Timeline of Airline Stuff
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Boeing History: http://www.boeing.com/history
3500BC King Etena of Babylonia
was pictured on a coin, flying on an eagle’s back.
(NPub, 2002, p.2)
1000BC The Chinese invented kites about this time
that could carry scouts on reconnaissance missions.
(NPub, 2002, p.2)
1162 A man in Constantinople
fashioned sail-like wings from fabric into pleats and folds. He
plummeted from the top of a tower and died.
(NPub, 2002, p.2)
1740 Aug 26, Joseph-Michel
Montgolfier, French inventor, born. He and his brother
Jacques-Etienne invented the hot air balloon in 1783.
(RTH, 8/26/99)
1753 Jul 4,
Jean-Pierre-Francois Blanchard (d.1809), 1st balloon flights in
England and US, was born.
(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/AVblanchard.htm)
1783 Jun 4, The Montgolfier
brothers launched their 1st hot-air balloon (unmanned) in a
10-minute flight over Annonay, France.
(http://inventors.about.com/od/astartinventions/ss/airship_2.htm)
1783 Aug 27, The 1st hydrogen
balloon flight (unmanned), made by Professor Jacques Charles,
successfully completed its inaugural flight in Paris.
(www.twinring.jp/english/balloon/what_balloon/)
1783 Sep 19, Jacques Etienne
Montgolfier launched a duck, a sheep and a rooster aboard a hot-air
balloon at Versailles, France.
(AP, 9/19/06)
1783 Oct 15, Francois Pilatre
de Rozier (Jean Piletre de Rozier) made the first manned flight in a
hot air balloon. The first flight was let out to 82 feet, but over
the next few days the altitude increased up to 6,500 feet.
(HN, 10/15/98)(MC, 10/15/01)
1783 Nov 21, Jean-Francois
Pilatre de Rozier (1754-1785) and the Marquis d’Arlandes made the
first free-flight ascent in a balloon, to over 500 feet, in Paris.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Romain)(NPub, 2002, p.2)
1784 Apr 15, The first balloon
flight occurred in Ireland. [see Jun 5, 1783 in France]
(HN, 4/15/98)
1784 Jun 4, Elizabeth Thible
became the first woman to fly aboard a Montgolfier hot-air balloon,
over Lyon, France.
(AP, 6/4/07)
1784 Jun 24, In a tethered
flight from Baltimore, Maryland, Edward Warren (13) became the 1st
to fly in a balloon on US soil.
(NPub, 2002, p.3)
1784 Nov 29, American Dr. John
Jeffries paid Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard £100 pounds for
a balloon flight in England during which he made some atmospheric
measurements.
(ON, 10/03, p.6)
1785 Jan 7, The first balloon
flight across the English Channel was made. Frenchman Jean-Pierre
Blanchard and the American Dr. John Jeffries crossed the English
Channel for the first time in a hydrogen balloon.
(HN, 5/15/98)(HN, 1/7/99)
1785 Jun 15, Two French
balloonists died in the world's 1st fatal aviation accident.
(MC, 6/15/02)
1793 Jan 9, The first US manned
balloon flight occurred as Frenchman Jean Pierre Blanchard, using a
hot-air balloon, flew between Philadelphia and Woodbury, N.J. He
stayed airborne for 46 minutes, traveled close to 15 miles and set
down at the "old Clement farm" in Deptford, New Jersey. [see Jun 23,
1784, Mar 9, 1793]
(WSJ, 3/31/98, p.A1)(AP, 1/9/99)(ON, 6/09, p.2)
1794 Jun 26, The French
defeated an Austrian army at the Battle of Fleurus. The French used
a tethered balloon to observe the battlefield and direct artillery
fire.
(www.historyofwar.org/articles/battles_fleurus_1794.html)(NPub,
2002, p.4)
1797 Oct 22, French balloonist
Andre-Jacques Garnerin made the first parachute descent, landing
safely from a height of about 3,000 feet; at some 2,200 feet over
Paris.
(AP, 10/22/97)(HN, 10/22/98)
1804 Sir George Cayley,
England’s “father of aeronautics,” built and flew the world’s first
successful model glider.
(NPub, 2002, p.4)
1819 Aug 2, The first parachute
jump from a balloon was made by Charles Guille in New York City.
(HN, 8/2/01)
1838 Jul 8, Count Ferdinand von
Zeppelin (d.1917), German designer and manufacturer of airships, was
born.
(HN, 7/8/98)(WUD, 1994, p.1660)
1852 Sep 24, Henri Giffard, a
French engineer, flew over Paris in the 1st dirigible flight.
(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/AVgifford.htm)
1861 Apr 20, Thaddeus Lowe
landed in South Carolina only to be surrounded by a group of
incredulous Carolinians who believed he was a spy. Lowe managed to
persuade the crowd that his 500-mile trip from Cincinnati, Ohio, was
merely an innocent aerial journey to test his strange craft. He
later tried to convince the Union to use his skill as a balloonist.
(HNQ, 4/5/01)(ON, 2/05, p.7)
1861 Jun 10, Thaddeus Lowe
demonstrated his balloon, the Enterprise, along with its telegraphy
capabilities for Pres. Lincoln at the White House lawn.
