1909 – Orville Wright makes an evaluation test flight from Fort Myer, Fla., to Alexandria, Va., with Benjamin Delahauf Foulois, breaking previous speed, altitude and cross-country duration records. Wright flys at 42.5 mph, 400 feet, and for 10 miles. The U.S. Army later purchases this Wright Model A Military Flyer and names it “Signal Corps No. 1.”
1935 – The sole Northrop 3A (an XFT prototype fighter modified with a retractable undercarriage), disappears without trace on a flight over the Pacific Ocean off California with test pilot Frank Scare.
1954 – Birth of Gregory Carl “Ray J” Johnson, U.S. Navy pilot and NASA astronaut; he flew the Space Shuttle on its last Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission.
1954 – First flight of the Grumman F-11 Tiger (-1 variants shown), a single-seat, carrier-based U.S. Navy fighter.
1971 – All Nippon Airways Flight 58, a Boeing 727, collides with a Japan Air Self-Defense Forces Mitsubishi F-86F Sabre over Shizukuishi; all 162 on the airliner perish but the JSDF pilot parachutes to safety.
2001 – Death of Ennio “Banana” Tarantola, Spanish War and World War II Italian flying ace.
