Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/October 11

October 11


 * 2012 – The Syrian Revolution General Commission claims that its forces have destroyed 61 Syrian government helicopters and planes, mostly while on the ground during rebel raids, and that the heaviest Syrian government aircraft losses occurred in August.


 * 2011 – In the same modified Yak-3U, William Whiteside sets an unofficial speed record for piston-engined aircraft in the under-3,000 kg (6,615-pound) category of 670 km/hr (416 mph) over the same 3-km (1.863-mile) course at the Bonneville Salt Flats.


 * 2007 – Renowned WWII fighter pilot “Tex” Hill dies (b. 1916). Hill joined the Flying Tigers, an American volunteer group based in China during World War II. He shot down 18 1/4 enemy aircraft during the war.


 * 2006 – A Cirrus SR20 flown by New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle and an instructor crashed into the Belaire Apartments in New York City.


 * 2000 – Launch: Space Shuttle Discovery STS-92 at 19:17:00 EDT. Mission highlights: ISS assembly flight 3A: Z1 truss. It was the 100th Space Shuttle Mission.


 * 1999 – 1999 Air Botswana incident occurred when Chris Phatswe, a Botswana airline pilot, committed suicide by crashing a plane into the tarmac and a group of aircraft at Sir Seretse Khama International Airport in Gaborone. His actions effectively crippled operations for Air Botswana.


 * 1998 – A Congo Airlines Boeing 727 is shot down by rebels in Kindu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing 40.


 * 1991 – The crash of a Beechcraft T-34C Turbo-Mentor in Baldwin County, Alabama, kills Navy Cmdr. Duane S. Cutter, 44, from Newfield, New York, and his student, Marine 2nd Lt. Thomas J. Gaffney, 24, of West Chester, Pennsylvania, while on a routine training mission out of NAS Whiting Field, Florida, said Lt. Cmdr. Diane Hooker, a Navy spokeswoman at Whiting Field. Hooker couldn't immediately say what techniques the two were practicing when the T-34 went down.


 * 1990 – First flight of the Rockwell-MBB X-31


 * 1988 – KC-135 refueling tanker crashes on landing at Wurtsmith AFB, Michigan. Plane is destroyed and there are several fatalities.


 * 1984 – Kathryn D. Sullivan becomes the first American woman to perform spacewalk aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger.


 * 1984 – After a ground controller falls alseep on duty, Aeroflot Flight 3352, a Tupolev Tu-154, strikes several maintenance vehicles and crashes while landing at Omsk Tsentralny Airport in Omsk in the Soviet Union, killing 174 of the 179 people on board and four people on the ground.


 * 1983 – Air Illinois Flight 710, a Hawker Siddeley HS 748, crashes near Hillsboro Municipal Airport due to electrical problems. All 10 passengers and crew on board are killed.


 * 1968 – Apollo program – NASA launches Apollo 7, the first successful manned Apollo mission, with astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn F. Eisele and Walter Cunningham aboard.


 * 1968 – Fifth prototype U.S. Navy Grumman F-111B, BuNo 151974, c/n A2-05, crash landed at Point Mugu, California. Scrapped. Navy abandons the F-111B program completely and both houses of Congress refuse to fund production order in May 1968.


 * 1963 – The Vertol CH-113 Voyageur helicopter entered RCAF service.


 * 1962 – First of 200 Canadian-built CF-104 Starfighters left for West Germany; to join strike-reconnaissance squadrons.


 * 1960 – The Hon G. R. Pearkes, VC, DSO, retired as Minister of National Defence and was replaced by the Hon Douglas Harkness.


 * 1957 – On takeoff shortly after 0000 hrs. from Homestead AFB, Florida, a Boeing B-47B-35-BW Stratojet, 51-2139, c/n 450192, of the 379th Bomb Wing, participating in exercise Dark Night, suffers port-rear wheel casing failure at 30 kts. The bomber's tail hits the runway and a fuel tank ruptures, crashing in an unhabited area approximately 3,800 feet from the end of the runway, four crew KWF. The aircraft burns for seven hours after the firecrew evacuates the area, ten minutes after the crash. The aircraft was carrying an unarmed nuclear weapon in the bomb bay and fuel capsule in a carrying case in the cabin. "Two low order detonations occurred during the burning." The nuclear capsule and its carrying case were recovered intact and only slightly damaged by heat. Approximately one-half of the weapon remained. All major components were damaged but were identifiable and accounted for.


 * 1956 – A Vickers Valiant of No. 49 Squadron RAF drops Britain's first air-dropped atomic bomb, over Maralinga, South Australia


 * 1944 – 61 carrier aircraft of Task Force 38 attack Aparri airfield on Luzon against no opposition, destroying about 15 Japanese aircraft on the ground in exchange for the loss of one U. S. plane to enemy ground fire and six to non-combat causes.


 * 1938 – First flight of the Westland Whirlwind (fighter)


 * 1933 – First flight of the Blackburn Perth


 * 1928 – The Zeppelin LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin crosses the Atlantic in 71 hours.


 * 1922 – First flight of the Navy-Wright NW (AKA Mystery Racer)


 * 1919 – Handley Page Transport begins offering the first in-flight meals, on its London-Brussels service. They are sold at 3 s.


 * 1918 – The Imperial German Navy’s air command proposes that merchant ships be converted into Germany’s first aircraft carriers with flight decks.


 * 1910 – Theodore Roosevelt (President of the United States of America 1901 – 09) becomes the first former state leader to fly (four minutes) in an airplane when he flies with exhibition pilot Arch Hoxsey in a plane built by the Wright Brothers at Kinloch Field in St. Louis.


 * 1907 – Robert Esnault-Pelterie makes the first airplane flight with a control stick, using a single, broom handle-like lever.