Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/July 12

July 12


 * 2011 – An airstrip laid out along a stretch of highway near Rhebat in the Nafusa Mountains was opened by a senior NTC minister, allowing an air connection via a small private company, Air Libya, between Benghazi and the Amazigh rebels.


 * 2001 – Launch: Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-104 at 05:04 am EDT. Mission highlights: ISS assembly flight 7A: Quest Joint Airlock.


 * 2000 – Hapag-Lloyd Flight 3378, an Airbus A310, lands 500 metres short of the runway in Vienna after running out of fuel in flight. There are no serious injuries or fatalities.


 * 1994 – A Royal Air Force C-130 Hercules flies the 10,000th United Nations relief flight into Sarajevo.


 * 1988 – Launch of Phobos 2, Soviet unmanned space mission to study Mars.


 * 1988 – First flight of The Scaled Composites Triumph, US twin-engine, business jet prototype designed and built by Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites for Beechcraft, known officially as the Model 143. The Williams FJ44 turbofan engine shared the maiden flight.


 * 1988 – U.S. Navy North American CT-39E Sabreliner, BuNo 158381, c/n 282-93, ex-N4701N, en route from Singapore to Subic Bay Naval Station, Philippines, comes down in the afternoon in the South China Sea near the Spratly Island archipelago, after radioing a distress signal of equipment failure. Vietnamese Navy ship (described by Joe Baugher as a fishing vessel) picks up three American crew, two men and one woman, said a spokesman at the Vietnamese embassy in Bangkok on 15 July, and took them to Vietnam where they were being "treated very kindly". Arrangements would be made to repatriate the crew. At this time the United States and Vietnam had not yet reestablished diplomatic relations.


 * 1985 – First flight of The Antonov An-71 (NATO reporting name: 'Madcap'), Soviet carrier-capable prototype AWACS aircraft, based on An-72, with a completely redesigned rear fuselage supporting the rotodome of the RADAR atop the broad chord forward swept fin.


 * 1983 – Death of Erich Warsitz, German WWII test pilot, chief test pilot at Peenemünde West. He is remembered as the First person to fly an aircraft under liquid-fueled rocket power also the First to fly an aircraft under turbojet power


 * 1980 – First flight of the McDonnell Douglas KC-10 Extender


 * 1979 – Death of Georgy Mikhailovich Beriev, founder of Soviet Union's Beriev Design Bureau which concentrated on amphibious aircraft.


 * 1971 – Piper PA-48 Enforcer, N202PE, c/n PE2-1001, crashes after structural failure due to flutter caused by a Piper-modified elevator trim tab, off of Vero Beach, Florida.9] Four of the heavily modified, turbine-powered TF-51 derivatives were built for the counter-insurgency rôle with two tested at Eglin AFB, Florida in 1983-1984, but no orders were ever placed.


 * 1966 – First flight of the Northrop M2-F2.


 * 1965 – First flight of the Britten-Norman Islander


 * 1957 – "Ike" became the first president to fly in a helicopter. President Eisenhower becomes the first U. S. president to fly in a helicopter when he is flown from the White House to an unnamed military post in a USAF Bell UH-13 J.


 * 1957 – Birth of Rick Husband, USAF test pilot and NASA astronaut.


 * 1952 – First flight of the Bee Aviation 'Honey Bee', single seat light aircraft.


 * 1946 – Unarmed second prototype of the Mikoyan-Gurevich I-250, with strengthened tailplane after crash of first prototype on 5 July 1945, continues flight testing until this date when an engine fire forces an emergency landing and it is damaged beyond repair.


 * 1945 – A US Army Air Forces Douglas A-26C Invader, 44-35553, on a training flight has mid-air collision with Eastern Airlines Flight 45 from Washington, D.C. to Columbia, South Carolina, a Douglas DC-3, NC25647',' at ~3100 feet, 11.9 miles WNW of Florence, South Carolina at 1436 hrs. A-26 vertical fin strikes port wing of airliner, displaces engine of DC-3 which cuts into fuselage; A-26 tail sheared off, two crew parachute, one KWF. DC-3 pilot belly lands in cornfield, one passenger of 24 total on board killed.


 * 1945 – Death of Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen, German WWI fighter ace, and high-ranking officer in WWII, cousin of Lothar and Manfred von Richthofen.


