On This Day in Aviation History

On This Day in Aviation History

1892 – Birth of Fritz Gustav August Kosmahl, German World War I flying ace.

1914 – The first Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carrier Wakamiya conducts the world’s first naval-launched air raids during the early months of World War I from Kiaochow Bay off Tsingtao, China.

1942 – Death of François de Labouchere (shown), French World War II fighter pilot, one of the first pilots to join the Free French Air Force, killed in action in his Supermarine Spitfire near the Baie de Somme.

1949 – William”‘Bill” P. Odom lost control of his modified North American P-51 Mustang “Begin the Beguine” during the National Air Races in Cleveland, Ohio, and crashed into a home, killing himself and two people inside.

1986 – First flight of the American Aviation Industries FanStar, a two-engined version of the Lockheed JetStar.

2012 – Wearing a white costume designed to induce endangered Siberian cranes to follow him, President of Russia Vladimir Putin pilots a motorized hang glider in three brief flights over Russia’s Yamal Peninsula in the Arctic, apparently the first time a Russian head of state has piloted an aircraft.

Updated: September 5, 2014 — 10:28 AM
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