Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/September 27

September 27


 * 2011 – (Overnight) All Nippon Airways flies the first delivery flight of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, from Paine Field, Washington, to Tokyo International Airport.


 * 1992 – Military transport plane crashes in Lagos, Nigeria killing 163


 * 1990 – United Air Lines is the first airline to introduce satellite communications for its aircraft


 * 1977 – Japan Airlines Flight 715, a Douglas DC-8, crashes into a hillside while on approach to Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport, killing 34 of 79 on board.


 * 1977 – A1977 Yokohama F-4 crash: A United States Navy McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II based at nearby Naval Air Facility Atsugi suffered a mechanical malfunction, caught fire, and crashed into a residential neighborhood. The crash killed two young boys, ages 1 and 3, and injured seven others, several seriously. The two-man crew of the aircraft ejected and were not seriously injured.


 * 1973 – Texas International Airlines Flight 655, a Convair 600, crashes into Black Fork Mountain while avoiding thunderstorms, killing all 11 passengers and crew on board.


 * 1967 – A Lockheed SP-2H Neptune, BuNo 147946, of VP-30, collides with a US Navy Vought RF-8G Crusader, BuNo 146864, assigned to VFP-62, Detachment 38, NAS Cecil Field, Jacksonville, Florida, during a heavy rainstorm, near Jacksonville Beach, Florida, crashing on the swampy east bank of the Intracoastal Waterway. The Crusader, which was operating off of the USS Shangri-La, also impacts near Jacksonville Beach. The Neptune was carrying two officers and three enlisted men. The pilot was the only occupant of the jet. All six KWF.


 * 1964 – First flight of the BAC TSR.2


 * 1956 – Retired: Bell X-2


 * 1956 – Test pilot Mel Apt is killed on the 17th flight of the Bell X-2, 46-674, out of Edwards Air Force Base, California, when he attempts a turn at Mach 3.2 (nearly 2,100 mph), and the airframe goes into a vicious case of inertia coupling. Apt jettisons the escape capsule but runs out of height before he can bail out of the falling nose section.


 * 1954 – Entered Service: North American F-100 Super Sabre with the United States Air Force‘s 479th Fighter Wing


 * 1954 – Sole Folland Midge prototype, G-39-1, crashes into trees at Chilbolton, England, killing the Swiss pilot. Cause was believed to have been inadvertent application of full nose-down trim.


 * 1950 – An Argentine Air Force Vickers VC.1 Viking, T-8, was burnt out in a hangar fire at El Palomar, Argentina.


 * 1946 – Geoffrey de Havilland, Jr., is killed when de Havilland DH 108, TG306, second prototype, breaks up in flight, coming down in the Thames near Egypt Bay.


 * 1943 – German night fighter ace Hauptmann Hans-Dieter Frank dies in a collision with another night fighter over Hanover, Germany. His score stands at 55 kills at his death.


 * 1941 – During Operation Halberd, Italian aircraft attack a Malta-bound convoy and its escorts in the Mediterranean, damaging the British battleship HMS Nelson and fatally damaging a merchant cargo ship.


 * 1940 – S/L Ernie McNab became the first RCAF ace during WWII.


 * 1922 – The US Navy conducts the first large-scale torpedo bombing exercises. Eighteen Naval Aircraft Factory PTs attack three battleships and score 8 hits in 25 min.


 * 1922 – Dr. Albert Taylor and Leo Young, scientists at the US Naval Aircraft Radio Laboratory, make the first successful detections of objects by “radio observation”. They use wireless waves to detect objects not visible due to weather or darkness. This insight leads to the advent of radar.


 * 1914 – The first French bomber group is formed.


 * 1913 – Katherine Stinson becomes the first woman in the United States to make an official airmail flight.


 * 1910 – First test flight of a twin-engined aircraft took place in France.


 * 1909 – First flight of the Short Biplane No. 2


 * 1908 – Thérèse Peltier makes a flight of 200 m (656 feet) at a height of approximately 2.5 m (8 feet) at the Military Square in Turin, Italy. Photos of Peltier with the aeroplane are published on 27 September. Unofficially, it is the first flight by a female aviator.


 * 1894 – Lothar von Richthofen German pilot was born. (d. 1922) Richtofen was a German First World War fighter ace credited with 40 victories during the war. He was younger brother of top-scoring ace Manfred von Richthofen (the Red Baron) and a cousin of the Luftwaffe field marshal Wolfram von Richthofen.