On This Day in Aviation History

On This Day in Aviation History

1893 – Birth of Acheson Gosford Goulding, Canadian World War I flying ace and World War II instructor.

1919 – Three U.S. Navy Curtiss NCs, commanded by Albert Cushing Read, leaves Trepassey, Newfoundland, Canada, for Portugal via the Azores on the first transatlantic flight, the longest leg of their journey. Only NC-4 (shown above) eventually makes the crossing.

1943 – Launch of Operation Chastise, an attack on German dams by Royal Air Force No. 617 Squadron, subsequently known as the Dambusters, using a specially developed bouncing bomb invented and developed by Barnes Wallis.

1979 – A New York Airways Sikorsky S-61 tips over while taking on passengers atop the Pan Am Building in New York City, killing four, plus a fifth person on the ground. The heliport is later permanently closed.

1992 – The 2,000th Lockheed C-130 Hercules rolls off the production line.

1995 – XW666, a Royal Air Force BAe Nimrod R1 from RAF Waddington, ditched in the Moray Firth 4.5 miles from Lossiemouth after an engine caught fire during a post-servicing test flight from RAF Kinloss.

 

Updated: May 16, 2013 — 1:45 PM
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