Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/August 23

August 23


 * 2012 – The Syrian Air Force makes heavy strikes against rebel forces attacking Syrian government positions in Abu Kamal.


 * 2012 – Caught in a sudden thunderstorm, a hot-air balloon carrying tourists on a sighteeing trip attempts an emergency landing in Slovenia's Ljubljana Marshes, but strikes trees, crashes, and catches fire.  Four of the 32 people on board are killed and the remainder are injured.


 * 2009 – South East Asian Airlines Flight 014, a Dornier Do-328-100, registration RP-C6328, overruns the runway on landing at Ninoy Aquino International Airport, Philippines, and is substantially damaged, but is to be repaired.


 * 2009 – Danish airline Wings of Bornholm commences operations.


 * 2005 – TANS Perú Flight 204, a Boeing 737-200, crashes near Pucallpa, Peru. Forty of the 92 passengers on board, as well as four of the six crew members, perish.


 * 2000 – Gulf Air Flight 072, an Airbus A320, crashes into the Persian Gulf off Manama, Bahrain while attempting to land. All 143 passengers and eight crew members are killed.


 * 1993 – The Russian Air Force flies open skies missions over Luftwaffe bases


 * 1990 – A new Air Force One, a modified Boeing 747-200 B, is delivered to the Air Force and President George H. W. Bush.


 * 1990 – First flight of the Boeing VC-25


 * 1983 – First flight of the Boeing Skyfox


 * 1979 – Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17F, 002, of the USAF 4477th Test & Evaluation Squadron, Groom Lake, Nevada is lost due to pilot induced loss of control. Pilot Lt. M. Hugh Brown, USN, 31, of VX-4, "Bandit 12", originally of Roanoke, Virginia, enters spin while engaging adversary, U.S. Navy Northrop F-5 Freedom Fighter, recovers, but enters second spin too close to ground, irrecoverable, impacts at steep angle near Tonopah airfield boundary, killed instantly. No bail-out attempted.


 * 1977 – Gossamer Condor became the first human-powered aeroplane, flying a figure-8 course to demonstrate sustained, controlled flight


 * 1975 – An Grumman A-6E Intruder, BuNo 149948, 'AJ-500', of VA-35, and an McDonnell Douglas F-4J Phantom II from USS Nimitz collide in midair over the Atlantic Ocean during a refueling maneuver ~600 miles SSW of Scotland. A spokesman said that the two crew of the A-6 were missing and presumed dead while the two Marine crew of the F-4J were recovered. Missing are Lt. Garwood Bacon of Riverton, New Jersey, and Lt. Craig Renshaw of Middletown, Pennsylvania [disambiguation needed].


 * 1965 – Air Wisconsin Airlines commences operations with its first flight between Appleton, Wisconsin and Chicago–O'Hare, Illinois.


 * 1964 – Greek Air Force F-4 Phantoms are recalled while en route to attack Turkish military positions


 * 1958 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Federal Aviation Act of 1958, dissolving the Civil Aeronautics Administration and Civil Aeronautics Board and transferring all authority over aviation operations in the United States to the newly-created Federal Aviation Agency (FAA, later renamed Federal Aviation Administration).


 * 1954 – First flight of the Lockheed C-130 Hercules. Lockheed engineering test pilots Stanley Beltz and Roy Wimmer flew it from the production plant in Burbank, California to Edwards Air Force Base.


 * 1953 – First flight of the Short Seamew


 * 1951 – The U. S. Navy announces that the McDonnell F2H Banshee is in action against communist forces in Korea. This marks the first time that McDonnell-built planes have engaged in combat operations.


 * 1949 – BOAC commences its first services to the Far East to be flown entirely by landplanes.


 * 1948 – On the first flight test of the McDonnell XF-85 Goblin parasite fighter, 45-524, (the second of two prototypes), McDonnell test pilot Edwin F. Schoch successfully detaches from trapeze carried on Boeing EB-29B Superfortress, 44-84111, named "Monstro", but when he tries to hook up after free flight, the small fighter, buffeted in turbulence from the bomber, swings violently forward, smashes canopy against the trapeze, knocking the pilot's helmet off. Schoch successfully belly lands on dry lakebed at Muroc Air Force Base, California, suffering little damage.


 * 1947 – The Avro Tudor 2 prototype, G-AGSU, crashes on take-off at Woodford, Greater Manchester, killing Avro chief designer Roy Chapman and test pilot S. A. Thorn.


