Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/May 7

May 7


 * 2011 – A U.S. Air Force MQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicle suffers an electrical failure and crashes in the Gulf of Aden one mile (1.6 km) off Djibouti, Djibouti.


 * 2011 – Swiss “Jetman” Yves Rossy completed an eight-minute flight along the Grand Canyon, Flying his jet-propelled wing attached to his back, and steering only by moving his body.


 * 2011 – Launch of GEO-1, first Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) satellite, designed to provide key capabilities the areas of missile warning, missile defense and battlespace characterization.


 * 2011 – Merpati Nusantara Airlines Flight 8968, a Xian MA60, crashes off West Papua, Indonesia while on approach to Kaimana Airport in heavy rain, killing all 27 passengers and crew on board.


 * 2005 – Lockhart River air disaster: Aero Tropics Air Services Flight 675 crashes into the side of a mountain while on approach to Lockhart River Airport in Australia, killing all 15 occupants. The Swearingen SA.227DC Metro 23 (VH-TFU) strikes the ridge at a height of 1,200ft, well below the minimum safe altitude of 2,060ft, and is blamed on the crew not noticing their AGL (above ground level) and increased descent rate.


 * 2002 – China Northern Airlines Flight 6136, a McDonnell Douglas MD-82, crashes near Dalian, China, after a passenger sets fire to the cabin with gasoline; all 103 passengers and 9 crew are killed.


 * 2002 – EgyptAir Flight 843, a Boeing 737-566, crashes near Tunis, Tunisia, while landing in rough weather; of the 62 people on board, 14 perish.


 * 1999 – Express Airlines, later to become Pinnacle Airlines, announces that they will be the launch operator of the Bombardier Regional Jet (CRJ) for Northwest Airlines.


 * 1992 – Launch: Space Shuttle Endeavour STS-49 at 7:40 pm EDT. Mission highlights: Intelsat VI repair; first flight of Endeavour. First 3 person EVA. ASEM space station truss experiment EVA, record four EVAs total for mission.


 * 1991 – The brand new Space Shuttle Endeavour, built to replace the destroyed Challenger, arrives at Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop a NASA 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.


 * 1990 – Air India Flight 132 catches fire on landing at Delhi-Indira Gandhi International Airport in India. An improperly installed fuse pin on the #1 engine on the Boeing 747 causes a fuel line to rupture after the reverse thrust is activated on landing. All 215 people on the aircraft remain unhurt, although the aircraft is completely destroyed.


 * 1986 – Aircraft designer Al Mooney dies, aged 80.


 * 1986 – Capt. Håkan Lundqvist is forced to eject from Saab Draken, 131, of F10 Wing of the Svenska Flygvapnet during an air defence sortie at low level in J2 sector outside the west coast of Sweden when he inadvertently flies through his wingman's vortices and goes into a superstall. Time from ejection until the fighter strikes the water is only 3 to 5 seconds. Pilot, suffering from spinal compression due to the ejection, is rescued by a ferry and then transferred to an F10 Wing helicopter.


 * 1984 – First flight of the first Pilatus PC-9


 * 1982 – 2 Sea Harriers from HMS Invincible are lost, they are believed to have collided while descending through cloud.


 * 1981 – Austral Lineas Aereas Flight 901, a BAC-111 (LV-VOX) crashes 9 miles out on approach to Buenos Aires-Jorge Newbery Airport in Argentina. While in a holding pattern over the Río de la Plata, the aircraft succumbs to a violent thunderstorm, killing all 31 onboard after crashing into the river.


 * 1979 – Air France is the first airline to operate the Lockheed L-1011-500, a long-range version of the TriStar with shorter fuselage, more powerful engines, and improved aerodynamics.


 * 1975 – Launch of Satellite ANIK A3 (first generation of a series of synchronous orbit communications satellites developed by Hughes Aircraft Company for individual nations to use within their territorial boundaries)


 * 1975 – Second prototype General Dynamics YF-16A Fighting Falcon, 72-01568, on practice flight prior to deployment for the Paris Air Show, suffers failure of main undercarriage leg to extend. General Dynamics test pilot Neil Anderson flies aircraft until fuel is nearly exhausted then makes expert grass belly-landing at Carswell Air Force Base, Texas. Aircraft is not heavily damaged and pilot is uninjured. Airframe is then sent to Rome Air Development Center Newport Site for use in radar tests. This was the first F-16 mishap.


