1890 – Birth of William Stanley Jenkins, Canadian World War I flying ace. 1929 – A Junkers W 33 (modified and sometimes referred to as a W 34) establishes a world altitude record; piloted Willy Neuenhofen takes the German-built, singled-engine transport to 41,800 feet. 1942 – First flight of the Northrop P-61 Black Widow, the first operational […]

1906 – The Wright brothers are granted a U.S. patent for their airplane control system. 1943 – A U. S. Navy antisubmarine hunter-killer group scores a kill of an enemy submarine for the first time when General Motors TBM Avengers from the escort aircraft carrier USS Bogue sink the German submarine U-569 in the North […]

1893 – Birth of Paul Strähle, German World War I fighter ace who ran Luftverkehr Strähle,a pioneering air mail service, and later served during World War II. 1917 – A Royal Naval Air Service Curtiss H-12 Large America flying boat bombs and sinks the German submarine U-36 in the North Sea; U-36 becomes the only German submarine sunk […]

1908 – The first U.S. military office to pilot a modern aircraft is Thomas Etholen Selfridge; he takes to the air alone in AEA’s newest craft, White Wing, traveling 100 feet on his first attempt and 200 feet on his second. 1918 – Death of Raoul Lufbery, a French-American fighter pilot and flying ace in World War I; he perishes in combat with a German Rumpler reconnaissance […]

1916 – Kiffin Yates Rockwell is the first American to claim an air victory when he shoots down a German plane over the Alsace battlefield in France. 1934 – The Douglas DC-2, an American 14-seat, twin-engined airliner, enters service with Transcontinental and Western Air. 1940 – First flight of Saab 17 (shown), Swedish bomber-reconnaissance aircraft. 1971 – Birth of Desiree Tyler Horton, American helicopter pilot and television personality; she is one […]