 * 1944 – Maj. Carlo Emanuele Buscaglia, one of Italy's most noted aviators, crashes this date in a Martin Baltimore light bomber. After the armistice of 8 September 1943, Buscaglia was asked to fight alongside the Allies, as a member of the newly formed Aeronautica Cobelligerante del Sud. In the meantime, in the northern part of Italy still occupied by Germany, a wing of the Aeronautica Nazionale Reppublicana (the Air Force of the puppet Italian Social Republic) had also been named after him. On 15 July 1944 Buscaglia assumed command of the 28th Bomber Wing, equipped with Baltimores, based on Campo Vesuvio airport, near Naples. On 23 August, while attempting to fly one of the new planes during the early transition training phase, without an instructor, Buscaglia crashes on take-off, dying in hospital in Naples the following day.


 * 1944 – Freckleton Air Disaster: A United States Army Air Force Consolidated B-24H-20-CF Liberator, 42-50291, "Classy Chassis II", during an unusually severe storm, crashes into a school at Freckleton, Lancashire, England at 1047 hrs. whilst on approach to Warton Aerodrome. Twenty adults, 38 children and the three-man crew are killed. In addition to a memorial in the village churchyard, a marker was placed at the site of the accident in 2007.


 * 1943 – About 20 German Junkers Ju 88 bombers attack the harbor at Palermo, Sicily, damaging several ships.


 * 1943 – (Overnight) Royal Air Force Bomber Command resumes the bombing of Berlin with a raid by 727 bombers. Poor target marking, poor timing by bombers, and the difficulty H2S navigation radar has in identifying landmarks in Berlin lead to wide scattering of bombs, although the Germans suffer nearly 900 casualties on the ground. For the first time, the Germans employ new Zahme Sau (“Tame Boar”) tactics – The use of ground-based guidance to direct night fighters into the British bomber stream, after which the night fighters operate independently against targets they find – And the British lose 56 bombers, the highest number so far in a single night and 7.9 percent of the participating aircraft.


 * 1942 – Boeing B-17E-BO Flying Fortress, 41-9091, of the 427th Bomb Squadron, 303rd Bomb Group,[144] operating out of Biggs Field, El Paso, Texas, suffers center fuselage failure in extremely bad weather 12 miles W of Las Cruces, New Mexico, only the radio operator and the engineering officer for the 427th Bomb Squadron, both in the radio room, survive by parachuting. Pilot was James E. Hudson. The 303rd BG was due to deploy overseas from Biggs on 24 August.


 * 1938 – The American racing and record-breaking pilot Frank Hawks is killed along with a passenger, J. Hazard Campbell, when his Gwinn Aircar becomes entangled in telephone lines shortly after taking off from East Aurora, New York.


 * 1936 – Nationalist aircraft bomb the airport at Getafe, Spain.


 * 1930 – Ford National Reliability Air Tour starts in Chicago.


 * 1923 – The I-1 (Il-400), the first independent design from Nikolai Nikolayevich Polikarpov, makes its first flight. Polikarpov has worked at the RBVZ (Russko-Baltijskij Vagonnyj Zavod (Russo-Baltic Cart Works)) on the Ilya Muromets and later becomes chief engineer at the GAZ-1 plant.


 * 1921 – The R38 class (also known as the A class) of rigid airships was designed for Britain’s Royal Navy during the final months of World War I, intended for long-range patrol duties over the North Sea. Four such airships were originally ordered by the Admiralty, but orders for three of them (R39, R40 and R41) were cancelled after the armistice with Germany and work on the lead ship of the class, R38, continued only after the United States Navy had agreed to purchase her. At the time of her first flight in 1921, she was the world’s largest airship.The American designation ZR-2 was already painted on the hull before its four completed test flights and in preparation for a final trial flight and delivery to Lakehurst. On 24 August 1921, ZR-2 was destroyed by a structural failure while in flight over the city of Hull and crashed into the Humber estuary, killing 44 out of the 49 crew aboard. This disaster resulted in more deaths than the more famous Hindenburg Disaster that killed 35.


 * 1916 – The Brazilian Navy establishes a naval aviation arm with the creation of a naval aviation school.


 * 1914 – Japan enters World War I, declaring war on Germany.


 * 1913 – Léon Letort carries out the first non-stop flight between Paris and Berlin when he flies his Morane-Saulnier monoplane fitted with an 80-hp Le Rhône engine the 560 miles between the two capitals in 8 hours.


 * 1878 – The British government uses its first military aviation budget (£150) to build and fly their first balloon, the Pioneer.