Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/May 27

May 27


 * 2011 – NATO aircraft conduct 151 sorties over Libya, striking a command and control facility in Tripoli, ammunition storage facilities near Sirte, Mizda, and Hun, a rocket launcher and two truck-mounted guns near Misrata, and four surface-to-air missile launchers near Zintan. NATO jets also destroy the guard towers surrounding Gaddafi's Bab al-Azizia compound in Tripoli. NATO aircraft have flown 8,585 sorties over Libya since NATO took command of the operations there on 31 March.


 * 2006 – AH-1W SuperCobra 164591 from HMLA-169 crashes into Lake Habbaniyah, killing the pilot and a maintenance ground crew member on board.


 * 2004 – Delta Air Lines begins service between Cincinnati, Ohio, and New Haven, Connecticut.


 * 1999 – Julie Payette flew aboard Discovery on STS-96. She became the first Canadian to visit the International Space Station.


 * 1999 – Launch: Space Shuttle Discovery STS-96 at 06:49 EDT. Mission highlights: ISS supply.


 * 1999 – First flight of the Bombardier CRJ-900, a Canadian regional airliner.


 * 1999 – An Indian Air Force Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21MF, C-1539, of 17 Golden Arrows Sqn., is shot down by a Pakistani FIM-92 Stinger while searching for downed MiG-27 pilot during the Kargil conflict. Aircraft comes down at 1105 hrs., some 7.5 miles (12 km.) inside Pakistani-Administered Azad Kashmir. Although pilot Squadron Leader Ajay Ahuja ejected safely, Pakistan claimed he had been killed. After his body was returned 28 May, "initial examination found bullet wounds, which suggested he had been shot after ejecting. This was the first time since 1971 that India had lost an aircraft to hostile fire.


 * 1979 – The prime minister of Mauritania, Ahmed Ould Bouceif, dies in an airplane crash in the Atlantic Ocean off Dakar, Senegal.


 * 1977 – Aeroflot Flight 331, an Ilyushin Il-62, crashes while on approach to Havana, Cuba, killing 68 out of 70 people on board, plus one person on the ground. It remains the fourth-worst air accident in Cuba's history.


 * 1970 – A USAF Lockheed C-5A Galaxy, 67-0172, c/n 500-0011, catches fire while taxiing at Air Force Plant 42, Palmdale, California, due to an electrical fire in the cargo compartment. Five crew escape, but seven firefighters suffer minor injuries fighting blaze. Aircraft destroyed.


 * 1961 – The first crossing of the English Channel by a VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) aircraft is made by the Short SC.1, which is flown by A. Roberts from England to Paris for the Paris Air Show.


 * 1958 – First flight of the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II


 * 1958 – Introduction: Republic F-105 Thunderchief


 * 1955 – First flight of the Sud Aviation Caravelle


 * 1955 – A Boeing B-47E-10-DT Stratojet, 52-054, returning from a night navigation training mission after slightly more two hours aloft crashes on the runway at Lincoln AFB, Nebraska, at 0254 hrs. while landing. Brake parachute failed and it overran the runway - no injuries. Joe Baugher cites date of 24 May. John Kodsi, aircraft commander, and Sgt. Edward Seagraves, plus two other crew survive.


 * 1954 – The government awarded Canadair a contract to produce 13 maritime patrol/ASW aircraft based on the Bristol Britannia. It was designated Canadair CL-28 ARGUS.


 * 1945 – (27-29) The eighth Japanese Kikusui attack off Okinawa involves 110 kamikazes. They sink a destroyer and damage two destroyers, three merchant ships, and an attack transport.


 * 1945 – The third prototype Curtiss XP-55 Ascender, 42-78847, is destroyed in a crash during an air show at Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio, killing pilot Capt. William C. Glasgow and two civilians on the ground. Pilot attempted a slow roll after a low pass in formation with a P-38 and a North American P-51 Mustang on each wing, impacted at end of runway and plowed through line of cars on U.S. Alternate Highway 4. Dick Bong was flying the Lightning and Don Gentile was the Mustang pilot. Bong will die in a P-80 crash on 6 August. Gentile will be killed in a Lockheed T-33A Shooting Star air crash on 28 January 1951.


 * 1944 – The Japanese launch only minor air attacks against U. S. forces landing at Biak, damaging a submarine chaser.


 * 1942 – 108 German aircraft attack Convoy PQ-16 in the Arctic Ocean.


 * 1942 – (27-29) After the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown (CV-5) arrives at Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, with serious damage from the Battle of the Coral Sea that her task force commander estimates will take 90 days to repair, the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard repairs her in two days, making her available for the Battle of Midway.


 * 1941 – The German battleship Bismarck is sunk by British naval and air forces.


 * 1941 – Twelve Italian Fiat CR.42 bombers arrive at Mosul support Iraqi forces against the British under the command of the German Fliegerführer Irak.


 * 1940 – (Overnight) 120 British bombers attack Bremen, Hamburg, Duisburg, Dortmund, Neuss, and other German cities. During the raid, Aircraftman Stan Oldridge, rear gunner of a Whitley of No. 10 Squadron, scores the first aerial victory of World War II over a German night fighter, shooting down what was probably a Messerschmitt Bf 109D near Utrecht early on May 28.


 * 1936 – First flight of the Fairey Seafox


 * 1933 – First flight of the de Havilland Leopard Moth


 * 1931 – Second prototype, of three, Gloster Gorcocks, J7502, experimental single-seat, single-bay biplane interceptor, first delivered to the Royal Aircraft Establishment in 1928, written off in a landing crash at Farnborough this date.


 * 1931 – A full-scale wind tunnel goes into operation at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) Laboratory at Langley Field, Virginia.


 * 1931 – Swiss professor Auguste Piccard and his assistant Kipfer take a stratosphere-balloon to 15,781 m, starting in Augsburg and landing on a glacier in Austria.


 * 1927 – France's first aircraft carrier, the Bearn is commissioned.


 * 1924 – Adrienne Bolland wins the women’s record for looping from Laura Bromwell, performing the feat 212 times in 1 h, 1 min in her Caudron 127 in Paris.


 * 1919 – A U. S. Navy seaplane completes the first transatlantic flight.


 * 1913 – Lieutenant Desmond Arthur died when his Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2 biplane, 205, collapsed without warning while flying over Montrose. This was Scotland's first fatal aircraft accident.


 * 1912 – The world’s first seaplane carrier, the French Navy’s Foudre, embarks her first floatplane, a Canard Voisin.


 * 1877 – A major milestone in Japanese aviation history is accomplished with the first flight of a military balloon. It has a capacity of 14,000 cu.ft. and is inflated with coal gas.