1897 – Birth of Erich Löwenhardt, third-highest German fighter ace with 54 victories during World War I (behind only Manfred von Richthofen and Ernst Udet).
1916 – Flying his new fighter Nieuport 11, World War I Italian ace Francesco Baracca scores his first victory, holing the fuel tank of an Austrian Hansa-Brandenburg C.I and wounding its two-man crew; the downing becomes the first aerial victory for Italy in the war.
1922 – A Daimler Airways de Havilland DH.18 flies into a Cie des grands Express Aériens Farman Goliath over France; seven people – everyone aboard the two aircraft – is killed in the first mid-air collision of two airliners.
1950 – The sole SNAC NC-1080 (shown), a French single-engine naval jet fighter, is completely destroyed in a flight accident that kills test pilot Pierre Gallay.
1966 – Robert Ferry sets the long-distance world record for helicopters when he takes a Hughes OH-6 Cayuse (a single-engine light helicopter) from Culver City, Calif., to Ormond Beach, Fla., covering a total of 2,213 miles.
2007 – Death of Neville Frederick Duke , British World War II fighter pilot and top Allied flying ace in the Mediterranean Theatre; he also was a test pilot.
