1938 – A Heinkel He-116R, a German four-engined, long-range mail plane, sets a endurance record by covering 6,178 miles unrefueled; the flight took just over 48 hours to complete.
1943 – “Tuskegee Airman” Charles “Buster” Hall downs a Focke-Wulf Fw 190 with his Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, becoming the first black American to score a victory as a U.S. Army Air Corps pilot.
1944 – Death of Shogo Saito, Japanese World War II fighter ace.
1949 – A Douglas DC-3 of MacRobertson Miller Aviation crashes about a mile north of Perth airport, burning for more than an hour. After takeoff and a short ascent, it spirals almost vertically to the ground, killing all 18 people aboard.
1959 – Birth of Wendy Barrien Lawrence, U.S. Navy captain, helicopter pilot, engineer, and NASA astronaut; she becomes the first female graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy to fly in space.
1967 – First flight of the Sukhoi T-6-1 (shown), a Soviet supersonic, all-weather attack aircraft; this and a second prototype later lead to the development of the Sukhoi Su-24 “Fencer.”