(ON, 2/05, p.8)
1862 Jul 17, James Glaisher
(52), British meteorologist, rose to some 22,000 over Wolverhampton
with balloonist Henry Tracy Coxwell in an attempt to set an altitude
record. They reached 24,000 feet in a 2nd attempt on Aug 18. On Sep
5 Glaisher passed out as they reached 29,000 feet. At a record 7
miles Coxwell managed to begin their descent.
(ON, 4/03, p.11)
1867 Apr 16, Wilbur Wright
(d.1912), aeronautical inventor, was born in Dayton, Ohio.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers)
1868 Matthew Boulton obtained a
British patent on a design for ailerons as control surfaces.
(NPub, 2002, p.5)
1871 Aug 19, Orville Wright
(d.1948), aviation pioneer, was born in Dayton, Oh. His birthday is
celebrated as National Aviation Day.
(HN, 8/19/00)(WUD, 1994, p.1647)(MC, 8/19/02)
1873 Alberto Santos-Dumont
(d.1932), aviation pioneer, was born.
(SSFC, 6/28/03, p.M1)
1878 May 1, James Graham was
born. He was the inventor of the first naval aircraft-carrying ship
and the first man to film a total eclipse of the Sun.
(HN, 5/1/99)
1878 May 21, Glenn Hammond
Curtiss, aviation pioneer and contemporary of the Wright brothers,
was born in Hammondsport, N.Y. He also originally made bicycles and
invented the hydroplane. Curtiss` entrance into flying began in 1904
when Thomas Scott Baldwin, famous lighter-than-air devotee, asked
Curtiss to make him a two-cylinder, air-cooled engine to power his
airship. The first plane Curtiss had anything to do with was Red
Wing, which Casey Baldwin lofted from the ice at Keuka Lake on March
12, 1908.
(HN, 5/21/98)(HNQ, 5/28/01)
1878 Jul 3, John Wise flew the
first dirigible in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
(HN, 7/3/98)
1878 Bishop Wright gave his
sons, Orville and Wilbur, a toy helicopter.
(NPub, 2002, p.5)
1883 Aug 28, John Montgomery
(b.1858) made the first manned, controlled flight in the US in his
"Gull" glider, whose design was inspired by watching birds. The
craft weight 38 pounds and flew to 15 feet for at least 300 feet at
Otay Mesa near San Diego, Ca. In 1911 Montgomery died in a glider
crash.
(SFC, 6/5/98, p.A23)(SFCM, 2/6/05, p.3)(GenIV,
Winter 04/05)
1884 Horatio Phillips of
England designed a wing with a curved airfoil shape.
(NPub, 2002, p.5)
1890 Apr 6, Anthony Herman
Gerard Fokker, aircraft pioneer, was born in Holland.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1892 Apr 6, Donald Wills
Douglas, US aircraft pioneer (McConnell Douglas), was born.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1896 May 6, Samuel P. Langley
(1834-1906), American physicist and aviation pioneer, launched the
first reasonably large, steam-powered model aircraft.
(NPub, 2002,
p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Pierpont_Langley)
1897 Jun 14, Dr. Karl Wolfert
and his mechanic were killed in Germany when their dirigible,
powered by a Daimler car engine, crashed on its 4th flight.
(ON, 3/03, p.10)
1897 Jul 14, Swede Saloman
Andrée (43) and 2 accomplices, Knute Fraenkle and Nils
Strindberg, in the Ornen balloon were forced down after 64 hours in
the first expedition to fly by balloon across the North Pole. Their
attempt to return ended on White Island. Their fate was only
discovered Aug 5-6, 1930, by Norwegian whalers.
(HNQ, 5/22/01)(ON, 11/01, p.11)
1897 Jul 24, Amelia Earhart was
born in Kansas. She was the first woman to fly solo across the
Atlantic and disappeared in the South Pacific while trying to fly
around the world. Her sister Muriel (d.1998 at 98) wrote a biography
of Amelia titled: "Courage Is the Price."
(SFC, 3/6/98, p.E2)(HN,
7/24/02)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_Earhart)
1897 Sep 18, Alberto
Santos-Dumont crashed his 1st motorized dirigible into trees at the
Zoological Gardens in Paris.
(ON, 3/03, p.10)
1897 Sep 20, Alberto
Santos-Dumont successfully flew his repaired motorized dirigible
around the Zoological Gardens in Paris.
(ON, 3/03, p.10)
1897 Nov 3, David Schwarz of
Austria crashed his 156-foot aluminum powered airship with 2
propellers on its maiden flight.
(ON, 3/03, p.11)
1899 May 30, Wilbur Wright
(1867-1912), Ohio bicycle mechanic, wrote the Smithsonian
Institution and affirmed his belief that human flight was possible.
(NPub, 2002,
p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_Brothers)
1900 Jul 2, Count Ferdinand
Adolf Heinrich August von Zeppelin (1838-1917) made the 1st
successful flight of his lighter-than-air ship LZ-1 in
Friedrichshafen, Germany. The 400 foot craft stayed aloft 17 minutes
before it crashed.
(AHM, 1/97)(WSJ, 2/120/00, p.A1)(ON, 3/03, p.11)
1900 Oct, The Wright Brothers
began active flying experiments at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Their
first glider was a biplane that soared for 300 feet.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D3)(NPub, 2002, p.5)
1901 Jul 13, Santos-Dumont flew
his powered dirigible around the Eiffel Tower but failed to make it
in an allotted half hour time frame to win a 100,000 franc prize.
