1916 – Birth of Patrick Palles Lorne Elphinstone “Lorne” Welch, British engineer, pilot and prisoner of war during World War II.
1955 – First flight of the Hispano HA-200 Saeta (shown), a Spanish two-seat advanced jet trainer.
1959 – Fred Drinkwater becomes the first NASA test pilot to complete the full conversion of a tiltrotor to airplane mode with the Bell XV-3.
1969 – Death of Thomas Foster Hamilton, American pioneering aviator and founder of the Hamilton Standard Co.
1985 – Japan Airlines Flight 123, Boeing 747 flying from Tokyo to Osaka, crashes after suffering explosive decompression, then striking Mount Otsuka, killing 520 of 524 people on board.
2011 – Frenchman Pascal Chretien makes the world’s first untethered, fully electric manned helicopter flight in a craft he designed and built mostly by himself.
