1910 – Birth of Herwig Knüppel, German flying ace of the Spanish War and World War II.
1923 – First flight of the Boeing NB (or Model 21), American primary training aircraft; the equal-span biplane is capable of either wheeled or float undercarriages.
1969 – Finnair introduces an inertial navigation system on its aircraft, becoming the first airline to dispense with the need for a navigator aboard.
1977 – A Convair CV-300 (shown) chartered by rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd runs out of fuel and crashes near the end of its flight near Gillsburg, Miss.; of the 26 aboard, six perish, including lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist and vocalist Steve Gaines, backing vocalist Cassie Gaines (Steve’s older sister), assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary and co-pilot William Gray.
1980 – The first dog fights of the Iran-Iraq War take place when an Iraqi Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 is shot down by Iranian McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantoms.
2005 – Death of Chalmers Hubert “Slick” Goodlin, American World War II pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force who volunteered in the Israeli Air Force during the Arab-Israeli War; he also was an airline pilot during humanitarian missions, a test pilot for Bell Aircraft Corp. and nearly broke the sound barrier.