(ON, 3/03, p.11)
1901 Aug 8, Santos-Dumont flew
his powered dirigible around the Eiffel Tower a 2nd time but sprang
a leak and caught suspension wires in his propeller blades.
(ON, 3/03, p.11)
1901 Oct 19, Alberto
Santos-Dumont successfully circled Eiffel Tower in his Santos-Dumont
No. 6 dirigible within a half hour and won a 100,000 franc prize. An
initial ruling said that he failed by 40 seconds because the race
wasn’t finished until he touched ground. A 2nd vote granted him the
win. This proved the airship maneuverable.
(ON, 3/03, p.12)
1901 The Wright Brothers
constructed new wings for a large glider using existing aerodynamics
tables. The flight was marginal so they tested the tables by
analyzing model wings in a wind tunnel. The tables proved to be
wrong and they painstakingly computer new ones.
(NPub, 2002, p.6)
1902 In Pittsburg, Texas, Rev.
Burrell Cannon (d.1922), itinerant Baptist minister and inventor,
built his Ezekial Airship and reportedly flew it for a short
distance at a 12 foot altitude. The craft was destroyed on a rail
car while enroute to the St. Louis World Fair.
(WSJ, 11/20/02, p.A1)
1902 The Wright Brothers built
a glider based on their new aerodynamics tables. Efficiency was
almost doubled and they made over 1,000 flights at Kill Devil Hills
near Kitty Hawk, NC.
(NPub, 2002, p.6)
1903 Mar 23, The Wright
brothers obtained an airplane patent.
(HN, 3/23/98)
1903 Mar 31, New Zealand
aviator Richard Pearse flew a self-made, bamboo-framed, mono-winged
airplane in Waitohi.
(NW, 3/17/03, p.20)
1903 Dec 8, Samuel P. Langley’s
man-carrying Great Aerodrome collapsed right after takeoff from a
houseboat on the Potomac River.
(www.nasm.si.edu/research/arch/findaids/langley/langley_sec_6.html)
1903 Dec 17, The Wright
brothers' Flyer I flew for 12 seconds in the first airplane flight
at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The brothers were the sons of a
Dayton, Ohio, bishop (Church of the United Brethren). Orville Wright
made the first powered, controlled and sustained flight. Orville,
lying prone at the plane's controls, flew a distance of 120 feet in
12 seconds. Wilbur ran beside Flyer's wing tip until it was airborne
to keep the wing from dragging in the sand. Four sustained flights
were made on this day. The 4th flight lasted fifty-nine seconds. The
momentous events of that day received little press attention, since
the reticent Wright brothers feared their ideas would be stolen by
rival aviators. It was not until 1908, after making many refinements
to their flying machine, that the Wrights embarked on a series of
public demonstrations that finally earned them worldwide acclaim. A
one-hour PBS documentary covered their life as part of "The American
Experience."
(WSJ, 2/8/96, p.A-12)(AP, 12/17/97)(HNPD,
12/17/98)(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D3)(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D3)(SFEC, 9/26/99,
p.B8)
1904 Sep 15, Wilbur Wright made
his 1st controlled half-circle while in flight with Flyer II. On Sep
20 he flew a full circle for the first time.
(http://tinyurl.com/pkwd37)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_Flyer_II)
1904 Glenn Curtiss, a
motorcycle builder in Hammondsport, NY, began making
gasoline-burning aircraft engines for dirigibles that Tom Baldwin
was building in California.
(ON, 12/11, p.10)
1905 Apr 12, French Dufaux
brothers tested a helicopter.
(MC, 4/12/02)
1905 Apr 29, The Santa Clara, a
heavier than air plane designed by Prof. John J. Montgomery, was
flown by circus performer Daniel John Maloney. The glider was lifted
by balloon to 4,000 feet and then cut loose over Santa Clara, Ca.
(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1905 The Wright Brother’s Flyer
III became the world’s first practical airplane, but attracted
little attention.
(NPub, 2002, p.7)
1906 Mar 3, Vuia I aircraft,
built by Romanian Traja Vuia, was tested in France.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1906 May 22, Orville and Wilbur
Wright were awarded U.S. Patent 821,393 for "new and useful
improvement in Flying Machines." They had hired a patent attorney to
refine their 1903 application. The first successful powered flight
of the Wright Flyer took place on December 17, 1903.
(HNQ, 3/19/01)
1907 Jun 1, Frank A. Whittle,
England inventor (jet engine), was born. (MC, 6/1/02)
1907 Jul 1, World's 1st air
force established as part of the US Army.
(MC, 7/1/02)
1907 Jul 29, The 1st helicopter
ascent in Douai, France.
(MC, 7/29/02)
1907 Aug 1, The US Air Force
had its beginnings as the US Army Signal Corps established an
aeronautical division in charge of "all matters pertaining to
military ballooning, air machines and all kindred subjects."
(AP, 8/1/07)
1907 Nov 13, The 1st helicopter
was piloted by French engineer Paul Cornu (1881-1944). The copter
hovered a foot off the ground for 20 seconds. [see Apr 12, 1905]
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Cornu)(SSFC,
12/14/03, p.D2)
1907 Glenn Curtiss, of New
York, joined with Alexander Graham Bell, F.W. Baldwin, Thomas
Selfridge, and John McCurdy, working in Nova Scotia, to found the
Aerial Experiment Association (AEA) to developing a practical flying
machine.
