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 […]

1884 – Birth of Claude (Claudius) Honoré Desiré Dornier, German airplane builder and founder of Dornier. 1940 – First flight of the Yermolayev Yer-2, a Soviet long-range medium bomber. 1944 – The German Luftwaffe employs circling torpedoes in a predawn attack on Allied ships at Naples, Italy, but scores no hits. 1972 – Two Bell UH-1 attack helicopters of the U.S. Army, using TOW missiles, blunt a […]

1893 – Birth of Tenente Silvio Scaroni, Italian World War I fighter pilot. Credited with 26 victories, he becomes the second-ranking Italian ace of the war. 1940 – The first bombing raid over Germany by the Royal Air Force takes place. 1941 – First flight of the Platt-LePage XR-1, also known by the company designation PL-3, early American twin-rotor helicopter. 1959 – Capital Airlines Flight 75, a […]

1875 – Birth of Harriet Quimby, early American aviator and movie screenwriter. She is the first woman to gain a pilot’s license in the U.S. and the first woman to fly across the English Channel. 1936 – First flight of the Bristol Type 138 High Altitude Monoplane, a British research aircraft. 1996 – ValuJet Flight 592, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9, crashes […]

1899 – Birth of Zeus Soucek, U.S. Navy aviator and record setter. 1915 – Curtiss Aviation School commences operation from Toronto Island using Curtiss Model F flying boats. 1933 – Death of Robert Heibert, German World War I flying ace. 1945 – The sixth Japanese kamikaze attack off Okinawa, which includes 150 aircraft, begins. They damage two destroyers and the aircraft carrier USS Bunker Hill, which suffers 353 killed, 43 missing, and 264 wounded. […]

1896 – Birth of Viktor von Pressentin von Rautter, German World War I fighter ace. 1919 – A U.S. Navy flying boat, NC-4, begins an Atlantic crossing, flying by short stages from Long Island, N.Y., to Lisbon, Portugal; it will arrive 19 days later on May 28. 1935 – American aviatrix Amelia Earhart makes a non-stop flight from Mexico City to Newark, N.J., in 14 […]

1915 – Birth of Hidaka Hatsuo, Japanese Russo-Japanese War and World War II flying ace. 1918 – Canadian World War I fighter ace Alfred Clayburn Atkey and his observer, British fighter ace Charles George Gass, score five victories on a single mission with their Bristol F.2b. 1940 – A Bristol Beaufort torpedo bomber of the […]