Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/June 7

June 7


 * 2024 – The ROKAF retires the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II
 * 2013 – Missiles fired by an American unmanned aerial vehicle strike a house in the village of Mangroti in the Shawal area of North Waziristan in northwestern Pakistan, killing at least seven people described by officials as Islamic militants and seriously injuring four others.


 * 2012 – Kenyan helicopters attack Al Shabaab positions in Kismayo, Somalia.


 * 2009 – A Strait Air Britten-Norman Islander crashes on approach to Port Hope Simpson Airport, Canada, killing the pilot. The aircraft is destroyed.


 * 1992 – American Eagle Flight 5456, a CASA C-212 operated by Executive Airlines, crashes into a swamp on approach to Eugenio María de Hostos Airport in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, in heavy rain, killing all five people on board.


 * 1989 – Surinam Airways Flight 764, a Douglas DC-8, crashes while attempting to land in heavy fog at Paramaribo, Suriname. The plane hits trees and flips upside down, killing 176 of 187 people on board.


 * 1981 – Israeli Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcons make a long-range strike into Iraq to destroy the nuclear reactor at Osirak


 * 1973 – Bahamasair commences operations.


 * 1966 – Robert and Joan Wallick set a round-the-world flight record.


 * 1957 – Chance Vought Aircraft pilot James P. Buckner is killed while performing a high-speed flyby of CVA's tower at Hensley Field, Dallas, Texas, while demonstrating an Vought F8U-1 Crusader for a graduating class from the Navy Post Graduate School there. Executing a zoom climb after his low-altitude pass, he apparently overstresses the fighter and it disintegrates before he can eject. The aircraft's wreckage violently explodes at low altitude over Main Street in adjacent Grand Prairie, Texas, causing minor injuries to several bystanders, and pieces of the fighter are scattered throughout the floodplain of the nearby Trinity River; Buckner's body is recovered a few hours after the crash.


 * 1947 – First flight of the Fouga CM.10


 * 1946 – First flight of the Short Sturgeon
 * 1944 – Nos. 401, 411 and 412 (Fighter) Squadrons of No. 126 (RCAF) Wing destroyed 12 enemy aircraft and probably destroyed or damaged five more over the Normandy beaches.


 * 1942 – The English Electric-built Handley Page Halifax B Mk.II, V9977, on a test flight from RAF Defford carrying a secret H2S radar system crashes at 16:30 hrs at Welsh Bicknor, Herefordshire, killing the crew and several EMI personnel on board, including Alan Blumlein, pioneer of television and stereo audio recording. Blumlein, together with Cecil Browne and Frank Blythen, all from EMI, were attached to the Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) at the time of the accident. Also killed was Geoffrey Hensby of TRE. Whilst flying at 500ft a fire starts in the starboard outer engine. Unable to extinguish it and by then too low for a parachute escape, whilst attempting to reach an open area to put down the fire burns through the outer main spar at low altitude causing the outer wing to fold and detach, whereupon the aircraft rolls almost inverted and impacts the ground. The aircraft's highly secret cavity magnetron is recovered the next day by a TRE team from RAF Defford led by Bernard Lovell. An investigation into the cause of the fire by Rolls-Royce concludes that an insufficiently tightened inlet valve tappet locknut during maintenance caused the inlet valve to drop, where it was hit by the rising piston and broken off at the stem, allowing burning fuel to enter the rocker cover whereupon it quickly spread. V9977 was one of only two Halifaxes fitted with H2S, the other being the Handley Page-built Mk II, R9490, used for trials of a klystron-based version of the system, developed for security reasons due to the difficulty of self-destructing a magnetron should its carrying aircraft come down over enemy territory. The crash of V9977 wiped out almost the entire H2S development team, delaying its introduction to the extent that Churchill has to be informed.


 * 1942 – Major General Clarence Leonard Tinker, (21 November 1887 - 7 June 1942), of 1/8 Osage Indian heritage, leads four LB-30 Liberator IIs requisitioned by the USAAF on an attack, some sources state against retreating Imperial Japanese Navy units during the Battle of Midway, some sources state a bombing run on Wake Island). His LB-30, AL589, of the 31st Bombardment Squadron, 5th Bombardment Group, 7th Air Force, drops out of formation and is never seen again. Tinker was the first American general to die in World War II; his body was never recovered. He received the Soldier's Medal in 1931 and, posthumously, the Distinguished Service Medal. Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, is named in his honor on 14 October 1942.


 * 1942 – 119 (BR) Squadron and No. 128 (F) Squadron were formed at Sydney, N. S.


 * 1940 – HMS Ark Royal brings aboard the five surviving Supermarine Walrus flying boats of No. 701 Squadron from Harstad and HMS Glorious the surviving Hurricanes of No. 46 Squadron and Gladiators of No. 263 Squadron from Bardufoss as the Allied evacuation from Norway continues.


 * 1938 – First flight of the Douglas DC-4E


 * 1927 – The Supermarine S.5 racer, constructed to take part in the 1927 Schneider cup race; makes its first flight in Suffolk, England, piloted by Flight Lieutenant O. E. Worsley.


 * 1920 – The U. S. Army orders 20 GAX (Ground Attack Experimental) triplanes from Boeing as the Model 10, an order later reduced to 10 before the first was delivered in May 1921.


 * 1919 – Flying a Caudron G.3, Raymonde de Laroche of France sets a women’s altitude record of nearly 13,000 feet (3,962 m).


 * 1912 - With Lieutenant Roy Carrington Kirtland flying a Wright Model B at College Park, Maryland, Captain Charles deForest Chandler was the first person to fire a machine gun mounted on an aircraft. The weapon was a prototype designed by Colonel Isaac N. Lewis.