(ON, 12/11, p.10)
1908 Mar 12, The Aerial
Experiment Association (AEA) launched their new airplane, called Red
Wing, from a frozen lake near Hammondsport, NY. Pilot F.W. Baldwin
rose 20 feet and flew 319 feet before crashing. Newspapers hailed
the test as the “first public flight” in the US.
(ON, 12/11, p.10)
1908 Mar 21, Frenchman Henri
Farman carried a passenger in a bi-plane for the first time.
(HN, 3/21/98)
1908 May 14, 1st passenger
flight in an airplane.
(MC, 5/14/02)
1908 May 21, The Aerial
Experiment Association (AEA) launched their 2nd airplane, called
White Wing, equipped with aelerons, a mechanism proposed by
Alexander Graham Bell, to steer the craft. Pilot Glenn Curtiss
flew over 1000 feet and landed safely.
(ON, 12/11, p.10)
1908 May 22, The Wright
brothers registered their flying machine for a U.S. patent.
(HN, 5/22/98)
1908 Jul 4, Glenn Curtiss flew
a new airplane, called the June Bug, at a competition sponsored by
Scientific American, for the first heavier than air machine to fly
one kilometer. The Aero Club sent 22 members to Hammondsport, NY, to
view the event. Curtiss easily covered the distance, angering the
Wright Brothers, who felt that their patent was being infringed.
(ON, 12/11, p.11)
1908 Sep 3, Orville Wright
began two weeks of flight trials that impressed onlookers with his
complete control of his new Type A Military Flyer. In addition to
setting an altitude record of 310 feet and an endurance record of
more than one hour, he had carried aloft the first military
observer, Lieutenant Frank Lahm.
(HNPD, 9/16/98)
1908 Sep 9, Orville Wright made
the 1st 1-hr airplane flight at Fort Myer, Va.
(MC, 9/9/01)
1908 Sep 17, Orville Wright’s
passenger on a test flight was Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge. They
were circling the landing field at Fort Myer, Va., when a crack
developed in the blade of the aircraft’s propeller. Wright lost
control of the Flyer and the biplane plunged to the ground.
Selfridge became powered flight’s first fatality, and Wright was
seriously injured in the crash. But despite the tragic mishap, the
War Department awarded the contract for the first military aircraft
to Wright.
(HNPD, 9/16/98)
1908 Dec, The Aerial Experiment
Association (AEA) took out patents on ailerons and in March 1809 the
group disbanded.
(ON, 12/11, p.11)
1909 Jan 9, The Silver Dart
made the 1st manned flight in Canada. It was funded by the Aerial
Experiment Association, founded by Alexander and Mabel Bell.
(ON, 1/03, p.5)
1909 Jan 17, Wilbur and Orville
Wright opened the world’s first flying school at Pau, France, and
refused to accept women as students.
(ON, 4/10, p.11)
1909 Jul 17, Glenn Curtiss
entered and won the Scientific American trophy for a 2nd year by
flying a total of 25 km. in 12 circuits on Long Island. His Golden
Flier was sponsored by the Aeronautic Society of New York.
(ON, 12/11, p.11)
1909 Jul 25, French aviator
Louis Bleriot (1872-1936) made the first crossing of the English
Channel from Calais to the grounds of Dover Castle in a powered
aircraft, winning a £1,000 prize offered by the London Daily
Mail. Piloting his Type XI monoplane at an average of 39 miles per
hour, Blériot made the trip of 23.2 miles in just under 36
minutes.
(AP, 7/25/97)(HNPD, 7/25/98)(ON, 6/07, p.9)
1909 Jul 27, Orville Wright
tested the U.S. Army's first airplane, flying himself and a
passenger for 1 hour, 12 minutes and 40 seconds over Fort Myer,
Virginia.
(AP, 7/27/97)(HN, 7/27/02)(MC, 7/27/02)
1909 Aug 2, The Wright Flyer
was formally accepted by the US Army in exchange for $30,000. It was
designated Signal Corps Airplane No. 1, the world’s first military
airplane.
(www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Wright_Bros/Military_Flyer/WR11.htm)
1909 Aug 28, American Glenn
Curtiss won the James Gordon Bennett Cup at the first major
international air show held in Rheims France.
(www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Wright_Bros/Patent_Battles/WR12.htm)
1909 Oct 2, Orville Wright set
an altitude record, flying at 1,600 feet. This exceeded Hubert
Latham's previous record of 508 feet.
(HN, 10/2/98)
1909 Oct 2, Raymonde de
Larouche (1918), Franch actress, flew a Voisin airplane during a
taxiing lesson under Gabriel Voisin at Chalons, establishing the
first recorded flight by a woman.
(ON, 4/10, p.11)
1909 Nov 22, Wright brothers
formed a corporation for the commercial manufacture of airplanes.
Cornelius Vanderbilt and other financiers backed them with one
million dollars.
(http://tinyurl.com/7ymq7rq)(ON, 12/11, p.11)
1909 Dec 28, The first manned,
controlled, powered flight in the whole continent of
Africa and the entire southern hemisphere was successfully carried
out by the Frenchman
Albert Kimmerling (d.6/12/1912) at East London, South Africa using a
Voisin bi-plane.
