Portal:Aviation/Today in aviation

April 29

• 2018 - National Oil Corporation confirms, Libyan Air Force C-130 aircraft chartered by Akakus Oil crashed during take-off, 2km from the Sharara oil field, after delivering 18 tonnes of catering and maintenance supplies.

The crash occurred took at 12:25pm on Sunday, April 29, 2018.

• 2013 – National Airlines Flight 102, a Boeing 747 freighter carrying cargo, stalls and crashes shortly after takeoff from Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, due to load shifting, killing all seven crew members on board.

• 2013 – Virgin Galactic's commercial spacecraft SpaceShipTwo makes its first powered flight. Released by its jet-powered mothership White Knight Two after a 45-minute climb at an altitude of 48,000 feet (14,631 meters) over the Mojave Desert, SpaceShipTwo burns its engine for 16 seconds, climbing to 55,000 feet (16,764 meters) and reaching a speed of Mach 1.2 before gliding to a landing at Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, California, after 10 minutes of independent flight. Mark Stuckey is the pilot and Mike Alsbury the co-pilot for the flight.

• 2009 – Bako Air Boeing 737-275 TL-ADM crashes near Massamba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing all seven crew. The aircraft is destroyed.

• 1991 – First flight of the Cessna CitationJet

• 1988 – The first flight of the Boeing 747-400 is made. This Advanced Superjet has a crew of two and can carry between 412 and 509 passengers over 8,000 miles.

• 1988 – Entered Service: Airbus A320 with British Airways

• 1985 – Launch: Space Shuttle Challenger STS-51-B at 16:38:00 UTC. Mission highlights: Spacelab mission.

• 1984 – TWA starts services to ten new cities in one day, the largest single day expansion in the carrier's history.

• 1982 – An Avro Vulcan bomber deploys to Ascension Island as part of the Falklands War build-up of British forces in the South Atlantic Ocean.

• 1981 – First flight of the Myasishchev VM-T

• 1975 – A seven-pound baby girl was born on a 442 Squadron Buffalo medical evacuation flight.

• 1972 – An SA-7 Grail surface-to-air missile shoots down an aircraft for the first time in the Vietnam War.

• 1971 – First flight of the Piper PA-48 Enforcer

• 1968 – United Air Lines becomes the first carrier to put the Boeing 737-200, a larger capacity version of the standard 737, into service.

• 1968 – The Royal Netherlands Navy decommissions its last aircraft carrier, HNLMS Karel Doorman (R81). She will be sold to Argentina on October 15.

• 1966 – First flight of the Neiva Universal

• 1966 – First flight of the Dornier Do 28

• 1964 – British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) introduces the VC10 jet airliner into regular passenger service, on its route to Lagos, Nigeria.

• 1961 – The aircraft carrier USS Kittyhawk, the first of a new class of attack carrier equipped with Terrier ground-to-air guided missiles was commissioned.

• 1961 – First flight of the Potez 840

• 1954 – Convair becomes a division of General Dynamics.

• 1949 – First prototype (of two) of the McDonnell XF-85 Goblin parasite fighter, 45-523, makes its only flight, piloted by McDonnell test pilot Edwin F. Schoch. After launching from trapeze suspended below Boeing EB-29B Superfortress, 44-84111, named "Monstro", pilot is unable to hook up for retrieval and belly lands on dry lakebed at Muroc Air Force Base, California. After only six total flights by the Goblin, totalling ~2½ hours of flight time, the U.S. Air Force abandons the test program. Both prototypes are preserved in museum collections.

• 1945 – A North American AT-6D Texan trainer, 42-84963, of the 2002d Base Unit, piloted by West Point Cadet Robert B. Clark, crashes into Bramley Mountain 3 miles SE of the Town of Bovina, Delaware County, New York, (in the Catskill Mountains) due to weather. The Binghamton Press of 1 May 1945 reports that "the young flier was on a routine night cross-country training flight." He was flying to Stewart Field in Newburgh, New York and apparently was lost when he crashed.

