Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries

November 3

• 2012 – Syrian rebel units attack the Syrian Air Force base at Taftanaz.^[1]

• 2009 – UM-239, a Xian MA60 operated by Air Zimbabwe, hits five warthogs on take-off from Harare International Airport. The take-off is rejected but the undercarriage collapses causing substantial damage to the aircraft.

• 2006 – Qantas announces an order for 8 more Airbus A380 along with an order for 4 Airbus A330-200.

• 2003 – British Airways Concorde G-BOAG leaves London Heathrow at 1500Z as BA9093C for the final time. She would fly on to Seattle Boeing Field and retire to the Museum of Flight.

• 2002 – An McDonnell-Douglas FA-18C Hornet from VFA-34 failed to return to USS George Washington from a night at sea bombing mission and crashed into Adriatic Sea. Pilot was killed.

• 2000 – Last flight of an EC-135E Advanced Range Instrumentation Aircraft as a flight crew from the Air Force Flight Test Center delivers the last EC-135E, (serial number 60-374 – nicknamed “The Bird of Prey”), with full Prime Mission Electronic Equipment (PMEE), to the National Museum of the United States Air Force.

• 1994 – Haris Keč, a Bosnian, hijacks a McDonnell Douglas MD-82 operating as Scandinavian Airlines System Flight 347 en route from Bardufoss Airport to Bodø Airport in Norway with 128 people on board, and makes demands that the Norwegian government take action to stop huminatrian suffering in Bosnia-Herzegovina. No one is injured in the incident.

• 1994 – Launch: Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-66 at 11:59:43.060 am EDT. Mission highlights: ATLAS-3 science platform.

• 1986 – While attempting to land at Zahedan airport, an Iranian Hercules C-130 army transport plane crashes into a mountain; all 103 passengers are killed.

• 1973 – The number three engine of National Airlines Flight 27, a Douglas DC-10-10, explodes while the aircraft is over New Mexico. Fragments penetrate the fuselage, causing one passenger to be sucked from the plane; his body is found two years later. The aircraft lands safely.

• 1973 – NASA launches Mariner 10, a robotic space probe intended to fly past Venus and Mercury, reaching both planets the following February and March respectively. After a year and a half of service and over 2,000 photos sent back to Earth, its nitrogen supply dwindled and its transponder was shut off. It still orbits the sun today.

• 1957 – The Ruskians launch Sputnik 2, an orbiter that delivered the first animal into a space; a female terrier named Laika. The 3-year-old dog was sent to determine if a living creature could withstand launch and weightlessness, but she ultimately died a few hours after launch due to overheating due to a thermal control issue. Regardless, she proved that oxygen-craving creatures could enter space, and Laika was considered a hero.

• 1952 – First flight of the Saab 32 Lansen

• 1950 – Air India Flight 245, a Lockheed L-749 A Constellation, crashes into Mont Blanc in France; all 40 passengers and 8 crew are killed. Sixteen years later, Air India Flight 101 crashes in almost exactly the same spot.

• 1949 – Charles Moore makes the first manned flight in a polyethylene balloon over Minneapolis, Minnesota.

• 1948 – Boeing RB-29A Superfortress, 44-61999, "Overexposed", of the 16th Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron, 91st Reconnaissance Group, 311th Air Division, Strategic Air Command, USAF, crashes on Shelf Moor, Bleaklow, in between Manchester and Sheffield, Derbyshire, while descending through cloud. All 13 crew KWF. It is doubtful they ever saw the ground. The time was estimated from one of the crew members wrist watch. The plane, piloted by Captain L. P. Tanner, was on a short flight, carrying mail and the payroll for American service personnel based at USAF Burtonwood. The flight was from Scampton near Lincoln to Burtonwood near Warrington, a flight of less than an hour. Low cloud hung over much of England, which meant the flight had to be flown on instruments. The crew descended after having flown for the time the crew believed it should have taken them to cross the hill. Unfortunately the aircraft had not quite passed the hills and struck the ground near Higher Shelf Stones, being destroyed by fire.

• 1947 – English Electric test pilot Johnny W.C. Squier takes off from Salmesbury, Lancs. in English Electric-built de Havilland Vampire F.3, VP732, intended for the RCAF as 17043, experiences engine failure, force lands on a farm, narrowly missing trees. Fighter is wrecked but pilot survives.

• 1945 – The prototype Boeing 314, named the Honolulu Clipper, makes an emergency landing in the Pacific 650 miles east of Oahu due to double engine failure; the aircraft is intentionally sunk after salvage was deemed impractical; all 26 passengers on board survive.

• 1944 – The first Japanese Fu-Go balloon bombs are launched against the United States.

• 1936 – New Soviet Polikarpov I-15 and I-16 fighters fly their first missions of the Spanish Civil War, supporting Republican forces. Their superior performance will allow the Republican side to gain air superiority over Nationalist forces.

• 1933 – First fatal accident involving a Fokker YO-27 occurs when pilot Lt. Lloyd E. Hunting with Sgt. John J. Cunningham aboard, departs Olmsted Field, Middletown Air Depot, Pennsylvania, in 31-589 of the 30th Bombardment Squadron at 1800 hrs. after darkness had fallen. Pilot had apparently not observed a mountain ridge, 400 feet (120 m) to 800 feet (240 m) high, one mile from the airfield, when he landed during the afternoon, and upon departure did not see it in the dark, crashing head-on into the ridge, aircraft burned, both crew KWF.

• 1926 – First flight of the Boeing F2B

• 1926 – Captain Charles Lindbergh jumped from his disabled airplane during a night airmail flight, making this the fourth time he has had to use his parachute to save his life.

• 1915 – Royal Naval Air Service Flight Sub-Lieutenant Fowler makes the first British take-off of an aircraft with a conventional, wheeled undercarriage from a ship when he flies a Bristol Scout from HMS Vindex.

• 1915 – Flt Sub-Lt Fowler makes the first take-off of an aircraft with a conventional, wheeled undercarriage from a ship when he flies a Bristol Scout C from HMS Vindex.

• 1914 – Alec Ogilvie patents the first practical airspeed indicator (Wrong Date!) See December 3 (1914). Improvements in or connected with Combined Pitot and Static Pressure Tubes. Filed 1913-12-04 • Granted 1914-12-03 • https://patents.google.com/patent/GB191327931A/en?assignee=Alec+Ogilvie [To be removed for wrong date]

• 1897 – The first flight in a rigid airship was made by Ernst Jägels, flying an all-aluminum craft designed by the Austro-Hungarian engineer David Schwarz and built by Carl Berg. The Schwarz machine was 134 feet long and roughly 45 feet in diameter, weighing-in at 5,720 pounds. The craft took to the air without the inventor and constructor (having died before the flight). His death led to his wife, Melanie, completing the project to honor his life's work. However, the result was the craft's completion with some key technologies left out to save weight. The airship, having reached its designed altitude, was uncontrollable at that altitude in the face of a strong wind, and the inexperienced pilot, Jägels, released too much gas too suddenly, losing control of the rate of descent, resulting in a crash which destroyed the craft. Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin buys the wreck and its plans from Schwarz’s widow Melanie.^[2]