(Internet)
1909 The Wright brothers sold a
Military Flyer to the Signal Corps for $30,000.
(WSJ, 5/20/03, p.D5)
1910 Jan 24, Louis Paulhan,
French aviator, made an aerial display at the Tanforan Race Track in
San Bruno, Ca., before a crowd of 75,000. He flew his biplane 1,300
(700) feet high at 70 mph. Earlier he took William Randolph Hearst
for a ride.
(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.W4)(Ind, 8/17/02, 5A)(SSFC,
1/24/10, DB p.42)
1910 Mar 28, The first seaplane
took off from water at Martinques, France.
(HN, 3/28/98)
1910 Apr 28, The first night
air flight was performed by Claude Grahame-White in England.
(HN, 4/28/98)
1910 May 10, The 1st aircraft
air display was held at Hendon, England.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1910 Jun 2, Charles Stewart
Rolls, one of the founders of Rolls-Royce, becomes the first man to
fly an airplane nonstop across the English Channel both ways.
Tragically, he became Britain's first aircraft fatality the
following month when his biplane broke up in midair.
(HN, 6/2/00)
1910 Aug 20, The 1st shot fired
from an airplane was during a test flight over Brooklyn's Sheepshead
Bay.
(WSJ, 5/20/03, p.D5)
1910 Sep 27, 1st test flight of
a twin-engine airplane was made in France.
(MC, 9/27/01)
1910 Oct 11, The San Francisco
Rotary Club offered a $10,000 prize to the aviator who first flies
from SF to New York.
(SSFC, 10/10/10, DB p.50)
1910 Oct 23, Blanche S. Scott
became the first woman to make a solo, public airplane flight,
reaching an altitude of 12 feet at a park in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
(AP, 10/23/00)
1910 Nov 14, Lieutenant Eugene
Ely, U.S. Navy, was the first to take off in an airplane from the
deck of a ship. He flew from the Birmingham at Hampton Roads to
Norfolk. It was a Curtiss plane flown by Eugene Ely, a company
exhibition pilot, that made the first successful takeoff from a Navy
ship.
(HN, 11/14/98)
1910 Dec 31, John B. Moisant
and Arch Hoxsey, two of America's foremost aviators died in separate
plane crashes. Moisant died in a plane crash in New Orleans.
(HN, 12/31/98)(HN, 7/31/01)
1911 Jan 7, Aviator James
Radley, operating a French Bleriot airplane, performed over South
San Francisco, skimmed the the West Virginia, the flagship of
Rear-Admiral Barry, and checked the time of San Francisco Ferry
Tower clock on both sides.
(SSFC, 1/2/11, DB p.42)
1911 Jan 15, An explosive bomb
was dropped from an airplane during an aviation meet in South San
Francisco. The plane was about 400 feet high and the bomb dropped
within 10 feet of its target.
(SSFC, 1/16/11, DB p.42)
1911 Jan 18, Naval aviation was
born when pilot Eugene B. Ely flew a Curtis Pusher biplane onto the
deck of the USS Pennsylvania in San Francisco Bay.
(SFC, 7/2/96, p.a15)(SFC, 5/7/97, p.A15)(AP,
1/18/98)(SFC, 6/5/98, p.A19)
1911 Jan 26, Glenn Curtiss
piloted the 1st successful hydroplane in San Diego.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1911 Jan, A pair of U.S. Army
aviators dropped the first live bomb. The Mexican Revolution gave
the opportunity to use the airplane in actual combat. Airplanes had
already begun to replace balloons for battlefield observation.
(HNQ, 7/16/00)
1911 Feb 17, The 1st hydroplane
flight to & from a ship was made by Glenn Curtiss in San Diego.
(MC, 2/17/02)
1911 Apr 12, Pierre Prier
completed the first non-stop London-Paris flight in three hours and
56 minutes.
(HN, 4/12/99)
1911 May 16, Zeppelin
"Deutschland" was wrecked at Dusseldorf.
(MC, 5/16/02)
1911 Jul, Glenn Curtiss sold a
seaplane with retractable wheels to the US Navy.
(ON, 12/11, p.12)
1911 Aug 3, Airplanes were used
for the first time in a military capacity when Italian planes
reconnoitered Turkish lines near Tripoli.
(HN, 8/3/98)
1911 Aug 31, Anthony Fokker's
demonstrated the aircraft "Snip."
(MC, 8/31/01)
1911 Sep 1, M. Fourny set a
world aircraft distance record of 720 km (447 mls).
(SC, 9/1/02)
1911 Sep 9, An airmail route
opened between London and Windsor.
(HN, 9/9/98)
1911 Aug, Calbraith Perry
Rodgers stayed aloft longer than any other contestant at the Chicago
International Aviation Meet. Rodgers had recently purchased a new
Wright airplane, the 1st ever sold to a private citizen.
(ON, 10/06, p.10)
1911 Sep 17, Cigar-smoking
Calbraith Perry Rodgers (1879-1912) set off from Sheepshead Bay, New
York, on the first flight across America. Rodgers, sponsored by the
Vin Fiz grape drink company, flew the fragile Wright B biplane in
pursuit of a $50,000 prize offered to the first person to make a
transcontinental flight in 30 days or less. Rodgers failed to win
the prize because his 4,321-mile flight took 84 days—of which only 3
days, 10 hours and 4 minutes was actual flying time! His average
speed was 51.56 miles per hour. By the time he landed at Long Beach,
California, on November 5, Rodgers had made 70 crash landings,
suffered numerous minor injuries and had rebuilt his Vin Fiz so
completely that only one strut and the rudder were its original
equipment.