 * 1965 – First flight of the Canadair CL-84 Dynavert


 * 1964 – Pacific Air Lines Flight 773, a Fairchild F27, crashes near San Ramon, California, killing all 44 aboard, after a passenger shoots both the captain and first officer before turning the gun on himself.


 * 1963 – Death 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.


 * 1963 – Telstar 2 (communications satellite) is launched.


 * 1960 – The Soviet Union exposes an American cover-up about the status of a USAF Lockheed U-2 spy plane that was shot down over Russia six days prior. Assuming the aircraft was destroyed and the pilot killed, the US said a weather recon aircraft was lost, added NASA titles to a different airframe for media photos, and said the aircraft reported problems with oxygen before disappearing. Russia then came forward, adding information previously held back, that the pilot had survived and much of the spy aircraft was intact, proving the American scheme. Pilot Francis Gary Powers would be returned to the United States in February of 1962.


 * 1959 – Birth of Tamara Elizabeth "Tammy" Jernigan, American scientist and former NASA astronaut and a veteran of 5 shuttle missions


 * 1959 – First flight of the Procaer Picchio


 * 1958 – U. S. Air Force Major Howard C. Johnson of the 83rd Fighter Interceptor Squadron set a new world record for altitude, flying a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter to 27,813 m (91,249 feet).


 * 1958 – An Indian Air Force de Havilland Vampire crashed into the Delhi Flying Club hangar at Safdar Jung Airport, Delhi while attempting an emergency landing following an in-flight fire. Both Vampire crew died and four engineers working in the hangar and 11 aircraft were destroyed.


 * 1946 – The Central Flying School is reformed at RAF Little Rissington.


 * 1946 – The Empire Central Flying School is renamed the Empire Flying School.


 * 1946 – First flight of the Handley Page Hastings


 * 1945 – All German forces surrendered unconditionally. The instrument of surrender was signed at Berlin, Germany on 8 May, V. E. Day.


 * 1945 – The Royal Air Force sinks its last German submarine


 * 1944 – Flight test program of the Mikoyan/Gurevich I-222, high-altitude Soviet fighter aircraft, Evolution of the MIG-3, begins. All proposals for series production were discarded at the end of war.


 * 1944 – First flight of the Beechcraft XA-38 Grizzly.


 * 1943 – The first developmental prototype Finnish Valtion Lentokonetehdas VL Myrsky (State Aircraft Factory Storm), a low-wing single-seat cantilever monoplane fighter, completed on 30 April 1943, crashes "a week later."


 * 1943 – Colonel Frank Gregory made the first helicopter landing aboard ship with a Sikorsky R-4, in Long Island Sound, USA.


 * 1942 – Death of Jean Assollant (Bernache-Assollant), French aviation pioneer, WWII pilot, well known for having flown the 'Oiseau canari' on a north atlantic crossing. Killed in his MS 406 by British fighters during the Battle of Madagascar.


 * 1942 – The Battle of the Coral Sea, the first battle ever fought between aircraft carriers, begins between a U. S. force centered around the aircraft carriers USS Lexington (CV-2) and USS Yorktown (CV-5) and a Japanese force with the aircraft carriers Shōhō, Shōkaku, and Zuikaku. Early in the morning, a 56-plane strike from Shōkaku and Zuikaku sinks a destroyer and fatally damages an oiler. Later in the morning, a 93-plane strike from Lexington and Yorktown sinks Shōhō – The first Japanese carrier ever sunk – prompting an American dive bomber pilot to send one of World War II’s most famous radio messages, “SCRATCH ONE FLATTOP. ” In the evening, confused Japanese carrier pilots mistake Yorktown for their own carrier and begin to fly a landing pattern before realizing their mistake.


 * 1942 – On Madagascar, Diego Suarez falls to invading British forces. Since the invasion began on May 5, aircraft from the British aircraft carriers HMS Indomitable and HMS Illustrious have suppressed Vichy French aircraft, supported British ground forces ashore, attacked coastal artillery, a wrecked a French sloop, and sunk a French armed merchant cruiser and two French submarines.


