Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/October 24

October 24


 * 2004 – Martinsville plane crash occurred on when a Beechcraft Super King Air 200 aircraft owned by Hendrick Motorsports crashed into Bull Mountain, seven miles from Blue Ridge Airport, Martinsville, Virginia. All ten aboard the plane were killed, among them members of the Hendrick family including John Hendrick, president of Hendrick Motorsports; and former NASCAR Busch Series driver and owner Ricky Hendrick.


 * 2003 – Concorde makes its last scheduled commercial flight from New York JFK to London Heathrow, landing in sequence with 2 other Concorde's in a spectacular but very sad finale to a wonderful 27 years of service.


 * 2000 First Flight: Lockheed Martin X-35


 * 1994 – US Navy Grumman F-14A-95-GR Tomcat, BuNo 160390, 'NH 103', of VF-213 crashed on approach to the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, operating 40 miles (65 km.) off the Southern California coast, killing Lt. Kara Hultgreen, the first female Tomcat-qualified pilot in the Navy. RIO Lt. Matthew P. Klemish ejected and was rescued. Due to low-speed rolling turn, the ejections were on the edge of the seat capabilities, and Hultgreen's did not have time to fully sequence. Her body was recovered by a Navy salvage team, still strapped into her seat less than 100 yards (90 m.) from her F-14 on the seabed.


 * 1984 – First flight of the PZL-130 Orlik


 * 1980 – Soviet Air Force pilot Leonid Ivanov, selected for cosmonaut training in December 1978, is killed during a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-27 test flight.


 * 1972 – As a peace gesture, the United States begins a seven-day halt on the bombing of North Vietnamese targets north of the 20th Parallel, but continues airstrikes at near-record levels against North Vietnamese supply lines south of the line.


 * 1962 – aircraft carriers USS Enterprise, USS Independence, USS Essex, and USS Randolph take part in blockading Cuba.


 * 1958 – RAF Avro Vulcan B.1 XA908 of 83 Squadron crashed into the residential neighbourhood of Grosse Pointe Park on the East side of Detroit, Michigan, USA after a complete electrical systems failure. The failure occurred at around 30,000 ft (9,100 m) and the backup system should have provided 20 minutes of emergency power to allow the aircraft to divert to Kellogg Airfield, Battle Creek, MI. Due to a short circuit in the service busbar, backup power only lasted three minutes before expiring and locking the aircraft controls. XA908 then went into a dive of between 60–70° before it crashed, leaving a 40 foot (13 m) crater in the ground, which was later excavated to 70 ft (21 m) deep in an unsuccessful attempt to find the cockpit of the aircraft. All six crew members were killed, including the co-pilot, who had ejected. The co-pilot’s ejector seat was found in Lake St Clair but his body was never found. Conflicting sources claim his body was found the following spring in the lake without a life vest. There were no reports of casualties on the ground.


 * 1957 – The USAF starts the X-20 Dyna-Soar program. “Dynamic Soarer” was a United States Air Force program to develop a spaceplane that could be used for a variety of military missions, including reconnaissance, bombing, space rescue, satellite maintenance, and sabotage of enemy satellites. The program was canceled just after spacecraft construction had begun 1963.


 * 1956 – The last Boeing-produced B-47 is delivered to the Air Force from Wichita. Douglas and Lockheed will continue to produce B-47 s for several more months.


 * 1955 – Eleventh of 13 North American X-10s, GM-52-4, c/n 11, on Navaho X-10 flight number 17, out of Cape Canaveral, Florida, an engine problem results in a mission abort. After autolanding the nose wheel develops a shimmy, the vehicle runs off the skid strip, catches fire, and is destroyed.


 * 1953 – First flight of the Convair F-102 Delta Dagger


 * 1947 – First flight of the Grumman HU-16 Albatross


 * 1947 – United Airlines Flight 608, a Douglas DC-6, crashes near Bryce Canyon Airport, Utah, when fire caused by a design flaw destroys the aircraft; all 52 on board die in the first hull loss of the DC-6.


 * 1945 – Using a Douglas C-54 Skymaster, American Overseas Airlines begins the first scheduled commercial transatlantic airline service by a landplane, operating between New York City and London. Since the new London-Heathrow airport is not yet available for commercial operations, AOA uses Bournemouth-Hurn Airport.


 * 1944 – The first bombing mission of the 21st Bomber Command against Japan involves 88 Boeing B-29 s in the first heavy bomb strike on Tokyo.


 * 1944 – The Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle in history, composed of four distinct major fleet actions, begins. In the morning, a Japanese bomber fatally damages the U. S. light aircraft carrier USS Princeton (CVL-23), which sinks in the afternoon. The first major fleet action, the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea, takes place in the afternoon, with heavy strikes by Task Force 38 carrier aircraft against a Japanese task force in the Sibuyan Sea sinking the battleship Musashi and badly damaging the heavy cruiser Myōkō in exchange for the loss of 18 U. S. aircraft.


 * 1943 – 62 Fifth Air Force B-25 Mitchells raid Rabaul, escorted by 54 P-38 Lightnings.


 * 1940 – The Luftwaffe’s I. Gruppe, Nachtjagdgeschwader 2, scores the first aerial victory by a German night intruder aircraft during World War II with a kill over England.


 * 1940 – The Regia Aeronautica’s (Italian Royal Air Force’s) Corpo Aereo Italiano (Italian Air Corps) launches its first bombing raid over England, using 18 Fiat BR.20 bombers.


 * 1937 – During engine start at an airfield on Saishuto Island (now Cheju Do) off of the southern coast of South Korea, a Hirosho G2H1 (Hiro Navy Type 95 Twin-engined Land-based Attacker) catches fire and soon explodes. Fire spreads to other G2Hs, armed with bombs, destroying four and damaging a fifth. Only eight G2H1s were built, six by Hirosho and two by Mitsubishi, the Imperial Japanese Navy deciding to standardize on the slightly smaller Mitsubishi G3M Navy Type 96 twin-engined land-based bomber, Allied codename "Nell".


 * 1919 – The first trio-mortored airliner was the Curtiss Eagle which carried eight passengers from Garden City, Long Island, New York, to Washington, D. C.


 * 1919 – Frank Piasecki is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Piasecki becomes the second man in the United States to fly a helicopter in 1943. Piasecki's company develops many of the world's most successful tandem rotor helicopters including the H-21 Shawnee, CH-46 Sea Knight and CH-47 Chinook.


 * 1912 – Harry Hawker wins the British Empire Michelin Cup for endurance. He flies for over 8 hours in a Burgess-Wright airplane. Harry Hawker went on to co-found Hawker Aircraft, the firm that would later be responsible for a long series of successful military aircraft, including the Fury, Sea Fury, Hurricane, Hunter and Harrier. Hawker Aircraft is now part of Raytheon Inc. along with Beachcraft aircraft.


 * 1911 – Orville Wright soars in a glider 9 min and 45 seconds over dunes near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.