(HNPD, 9/18/98)(ON, 10/06, p.12)
1911 Sep 29, Walter Brookins
set an American record by flying 192 miles from Chicago to
Springfield, Ill., making two stops.
(NPub, 2002, p.8)
1911 Oct 31, Prof. John J.
Montgomery (b.1858) died when his glider crashed on his 56th flight
at the Evergreen College campus south of San Jose.
(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1911 Nov 1, Italian planes
performed the first aerial bombing on Tanguira oasis in Libya. Lt.
Giulio Cavotti dropped a hand grenade on an oasis outside of
Tripoli. In 2001 Sven Lindqvist authored "A History of Bombing."
(HN, 11/1/98)(SFC, 4/22/01, BR p.3)
1911 Nov 5, Italy attacked
Turkish North-Africa (Libya), and took Tripoli and Cyrenaica.
First use of a plane dropping bombs. [see Nov 1]
(MC, 11/5/01)
1911 Dec 10, Cal Rodgers
(1879-1912) completed the first US transcontinental flight in the
Wright EX Vin Fiz.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calbraith_Perry_Rodgers)(NPub, 2002,
p.8)
1911 Dec 19, Onetime race-car
driver Weldon Cooke piloted the homemade Black Diamond airplane over
Mount Tamalpais on a flight from Oakland, Ca., to Marin County.
(SFC, 12/18/11, p.A1)
1911 The first US experimental
airmail flight took place on Long Island, a 3-mile journey between
Garden City Estates and Mineola.
(SFC, 9/12/08, p.B5)
1911 The US Navy acquired its
first airplane, the A-1 Triad.
(HT, 4/97, p.60)
1912 Jan 10, The World's first
flying-boat airplane, designed by Glenn Curtiss (1878-1930), made
its maiden flight at San Diego, Ca. The Curtiss Model D featured an
electric starter. Curtiss had become the first licensed pilot in
1911.
(www.aerofiles.com/chrono.html)(SFC, 8/5/00,
p.B4)
1912 Mar 5, The Italians became
the first to use dirigibles for military purposes, using them for
reconnaissance flights behind Turkish lines west of Tripoli.
(HN, 3/5/98)
1912 Mar 7, French aviator,
Heri Seimet flew non-stop from London to Paris in three hours.
(HN, 3/7/98)
1912 Mar 12, Capt. Albert Berry
performed the 1st parachute jump from an airplane.
(MC, 3/12/02)
1912 Apr 3, Calbraith Perry
Rodgers (b.1879), American pioneer aviator, crashed and was killed
while flying over the ocean near Long Beach, Ca.
(ON, 10/06, p.12)
1912 Apr 10, The first wireless
transmission was received on an airplane.
(HN, 4/10/98)
1912 Apr 16, Harriet Quimby
became the first woman to fly across the English Channel.
(AP, 4/16/97)
1912 May 13, The Royal
Flying Corps was established in England. It was the predecessor of
the Royal Air Force.
(SS, Internet, 5/13/97)(HN, 5/13/99)
1912 May 30, Wilbur Wright
(b.1867), aeronautical inventor, died of a typhoid infection.
(WUD, 1994, p.1647)(ON, SC, p.4)
1912 Jun 7, US army tested the
1st machine gun mounted on a plane.
(SC, 6/7/02)
1912 Jul 1, Drama critic
Harriet Quimby (28) took a passenger up in her new Blériot
monoplane from Boston to fly over Dorchester Bay at the
Harvard-Boston Aviation Meet. As she descended for landing, the
plane went into a dive and, without seat belts, she and her
passenger were thrown out into the shallow water of the bay, where
they struck the muddy bottom and were crushed to death. Quimby was
the first licensed woman pilot in the United States. Her interest in
flight was piqued at an aviation meet in 1910. Quimby promoted
aviation for women and once wrote, "In my opinion, there is no
reason why the aeroplane should not open up a fruitful occupation
for women."
(HNPD, 7/31/98)(ON, 1/00, p.11)
1912 Jul 16, A Naval torpedo,
launched from an airplane, was patented by B.A. Fiske.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1912 Aug 25, An aircraft
recovered from a spin for the 1st time.
(chblue.com, 8/25/01)
1912 Sep 7, French aviator
Roland Garros set an altitude record of 13,200 feet.
(HN, 9/7/98)
1912 Sep 10, In France J.
Vedrines became the first pilot to break 100 m.p.h. barrier.
(HN, 9/10/98)
1912 The Australian Antarctic
Expedition of 1911-1914 began using an airplane to tow gear onto the
ice in preparation for their sledging journeys. The plane, the first
from France's Vickers factory, had not been seen since the
mid-1970s, when researchers photographed the steel fuselage nearly
encompassed in ice. Australian researchers stumbled on remains of
the plane on Jan 1, 2010.
(AP, 1/2/10)
1913 Jan 16, Prof. Thaddeus
Lowe (80), balloonist pioneer, died.