 * 1944 – A Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 88 G-1 night fighter of 7 Staffel/NJG 2, bearing Geschwaderkennung code 4R+UR, on North Sea night patrol landed at RAF Woodbridge. This aircraft carried recent versions of the FuG 220 Lichtenstein SN-2 VHF-band radar, FuG 350 Naxos-Z and FuG 227 Flensburg homer[282] which were being successfully used to intercept RAF night bombers. The German crew had only just completed 100 hours of flight training, and had flown by compass heading, but proceeded on a reciprocal (opposite) course to that intended and thought they were over their own airfield. Within days, the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) analysed the radar equipment and devised countermeasures. This 'coup' repeated the events of the previous year, when a similar radar-equipped Ju 88 (pictured) was flown by a defecting crew to the UK The earlier Ju 88 R-1 nightfighter flown to RAF Dyce by its defecting crew the year before the 13 July 1944 event.


 * 1944 – The first allied jet fighter, the Gloster Meteor Mk 1, entered service with RAF 616 Squadron.


 * 1943 – Flying Officer J. H. Turnbull, a Royal Air Force Squadron Beaufighter pilot, shot down three German Ju-88 bombers over Sicily.


 * 1943 – Germany and Italy mount all air opposition against Allied forces in Sicily from bases in Sardinia and mainland Italy from this date.


 * 1943 (midnight) – An attack by the Allied Northwest African Air Force destroys the headquarters of the Italian Sixth Army at Enna, Sicily.


 * 1941 – Moscow is bombed by the German Luftwaffe for the first time.


 * 1937 (July 12–14) – Mikhail Gromov, A. B. Yumashev, and S. A. Danilin establish a new distance record of 10,148 km (6,303 miles) from Moscow to San Jacinto, California, USA via the North Pole.


 * 1932 – A Junkers J13 crashed near Zlín airport on take off, Czech Republic, killing Tomáš Baťa, Czech entrepreneur, founder of Bata Shoes company. He also founded along with his brother Jan Antonin Bat'à (founder of Zlin Aviation), the Tomáš Baťa aviation, apparently the world's First one to regularly use aircraft for expedient transport of not only high-echelon staff, but in case of need also e. g. skilled workers to places where their skills were needed soon – so the primary aim was the timely deployment of manpower to the spot where it was needed, not creating luxurious "royal barges" for a few chosen.


 * 1929 – First flight of The Dornier Do X, German flying boat, semi-cantilever monoplane powered by twelve engines mounted in six tower nacelles on the wing.


 * 1928 – Emilio Carranza crashes in the New Jersey Pine Barrens while returning from New York City to Mexico City on a historic goodwill flight.


 * 1921 – Major Sheldon Harley Wheeler is killed in the crash of DH-4B, AS-63525, on take off from Luke Field, Ford Island, Oahu, Hawaiian Islands. He was commander of Luke Field at the time of his death. In February 1922 construction began on a new airfield in the Wahiawa District of the Island and on 11 November it was named Wheeler Field in his honour.


 * 1921 – Death of Harry George Hawker MBE, AFC, Australian aviation pioneer and co-founder of Hawker Aircraft, when his Nieuport Goshawk crashed while he was climbing out from Hendon Aerodrome while practicing for an airshow.


 * 1917 – Royal Naval Air Service Flight Lieutenant O. A. Butcher, manning a kite balloon lofted by the destroyer HMS Patriot off the Shetland Islands, sights the German submarine U-69 at a range of 28 nautical miles (52 km), allowing Patriot to intercept U-69 and sink her with depth charges.


 * 1917 – Birth of Luigi Gorrini, Italian WWII fighter ace.


 * 1916 – The United States Navy armored cruiser North Carolina becomes the first ship to launch an aircraft by catapult while underway, launching a Curtiss flying boat piloted by Lieutenant Godfrey Chevalier.


 * 1910 – Death of Charles Stewart Rolls, British motoring and aviation pioneer, First Briton to be killed in a flying accident, when the tail of his Wright Flyer broke off during a flying display near Bournemouth, England. Together with Frederick Henry Royce he co-founded the Rolls-Royce car company.


 * 1901 – Alberto Santos-Dumont, making an attempt on the Deutsch prize in Paris, lands his dirigible No.5 in the Trocadero gardens after one of the cords controlling the rudder snaps. He uses a ladder to repair the machine where it lies before taking off again.


 * 1895 – Birth of Geoffrey Forrest Hughes, Australian WWI flying ace.


 * 1882 – Birth of Charles Voisin, early French aviation pioneer, younger brother of Gabriel Voisin.


 * 1891 – Birth of Oskar Bider, Swiss aviation pioneer.


 * 1849 (July 12 and July 25) – Balloons (Montgolfières) are used for bombardment for the first time, with Austrians bombing Venice.


 * 1812 – Lamp gas used to fill a Montgolfière (Green).


 * 1785 – First manned flight by gas balloon in Netherlands.