a propfan engine, the General Electric GE-36


 * 1978 – Entered Service: British Aerospace Sea Harrier


 * 1977 – The Voyager 2 unmanned interplanetary spacecraft is launched aboard a Titan IIIE/Centaur rocket from Cape Canaveral, tasked mainly with photographing Venus, Neptune and Saturn. As of today, Voyager 2 is still monitored and tracked from 15 hrs 26 mins 15 secs of light-travel time from Earth. Flight logs continue at:


 * 1970 – First flight of the Sikorsky S-67 Blackhawk


 * 1969 – First flight of the FMA IA 58 Pucará


 * 1963 – First flight of the BAC One-Eleven


 * 1955 – Flying a U. S. Air Force North American F-100 C Super Sabre, Horace A. Haines sets a world speed record of 822.135 mph (1,323.889 km/hr).


 * 1953 – Using aerial refueling, 17 U. S. Air Force F-84G Thunderjets make the longest-ever nonstop flight by jet fighters, flying 4,485 miles (7,218 km) from the United States to the United Kingdom.


 * 1948 – A Boeing B-29-15-BA Superfortress, 42-63442, crashes near Rapid City, South Dakota shortly after take off from Rapid City AFB, killing all 17 on board


 * 1947 – Flying the first Douglas D-558-1 Skystreak, Bu. No. 37970, Commander Turner F. Caldwell, United States Navy, set a new world air speed record of 640.744 mph (1,031.178 km/h) over a 3-kilometer course at Muroc Army Air Field, California. (FAI Record File Number 9864)


 * 1946 – A captured Messerschmitt Me 262A, Wrknr. 111711, FE-0107, 711, crashed Tuesday afternoon ~two miles S of Xenia, Ohio near Route 68, test pilot Walter J. McAuley, Jr., of the Flight Performance Section, Flight Test Division, Wright Field, Ohio, successfully parachuting to safety. This brand new airframe had been surrendered on 31 March 1945 by Messerschmitt test pilot Hans Fay who defected during a functional check flight rather than fly it to an operational unit, landing at Rhein-Main, Frankfurt, the first Me 262 to fall into Allied hands.


 * 1944 – Aircraft of a U. S. Navy antisubmarine hunter-killer group score their final kill of an enemy submarine in the Atlantic during World War II, when FM Wildcats and TBM Avengers of Composite Squadron 42 (VC-42) from the escort aircraft carrier USS Bogue (CVE-9) sink the German submarine U-1229 300 nautical miles (560 km) south of Cape Race, Newfoundland. Aircraft of U. S. hunter-killer groups have sunk—or cooperated with surface warships in sinking—32 German and two Japanese submarines in the Atlantic.


 * 1942 – The U. S. Army Air Forces activate the Twelfth Air Force.


 * 1942 – István Horthy (the son of the Hungarian regent Miklós Horthy), serving as a fighter pilot with 1/1 Fighter Squadron of the Royal Hungarian Air Force is killed in Russia when his MÁVAG Héja ("Hawk"), "V.421", a Hungarian fighter based on the Reggiane Re.2000, crashes shortly after takeoff from an air field near Ilovskoye.


 * 1941 – No. 415 (Coastal) Squadron was formed in England.


 * 1939 – Since the beginning of the Khalkhin Gol Incident on May 11, the Soviet Union has claimed 320 Japanese aircraft shot down and another 35 destroyed on the ground.


 * 1939 – The last rigid airship, the Graf Zeppelin (LZ 130) makes its last flight.


 * 1936 – Prototype Vought XSB2U-1 Vindicator, BuNo 9725, accepted by the U.S. Navy on 2 July 1936, crashes in Virginia.


 * 1935 – Boeing test pilot Les Tower flies the Model 299 nonstop from Seattle to Dayton and establishes an unofficial record of flying 2,100 miles at an average speed of 232 miles.


 * 1923 – Completed: USS Shenandoah (ZR-1)


 * 1919 – The first regularly scheduled passenger service by airship begins with Zeppelin LZ 120 Bodenese's first flight at Friedrichshafen, Germany.


 * 1915 – The first sustained aerial bombing of cities offensive is made by Italian Caproni Ca.2s against Austria-Hungary.


 * 1910 – The first U. S. Army experiments with firing a rifle from an airplane takes place when United States Army Lieutenant Jacob Earl Fickel conducts firing trials from a Curtiss two-seater biplane piloted by Curtiss himself.


 * 1908 – Robert Gastambide becomes the first passenger carried by a monoplane when he is taken up on the Antoinette II.


 * 1908 – The Wright Flyer built for flight trials before the U. S. Army arrives at Fort Myer, near Washington, D. C., eight days ahead of schedule. Before trials begin, tests to check transportability, another stipulation, start.


 * 1901 – The Wright brothers leave Kitty Hawk, N. C., at the end of their second season of testing gliders and return to Dayton, Ohio.