(www.militarymuseum.org/Lowe.html)
1913 Feb 29, A US judge upheld
a Wright Brothers’ airplane patent regarding the use of ailerons in
a suit against Glenn Curtiss. In 1914 a Court of Appeals affirmed
the decision. Henry Ford offered assistance to Curtiss and Ford
lawyer W. Benton Crisp put Curtiss back in production by employing
non-simultaneous use of ailerons.
(ON, 12/11, p.12)
1913 May 13, The first 4
engine aircraft was built & flown by Igor Sikorsky of Russia.
(SS, Internet, 5/13/97)(HN, 5/13/98)
1913 Aug 20, 700 feet above
Buc, France, parachutist Adolphe Pegoud becomes the first person to
jump from an airplane and land safely.
(HN, 8/20/00)(MC, 8/20/02)
1913 Franz Schneider patented a
gun synchronizing device in Germany, France and Great Britain. In
1915 it was developed as the "Fokker Scourge" to fire bullets
through an airplanes propellers.
(ON, 10/02, p.8)
1913-1931 The famous Schneider Trophy contests
between over this period were meant to prove the practicality of
floatplanes and seaplanes, but the emphasis on speed produced a
horsepower race that led to military applications, among them the
Rolls-Royce Merlin engine that powered the WWII aircraft:
Supermarine Spitfire. The Supermarine Spitfire was one of the
beneficiaries of an engine that the Rolls-Royce Company built to
power Britain’s race contender, the S.6B seaplane racer designed by
Reginald Mitchell. Rolls continued development of the engine after
the races ended and it was installed in a sleek landplane fighter
also designed by Mitchell, and christened against his personal
preference as the Spitfire. The Merlin would go on to power many
other aircraft.
(HN, 9/30/02)
1914 Jan, The St.
Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line became the world’s first regularly
scheduled airline service.
(NPub, 2002, p.9)
1914 Jun 2, Glenn Curtiss flew
his Langley Aerodrome.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1914 Jun 6, The 1st air flight
out of sight of land was made from Scotland to Norway.
(MC, 6/6/02)
1914 Jul 18, US army air
service 1st came into being as part of the Signal Corps.
(MC, 7/18/02)
1914 Aug, Alberto Santos-Dumont
(1873-1932), Brazilian aviation pioneer, burned his aeronautical
papers after French neighbors labeled him a German spy.
(SSFC, 6/28/03, p.M1)
1914 Two-way radio contact was
accomplished between pilot and ground control.
(NPub, 2002, p.9)
1915 Mar 3, The National
Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), a NASA forerunner, was
created. It was the first US government sponsored organization in
support of aviation research and development.
(SC, 3/3/02)(NPub, 2002, p.9)
1915 Mar 14, Lincoln Beachey,
air devil, plunged into the shallows of SF Bay and was killed as
some 50,000 fans watched his performance during the Panama-Pacific
Expo. The battleship USS Oregon recovered the plane and body.
(Ind, 9/5/98, p.5A)
1915 Apr 1, Roland Garros
(d.1918), French aviator, shot down 2 German aviators over Belgium,
with bullets shot through his propellers. Corp. August Spachholz and
Lt. Walter Grosskopf became the 1st to be killed by an enemy pilot
flying alone.
(ON, 10/02, p.8)
1915 May 10, A Zeppelin dropped
hundreds of bombs on Southend-on-Sea.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1915 Orville Wright (1871-1948)
sold his interest in the Wright Company and retired.
(NPub, 2002, p.9)
1916 Sep 2, Two airborne planes
communicated directly by radio for the 1st time.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
1916 The Univ. of Michigan
established the nation’s 1st Dept. of Aeronautical Engineering under
Prof. Felix Pawlowski.
(MT, Summer/04, p.7)
1917 Mar 8, Ferdinand von
Zeppelin (78), Dutch count, air pioneer, died.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1917 The Manufacturers Aircraft
Association was formed under the efforts of Ford lawyer W. Benton
Crisp. Royalties of 1% were paid to the Curtiss and Wright companies
up to 2 million dollars each. The organization, later named the
Manufacturers' Aircraft Association (MAA), continued to unify the
air industry and engage in public education endeavors. The MAA was
later dissolved, and in 1919, the newly formed Aeronautical Chamber
of Commerce (ACCA) stepped in to promote civil aviation.
(ON, 12/11,
p.12)(www.aia-aerospace.org/about_aia/aia_at_a_glance/history/)
1918 Apr 1, In England the
Royal Flying Corps was replaced by the Royal Air Force.
(AP, 4/1/98)(HN, 4/1/98)(OTD)
1918 Apr 8, The US First Aero
Squadron was assigned to the Western Front for the first time on
observation duty.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1918 May 13, The first US
airmail stamps, featuring a picture of an airplane, were introduced.
On some of the initial stamps the airplane was printed upside down;
the "inverted Jenny," as it came to be called, became a collector's
item. One sheet of 100 stamps got by inspectors.
(SSFC, 11/12/06, p.A2)(AP, 5/13/08)
1918 May 15, The U.S. Post
Office and the U.S. Army began regularly scheduled airmail service
between Washington and New York through Philadelphia. Lieutenant
George L. Boyle, an inexperienced young army pilot, was chosen to
make the first flight from Washington. Even with a route map
stitched to his breeches, Boyle lost his way and flew south rather
than north. The second leg of the Washington--Philadelphia--New York
flight, however, took off and arrived in New York on
schedule--without the Washington mail. The distance of the route was
218 miles, and one round trip per day was made six days a week. Army
Air Service pilots flew the route until August 10, 1918, when the
Post Office Department took over the entire operation with its own
planes and pilots.
