Civilian Archives - Page 4 of 175

On This Day in Aviation History

1893 – Birth of Garfield Finlay, Australian World War I flying ace. 1931 – Lowell R. Bayles flying the Granville Gee Bee Model Z “City of Springfield,” wins the Thompson Trophy in Cleveland, Ohio, at an average speed of 236.24 mph. 1940 – First flight of the Blohm & Voss BV 222, a large, six-engined […]

On This Day in Aviation History

1893 – Birth of Claire Lee Chennault (shown), American military aviator, fierce advocate of “pursuit” or fight-interceptor aircraft, and commander of the “Flying Tigers” during World War II. 1910 – Géo Chavez flies reaches an altitude of 8,700 feet over Issy, France, with a Blériot XI monoplane. 1945 – First flight of the Beriev LL-143, […]

On This Day in Aviation History

1883 – Birth of Otto Splitgerber, German World War I flying ace. 1937 – Majorca-based Italian aircraft bomb a British merchant ship off Barcelona, Spain. 1958 – Death of Gilbert Ware Murlis Green, British World War I flying ace who served on many theaters, commanded two of the original night fighter squadrons and shot down […]

On This Day in Aviation History

1912 – Royal Navy aviator Wilfred Parke becomes the first pilot ever to recover from a spin when he regains control of his Avro Type G biplane 50 feet from the ground at Larkhill, England. 1916 – Birth of Saburo Sakai, Japanese naval aviator and World War II fighter ace. 1919 – The world’s first […]

On This Day in Aviation History

1918 – Death of Edgar Taylor, American World War I flying ace, killed by ground fire in his Sopwith Dolphin. 1932 – Amelia Earhart takes off with her Lockheed Vega 5B from Los Angeles to Newark, N.J., for a non-stop flight across the U.S. 1944 – The third airstrike of Operation Goodwood and the most […]

On This Day in Aviation History

1895 – Birth of Pavel Osipovich Sukhoi, Belarusian Soviet aircraft constructor and designer. 1920 – Donald W. Douglas and Davis R. Davis found the Davis-Douglas Co. in Los Angeles, Calif.; the Cloister (shown) is its only product. 1933 – Wiley Post lands back at New York City’s Floyd Bennett Field in his Lockheed Vega “Winnie Mae,” completing the first round-the-world […]

On This Day in Aviation History

1890 – Birth of Marcel Robert Leopold Bloch, French World War I flying ace. 1921 – U.S. Army Air Service Martin NBS-1 bombers sink the decommissioned German battleship Ostfriesland in the Atlantic Ocean off the Virginia Capes after Billy Mitchell urges bombing trials to show the power of aircraft to sink major warships. 1932 – Wolfgang […]

On This Day in Aviation History

1892 – Birth of Edwin Harris Dunning, a British officer in the Royal Naval Air Service who becomes the first pilot to land an aircraft on a moving ship. 1929 – Delta Air Lines begins commercial aircraft operations as an aerial crop dusting operation called Huff Daland Dusters in Macon, Ga. 1939 – First flight of the Bristol Beaufighter, originally conceived as a heavy fighter variant of the Bristol […]

On This Day in Aviation History

1877 – Birth of Karl Illner, Austrian aviation pioneer. 1917 – Death of Thomas “Tom” Wesley Benoist, American aviation pioneer who started the first scheduled aircraft service and founded Benoist Aircraft Co. 1919 – To protest against the fact pilots have to parade on foot at the World War I victory parade on the Champs-Elysées in Paris, French pilot Charles […]

On This Day in Aviation History

1920 – Birth of Rudolf Božík, Slovak World War II flying ace who served on the Eastern Front with the Axis forces. 1935 – The Bell Aircraft Co. is formed. 1940 – The preliminary phase of the Battle of Britain, the Kanalkampf or Channel battle, begins with German aerial attacks on convoys in the English […]