Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/May 11

May 11


 * 2013 – After an Israeli Air Force Heron-1 unmanned aerial vehicle flying over the Mediterranean Sea malfunctions, the Israeli Army shoots it down to prevent it from crashing in a populated area. The following day Israel grounds its fleet of Heron-1 unmanned aerial vehicles.


 * 2011 – Libyan rebel forces capture Misrata Airport, which also serves as a Libyan Air Force base.
 * 2010 – Death of Walker Melville "Bud" Mahurin, American WWII and Korean war fighter ace, (only USAF pilot to score in both the European and Pacific Theaters and the Korean War).


 * 2010 – A Dassault Mirage 2000 of the French Air Force crashed in a forest of Bougue close to Villeneuve-de-Marsan (Landes, Aquitaine), 6 km east of Mont de Marsan AB (LFBM), after technical problems. The pilot ejected safely and only received minor injuries.


 * 2009 – Launch: Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-125 at 18:01:56 UTC. Mission highlights: Last Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission (HST SM-04). Final Non-ISS flight.


 * 2007 – After 50 years of service, the English Electric Canberra was finally retired.


 * 2007 – A Republic of China Air Force Northrop F-5 crashes onto a building at an army base in Hukou, Taiwan. The two crew members are killed, as well as two soldiers of the Singapore Army undergoing training at the base. Another nine Singapore Army soldiers are injured, one dies of his injuries 17 days later.


 * 1997 – Continental Airlines Flight 1760, a Boeing 737-524 with 54 people on board attempting to land through low clouds at Corpus Christi International Airport in Nueces County, Texas, mistakenly lands safely at Cabaniss Field, a part of Naval Air Station Corpus Christi in Corpus Christi, Texas, 5.8 miles (9.3 km) away.


 * 1996 – ValuJet Flight 592, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9, crashes in the Everglades near Miami, because of a fire in its cargo hold. All 110 people on board are killed.


 * 1995 – Death of John Geoffrey Sadler Candy, British WWI flying ace who served during WWII.


 * 1990 – Philippine Airlines Flight 143, a Boeing 737, explodes and burns on the ground at Ninoy Aquino International Airport, killing 8 of 120 on board, marking the first loss of a Boeing 737-300.


 * 1987 – First flight of the Learjet 31, American ten seat (two crew and eight passengers) twin-engined, high speed business jet. Manufactured by Learjet (a subsidiary of Bombardier Inc.).


 * 1973 – First flight of the Dassault Falcon 30 F-WAMD.


 * 1970 – Death of William Howard "Hank" Stovall, American WWI flying ace, Businessman and High Ranking officer in WWII.


 * 1970 – A category F5 tornado strikes Lubbock, Texas destroying about one quarter of the city. Nineteen of 23 U.S. Air Force trainers (probably Cessna T-41 Mescaleros) at Lubbock International Airport are destroyed, amongst 100 aircraft damaged.


 * 1969 – A Royal Navy F-4 Phantom of 892 Naval Air Squadron set a new world air speed record between New York and London in 4 hours and 46 min, winning the Daily Mail Trans-Atlantic Air Race. It flew from the Floyd Bennet Naval Air Station to Wisley Aerodrome and was refuelled by a Handley Page Victor aerial tanker over the Atlantic.


 * 1964 – A Bell 533 modified with 2 small sweptback fixed wings to convert the aircraft into a compound helicopter, flew at 357 km/h.


 * 1964 – Jackie Cochran sets a new women's airspeed record of 1,429 mph (2,300 km/h) in a F-104 Starfighter.


 * 1964 – A USAF Boeing C-135B-BN Stratolifter, 61-0332, c/n 18239, crashed on landing at Clark Air Force Base, Philippines, hitting a taxi. 84 on board, 5 survivors, passengers in taxi also killed. Date of 11 August 1964 cited by Joe Baugher. The crash occurred while attempting to land during a rainstorm at approximately 1920 hrs.


 * 1960 – A United States Army Signals Corps balloon ascends to an altitude of 43,890 m (144,000 feet) before bursting setting a record breaking night time altitude ascent.


 * 1957 – Death of Victor Herbert Strahm, American WWI flying ace, who served in WWII and was chief test pilot for the USAAF.


 * 1957 – Nimble Bat 3 – CF-100s of 440 Squadron flown from Bagotville to Zweibrucken.


 * 1953 – INS Garuda becomes the first Indian Navy aircraft carrier, serving as the base for the Indian Naval Air Arm.


 * 1953 – First prototype of the Tupolev Tu-95 Bear, Tu-95/1, first flown 12 November 1952, crashes this date NE of Noginsk, Russia, during its 17th flight and burns due to an engine fire in the starboard inner turboprop. Engine falls off of wing, nine of twelve crew parachute to safety but three are killed, including test pilot Alexey Perelet.


 * 1949 – No. 28 Squadron RAF flies from Malaya to Hong Kong to help reinforce the island against Communist forces on mainland China.


 * 1948 – Maj. Simon H. Johnson, deputy commanding officer of the Eglin AFB, Florida, fighter section, is killed when his Republic F-84 Thunderjet disintegrates during an air demonstration on the Eglin reservation, in front of some 600 witnesses. The public information officer at Eglin stated that the pilot was "engaged in operational tests on the plane" when the accident occurred. Maj. Johnson, a resident of Shalimar, Florida, was originally from Houston, Texas. He had served a year in Italy flying 50 missions in North American P-51 Mustangs with the 31st Fighter Group, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross and the air medal with five clusters. He had attended the University of Texas and graduated from the U.S. Army flying school in 1940.