• 1944 – (29–30) Task Force 58 aircraft attack Truk Atoll, shooting down 59 Japanese aircraft, destroying 34 on the ground, sinking over 20 small ships and craft in the harbor, and contributing to the sinking of a submarine, in exchange for the loss of 35 aircraft, 26 of them in combat. With only 12 serviceable aircraft left, Truk never again poses a threat to Allied forces.

• 1943

Republic P-43 Lancer, 41-6718, converted to P-43D. To RAAF as A56-7. Assigned to 1 PRU, it went missing in flight from Wagga, Australia, this date. Aircraft found crashed in thick forest on the side of Gordon Gully near Healesville in Victoria, NE of Melbourne, in June 1958. The airframe was approved as a write-off on 30 April. The pilot was P/O A. W. Green (406393) of 1 PRU Rear Echelon based at Laverton. His body has not been found.

• 1942 – A Curtiss P-40 of the 49th Fighter Group, piloted by Lt. Bob Hazard, taking off as second of two P-40s from Twenty-Seven Mile Field, SE of Darwin, Australia, loses directional control in prop-wash of lead fighter, strikes recently arrived Lockheed C-40 parked next to airstrip, killing General Harold H. George, Time-Life reporter Melville Jacoby, and base personnel 2nd Lt. Robert D. Jasper, who were standing next to the Lockheed. A number of others receive injuries, but P-40 pilot survives. Victorville Air Force Base, California, is renamed for the late general in June 1950.

• 1940 – During the second world war the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan was Canada’s largest contribution to the war effort. On this date, the first trainees started training in Canada, and within a year the BCATP had 77 training facilities operating across the country. At its peak the program had 97 schools, and was graduating 3000 flyers a month.

• 1939 – An attempted Great Circle Route long-distance flight by Red Air Force crew V. K. Kokkinaki, pilot, and Mikhail Gordienko, navigator/radio operator, from Tchelkovo Airport near Moscow to New York City, in Ilyushin TsKB-30 prototype twin-engined bomber, "Moskva", ends in crash-landing on Miscou Island off New Brunswick, Canada, after battling head winds and bad weather, as well as bitter cold, having achieved 4,970 miles in 22 hours, 56 minutes. Crew is uninjured in wheels-up landing, and receives hero's welcome in New York City.

• 1938 – In the largest air battle of the Second Sino-Japanese War to date, 18 Mitsubishi G3M (Allied reporting name “Nell”) bombers and approximately 30 Mitsubishi A5M (Allied reporting name “Claude”) fighters encounter 60 to 80 Soviet-built Nationalist Chinese fighters over Hankow. The Japanese claim the destruction of 51 Chinese fighters and admit losing two fighters and two bombers, while the Chinese admit the loss of 12 aircraft and claim to have shot down anywhere from 21 Japanese aircraft to as many as 45.

• 1933 – The Reichsluftfahrtministerium ("Reich Aviation Ministry") is formed by the Nazi government.

• 1932 – Fairchild Y1C-24, 32-289, c/n 6709, of Headquarters Flight, one of four Pilgrim Model 100-Bs acquired by the USAAC and used as an air ambulance into the late 1930s, piloted by James R. Williams, is moderately damaged in a ground loop on landing at Langley Field, Virginia. Repaired, it will later be wrecked 5 miles SE of Front Royal, Virginia on 28 January 1937.

• 1930 – First flight of the Polikarpov I-5

• 1918 – Flying a Nieuport 28 fighter, the top-scoring American ace of World War I, Eddie Rickenbacker, scores his first victory, shooting down a German Pfalz D.III fighter near Baussant, France.

• 1905 – Daniel Maloney is launched by balloon in a tandem-wing glider designed by John Montgomery to an altitude of 4,000 feet before release and gliding and then landing at a predetermined location as part of a large public demonstration of aerial flight at Santa Clara, California.

• 1891 – Chuhachi Ninomiya flies the first model airplane in Japan, a rubber-band-powered monoplane with a four-bladed pusher propeller and three-wheeled landing gear. It makes flights of 3 and 10 m (10 and 33 feet). The next day it flies 36 m (118 feet).

References

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