Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/December 14

December 14


 * 2009 – Cabin crew at British Airways vote overwhelmingly in favor of a planned 12 days of strike action over Christmas and the New Year in a dispute over job cuts and changes to staff contracts. On 17 December the High Court rules that Unite, the representing trade union, had not correctly balloted its members on the strike action, meaning that the strikes could not go ahead.


 * 1999 – The United States Border Patrol arrests the would-be “Millennium Bomber” Ahmed Ressam for the 2000 millennium attack plots, when he arrives from Canada by ferry at Port Angeles, Washington, with timing devices and 130 lb of explosives in his car. He had planned to bomb Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles, California, on the upcoming New Year’s Eve.


 * 1988 – JAL (Japan Air Lines) announces that they will be the first airline to add personal video screens on their 747-400 s in the first and business class cabins.


 * 1986 – (14-23) First non-stop flight around the planet without refueling – The Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, on a distance of 40212 km.


 * 1984 – First flight of the Grumman X-29.


 * 1979 – First flight of the Edgley Optica.


 * 1977 – First flight of the Mil Mi-26.


 * 1972 – Apollo program: Eugene Cernan is the last person to walk on the moon, after he and Harrison Schmitt complete the third and final Extra-vehicular activity (EVA) of Apollo 17. This was the last manned mission to the moon of the 20th century.


 * 1967 – As part of a Centennial project, Col. Robert (Bud) White sets a Canadian altitude record by flying a fighter jet to 30030 m Col. White dives 3600 m at full throttle to gain speed for his supersonic climb at Mach 2.4.


 * 1965 – A Learjet 23 executive transport shows off its impressive capabilities by climbing to 40000 ft in 7 min 21 seconds with seven people aboard.


 * 1964 – The US Air Force launches Operation Barrel Roll, attacking the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos.


 * 1962 – Mariner 2 becomes the first spacecraft to fly past Venus.


 * 1961 – Second prototype Hawker Siddeley P.1127, XP836, crashed at RNAS Yeovilton (HMS Heron) when a 'cold nozzle' is lost in flight. Aircraft becomes uncontrollable on approach to Yeovilton and pilot Bill Bedford ejects at 200 ft altitude.


 * 1959 – Captain Joe B. Jordan, USAF, set a new world altitude record of 31,513 meters (103,389 feet) in a Lockheed F-104C Starfighter, 56-885. This exceeded the previous record, set just 8 days earlier by Commander Lawrence E. Flint, USN, in a prototype McDonnell YF4H-1 Phantom II, by 4.95%.


 * 1959 – Boeing KC-97 Stratotanker, 53-0231, c/n 17113, of the 384th Air Refueling Squadron, out of Westover Air Reserve Base, Massachusetts, collides with a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress during a refueling mission at an altitude of ~15000 ft. The aircraft loses the whole left horizontal stabilizer and elevator, the rudder, and the upper quarter of the vertical stabilizer. Crew makes a no-flap, electrical power off landing at night at Bangor Air National Guard Base (DOW AFB), Maine, seven crew okay. "Spokesmen at Dow Air Force, Bangor, said the B-52 apparently 'crowded too close' and rammed a fuel boom into the tail of a 4 engined KC95 tanker plane." Aircraft stricken as beyond economical repair. Two crew on the B-52 eject, parachute safely, and are recovered by helicopters in a snow-covered wilderness area. The bomber and remaining eight crew members continue to Westover AFB, where a safe landing is made.


 * 1956 – Brazil becomes the first country in Latin America to acquire an aircraft carrier, purchasing HMS Vengeance (R71) from the United Kingdom. In 1960, she will become the second Latin American aircraft carrier to enter service, as Brazilian aircraft carrier Minas Gerais.


 * 1953 – First flight of the Miles Sparrowjet.


 * 1952 – A Royal Air Force Boeing B-29 Superfortress, WF570, of 35 Squadron, RAF Marham, flies into ground 5 mi ENE of Marham whilst attempting a radio compass let down in bad weather. Both pilots, the nav/plotter and the radio operato are killed, whilst the flight engineer and one of the air gunners suffer serious injuries.


 * 1944 – (14–16) Task Force 38 carrier aircraft attack Japanese airfields on Luzon, employing for the first time the “Big blue blanket” tactic of keeping aircraft over the airfields day and night to prevent Japanese air attacks on the beachhead at Mindoro. Flying 1,671 sorties, they drop 336 tons (304,817 kg) of bombs, claiming 62 Japanese aircraft destroyed in the air and 208 on the ground, for a loss of 27 U. S. aircraft in combat and 38 due to non-combat causes.


 * 1944 – First flight of the Short Shetland


 * 1943 – Aircraft of the U. S. Army Air Forces’ Fifth Air Force attack Japanese forces at Arawe with 433 tons (392,815 kg) of bombs.


 * 1941 – (14-19) Japanese naval aircraft from Kwajalein Atoll strike Wake Island repeatedly.


 * 1931 – RAF pilot Douglas Bader (21 February 1910 – 5 September 1982), undertaking a low-level roll in Bristol Bulldog Mk. IIA, K1676, of 23 Squadron at RAF Woodley, Great Britain, hooks a wingtip, rolls the biplane into a ball, and loses both his legs. Undeterred, he returns to the air and becomes a renowned World War II fighter pilot with 22 credited "kills" before being downed over France, 9 August 1941. As a POW, he has such determination to escape that he is eventually sent to Colditz Castle for recidivist escapees.


 * 1927 – US aircraft carrier USS Lexington is commissioned.


 * 1924 – First flight of the Martin MO, is launched using an explosive-driven catapult fitted to a turret on USS Mississippi, requiring less distance than ever for the take-off.


 * 1920 – A 1920 Golders Green Handley Page O/400 crashes on take-off from Handley Page Transport (Cricklewood Aerodrome]), North London, on a scheduled flight from London to Paris. Two crew and two of the six passengers were killed.


 * 1916 – Flight Sub Lt. Arthur Ince a RFC Observer shot down a Geman seaplane off the coast of Belgium. This was the first Canadian aerial victory. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.


 * 1914 – A Royal Naval Air Service Avro 504 of the No. 203 Squadron RAF (Eastchurch Squadron]) drops four 16 lb bombs on the Ostend-Bruges railway in Belgium.


 * 1903 – Wilbur Wright makes the first and unsuccessful attempt at powered flight at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. His aircraft stalls after 3 ½ seconds in the air and crash-lands 105 ft away.


 * 1782 – The Montgolfier brothers first balloon lifts on its first test flight.