 * 1945 – World War II: Off the coast of Okinawa, the aircraft carrier USS Bunker Hill (CV-17), is hit by two kamikazes, killing 346 of her crew. Although badly damaged, the ship is able to return to the U. S. under her own power.


 * 1944 – Death of Walter "Gulle" Oesau, German World War II fighter ace who served in the Luftwaffe from 1934 until his death in 1944. He rose to command Jagdgeschwader 1 (World War II), which was named in his honor after his death.


 * 1943 – In Operation Landcrab, American forces invade Attu. With an all-F4 F Wildcat airwing consisting of 26 F4 F-4 fighters and three F4 F-3P photographic reconnaissance aircraft, the escort aircraft carrier USS Nassau (CVE-16) supports operations on Attu until May 20; it is the first time that the U. S. Navy employs carrier-based photographic reconnaissance aircraft and the first time in the Pacific Ocean theatre of World War II of Operations that an escort carrier engages in combat. The U.S. Navy concludes that bombers should be included in future escort carrier air wings to make them more effective in supporting amphibious operations.


 * 1940 – (Overnight) British bombers interdict German Army troop movement near the Belgium and Netherlands border, as 37 Handley Page Hampdens and Armstrong Whitworth Whitleys bomb road and rail junctions near Mönchengladbach. Three British bombers are lost.


 * 1936 – First flight of The Bristol Type 138 High Altitude Monoplane, British high-altitude research aircraft, single-engine, low-wing monoplane with a fixed, tailwheel undercarriage.


 * 1934 – Sole prototype of U.S. Navy Douglas XO2D-1, BuNo 9412, noses over on water landing near NAS Anacostia, Washington, D.C., after starboard landing gear would not retract, nor support runway landing. Pilot survives. Aircraft salvaged, rebuilt, but no production contract let.


 * 1934 – First flight of the Douglas DC-2.


 * 1932 – The USS Akron, arriving at Camp Kearny, San Diego, California, after a cross-continent transit attempts to moor, but proves too buoyant. The mooring cable is cut to avert a catastrophic nose-stand by the airship and the Akron heads up. Most men of the mooring crew, predominantly "boot" seamen from the Naval Training Station San Diego, let go of their lines but three do not. One man was carried 15 ft into the air before he let go and suffered a broken arm in the process while three others were carried up even farther. Two of these men — Aviation Carpenter's Mate 3d Class Robert H. Edsall and Apprentice Seaman Nigel M. Henton — lost their grips and fell to their deaths. The third, Apprentice Seaman C. M. "Bud" Cowart, clung desperately to his line and made himself fast to it before he was hoisted aboard the Akron one hour later. Akron managed to moor at Camp Kearny later that day.  The stranded crewman provides the template for the very first rescue by George Reeves' portrayal of Superman in the first television episode of "Adventures of Superman", "Superman on Earth", first aired 19 September 1952.


 * 1928 – Death of Ulrich Neckel, German WWI fighter ace


 * 1927 – Charles Lindbergh lands his new Ryan airplane, the Spirit of St. Louis, in St. Louis after a record non-stop overnight flight from San Diego of 14 hours, 25 min.


 * 1926 – 11-14 – Roald Amundsen makes the first airship flight over the North Pole. The Norge leaves Spitsbergen and arrives in Teller, Alaska three days later.


 * 1919 – French Aviator Joseph Sadi Lacointe sets a new altitude record with a Spad Herbemont (8 155 m).


 * 1918 – Death of Kurt Nachod, Austro Hungarian WWI flying ace, from injuries after the crash of his Hansa-Brandenburg C. I 2 days before


 * 1917 – Death of Edmund Nathanael, German WWI fighter ace, killed in action in his Albatros D.III by a SPAD VII.


 * 1911 – Édouard Nieuport, a racing cyclist before he went into aircraft construction (co-founder with his brother Charles of the eponymous Nieuport aircraft manufacturing company), sets a new speed record of 74.4 mph flying his "Nieuport 11-N, " monoplane powered by a 28-hp engine.


 * 1906 – Birth of Jacqueline Cochran, pioneer American aviator, considered to be one of the most gifted racing pilots of her generation. She was an important contributor to the formation of the wartime Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) and Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP)


 * 1903 – Richard Pearse is claimed to have made a flight of around 1,000 yards (900 m), landing in the semi-dry bed of the Opihi River.


 * 1897 – Birth of Robert Ellsworth Gross, American businessman involved in the field of aviation.


 * 1896 – Birth of Heinrich Henkel, German WWI flying ace


 * 1896 – Birth of Paul Wilhelm Bäumer, German WWI fighter ace.


 * 1892] – Birth of Walter Ewers, German WWI flying ace


 * 1881 – Birth of Theodore von Kármán, Hungarian-American aerospace engineer and physicist who was active primarily in the fields of aeronautics and astronautics. He is responsible for many key advances in aerodynamics, notably his work on supersonic and hypersonic airflow characterization.


 * 1875 – Birth of Harriet Quimby, early American aviator and movie screenwriter, first woman to gain a pilot's license in the US and first woman to fly across the English Channel.