 * 1941 – The second prototype MiG I-200, fitted with a prototype of the temperamental Mikulin AM-37 engine and first flown on 6 January 1941, experiences severe vibration problems and, despite efforts to cure the problems, it fails during a flight this date, and the airframe is destroyed in the ensuing crash.


 * 1941 – 40 RAF aircraft attack Iraqi reinforcements headed for Habbaniya, inflicting about 1,000 casualties and paralyzing the Iraqi column. Over the next few days, British aircraft destroy the remainder of the Royal Iraqi Air Force.


 * 1940 – A Bristol Beaufort torpedo bomber of RAF Coastal Command drops the first 2,000 pound bomb to be delivered by the Royal Air Force (RAF) during WWII. The target is an enemy cruiser near Nordeney, but the weapon missed the warship.


 * 1938 – First flight of the Arpin A-1, a two seat low-wing monoplane which was powered by a single radial engine in pusher configuration.


 * 1937 – Birth of Aviard Gavrilovich Fastovets, Soviet test pilot.


 * 1936 – Amy Mollison lands at Wingfield Aerodrome, Cape Town, South Africa, to set a new record of 3 days, 6 hours, 26 min for a flight from England.


 * 1936 – 7-8 – Stanislaw Skarzynski flies the South Atlantic from Senegal to Brazil in a small single-seater tourist airplane RWD-5bis, in 20 hours 30 min, over a distance of 3,582 km (2,238 miles). The RWD-5bis was the smallest plane to have ever flown the Atlantic – Empty weight below 450 kg (990 lb), loaded 1100 kg. It is a part of 17,885 km Warsaw – Rio de Janeiro flight from April 27 to June 24.


 * 1932 – First flight of the Dornier Do 11


 * 1931 – Death of Richard Dick Waghorn AFC, English aviator, a pilot with the Royal Air Force who flew the winning aircraft in the 1929 Schneider Trophy seaplane race. Died from injuries after his crash 2 days before.


 * 1930 – Curtiss B-2 Condor, 29-30, is wrecked at Rockwell Field, San Diego, California, but is repaired and serves until it is surveyed in December 1933. This was third and final accident involving the 13 total B-2 Condors acquired by the Air Corps.


 * 1927 – Varig is founded as the first Brazilian airline.


 * 1926 – First flight of the Blériot 127


 * 1920 – Mitchel Field, New York held the first Intercollegiate Air Meet.


 * 1918 – First flight of the Curtiss 18, unofficially known as the Wasp and by the United States Navy as the Kirkham, early American triplane fighter aircraft designed by Curtiss Engineering for the US Navy


 * 1917 – First night bombing raid on London by an aeroplane takes place.


 * 1917 – British ace Major Edward Mannock claims his first kill.


 * 1917 – British ace Captain Albert Ball (44 victories) is killed in a crash following a dogfight with Lothar von Richthofen, who also crashes but survives.


 * 1916 – Birth of Fred Hargesheimer, USAAF WWII pilot. Shot down over Papua New Guinea in June 1943. He became a philanthropist who helped out the village which had hidden him from the Japanese for many months.


 * 1916 – Birth of Siegfried F. Erdmann, German Engineer specialized in supersonic Aerodynamics.


 * 1916 – Birth of Johannes Wiese, German WWII fighter ace.


 * 1913 – HMS Hermes, formerly a protected cruiser, recommissions as the Royal Navy’s first experimental seaplane carrier.


 * 1912 – An American Wright biplane, flown by Lieutenant Thomas De Witt Milling at College Park in Maryland, becomes the first aeroplane to be armed with a machine gun


 * 1910 – First airplane flight in Cuba. For a few minutes, Frenchman André Bellot rose into space in a 60HP Voisin biplane. He took off from the Almendares Hippodrome and fell almost immediately but he was not hurt.


 * 1910 – The Antoinette Company builds a simulator at Mourmelon air school for pilots to practice the controls of an Antoinette monoplane.


 * 1909 – The Royal Navy awards a contract to build its first rigid airship to Vickers.


 * 1894 – Birth of Wendel Archibald Robertson, American WWI flying ace


 * 1893 – Birth of Karl Paul Schlegel, German WWI fighter ace and balloon-buster.


 * 1878 – Birth of Karl Gustav Vollmöller, German playwright, screenwriter and early aircraft designer.