On This Day in Aviation History

On This Day in Aviation History

1896 – Birth of Gregory Hamilton Blaxland, Australian World War I flying ace.

1915 – World War I’s Battle of Neuve Chappelle opens. The assault on Neuve Chappelle is based, for the first time in the history of warfare, on maps prepared solely by photographic reconnaissance. The battle also includes the first attempt at air interdiction, with bombing attacks on railways at Courtrai, Menin, Lille, Douai, and Don by Royal Flying Corps aircraft.

1947 – First flight of the Saab 21R (shown), a Swedish twin-boom fighter and attack aircraft; it is a jet-powered development of the piston-engined Saab 21.

1949 – A Queensland Airlines Lockheed Model 18 Lodestar suddenly pitches nose-up just after take off; it stalls and then crashes onto its belly beyond the end of the airstrip at Coolangatta, Queensland, Australia. All 21 aboard perish.

1953 – A pair of Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15bis of the Czechoslovak Air Force intercept two U.S. Air Force Republic F-84G Thunderjets over Czechoslovak airspace, and Jaroslav Šrámek shoots down one of them. The F-84 crashes in Bavarian territory after the pilot bails out safely.

1986 – The U. S. Navy selects the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet as the official airplane of the Blue Angels.

Updated: March 10, 2016 — 1:30 AM
Air Age Media ©
WordPress Image Lightbox Plugin