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 daily international flights begin when Aircraft Transport and Travel, flying a de Havilland DH.16, starts service between London (Hounslow Heath Aerodrome) and Paris Le Bourget Airport.
1946 – The U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels flight demonstration team begins using Grumman F8F-1 Bearcats.
1969 – Death of Gregory Hamilton Blaxland, Australian World War I flying ace.
2003 – First flight of the PAC JF-17 Thunder (shown), a lightweight, single-engine combat aircraft developed jointly by the Chengdu Aircraft Industries Corp. of China, the Pakistan Air Force and the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex.