(AP, 5/15/97)(HNPD, 6/15/99)(HNQ, 4/24/01)
1919 Mar 22, The first
international airline service was inaugurated on a weekly schedule
between Paris and Brussels.
(AP, 3/22/99)
1919 Apr 28, The first jump
with an Army Air Corp (rip-cord type) parachute was made by Les
Irvin.
(HN, 4/28/98)(MC, 4/28/02)
1919 May 2, The first U.S. air
passenger service started.
(HN, 5/2/98)
1919 May 8, The first
transatlantic flight took-off by a US Navy seaplane.
(HN, 5/8/98)
1919 May 13, Atlantic City, NJ,
became the site of the 1st municipal airport in the US.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
1919 May 27, U.S. Navy Curtiss
flying boat NC-4, piloted by Lt. Cmdr. Albert C. Read, arrived
safely in Lisbon, Portugal, to become the first aircraft to complete
a transatlantic flight. Three aircraft, designated NC-1, NC-3 and
NC-4--called "Nancy" boats--had taken off from New York's Rockaway
Naval Air Station for Lisbon on May 8, with intermediate stops
planned for Newfoundland and the Azores. Only NC-4 completed the
3,925-mile transatlantic flight. Heavy rain and fog forced NC-1 down
at sea, where it sank on May 17. NC-3, as depicted in this painting
by Ron Weil, came down in rough seas and taxied 200 miles into the
harbor at Horta in the Azores.
(HNPD, 5/27/99)
1919 Jun 14, Pilot John William
Alcock (1892-1919) and navigator Arthur Witten Brown (1886-1948)
took off from St. John’s, Newfoundland, for Clifden, Ireland, on the
first nonstop transatlantic flight. The flight lasted 16 hours and
28 minutes and carried the first transatlantic airmail. They won a
10 thousand pound prize, first offered by the Daily Mail in 1913.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Whitten_Brown)(ON, 4/09, p.1)
1919 Jul 19, Raymonde de
Larouche (1882-1919), Franch actress and aviatrix, died in an plane
crash at Le Crotoy airport in France.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymonde_de_Laroche)
1919 Jul 21, Anthony Fokker
established an airplane factory at Hamburg and Amsterdam.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1919 Jul 21, A dirigible
crashed through a bank skylight killing 13 in Chicago.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1919 Aug 25, The 1st scheduled
passenger service by airplane between Paris and London.
(MC, 8/25/02)
1919 Oct 11, KLM Royal Dutch
Airlines made its debut and served a pre-packaged dinner, believed
to be the 1st in-flight meal, on a flight between London and Paris.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)(WSJ, 5/31/08, p.A12)
1919 Dec 18, British pilot John
William Alcock (b.1892), enroute to a Paris air show, was killed
while making a forced landing in fog near Rouen. He and navigator
Arthur Witten Brown (1886-1948) had recently completed the world’s
first nonstop transatlantic flight [see June 14].
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Whitten_Brown)(ON, 4/09, p.1)
1919 Chalk’s Ocean Airways was
founded to fly tourists and fisherman from Florida to the Bahamas.
(SFC, 12/20/05, p.A4)
1920 Jul 27, A radio compass
was used for 1st time for aircraft navigation.
(MC, 7/27/02)
1920 Sep 8, New York-to-San
Francisco air mail service was inaugurated. US postal planes began
flying across the country, but these flights took place only in
daylight because pilots relied on visual landmarks to navigate.
(www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Government_Role/1918-1924/POL3.htm)(AP,
9/8/00)
1920 Australia-based Qantas
Airlines was founded as Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial
Services Ltd. Regular passenger service began in 1922.
(AP, 7/25/08)(http://airlines.ws/qantas.htm)
1921 Feb 22, An air mail plane
left San Francisco at 4:30 a.m., landing at New York (Hazelhurst
Field, L. I., N. Y.) at 4:50 p.m. on February 23.
(www.airmailpioneers.org/history/Sagahistory.htm)
1921 Mar 23, Arthur G. Hamilton
set a new parachute record, safely jumping 24,400 feet.
(HN, 3/23/98)
1921 Jul 21, Gen. Billy
Mitchell flew off with a payload of makeshift aerial bombs and sank
the former German battle ship Ostfriesland off Hampton Roads,
Virginia; the 1st time a battleship was ever sunk by an airplane.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1921 Aug 3, The 1st aerial crop
dusting was in Troy, Ohio, to kill caterpillars.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1921 Nov 21, The 1st mid-air
refueling was done by hand over Long Beach on a Curtiss JN-4.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
1921 Dec 1, The US Navy flew
the first nonrigid dirigible to use helium; the C-7 traveled from
Hampton Roads, Va., to Washington.
(AP, 12/1/06)
1922 Mar 23, 1st airplane
landed at the US Capitol in Washington DC.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1922 Jun 16, Henry Berliner
demonstrated his helicopter to US Bureau of Aeronautics.
(MC, 6/16/02)
1922 Nov 2, Australian Qantas
airways began service.
(www.qantas.com.au/travel/airlines/history-birthplace/global/en)
1923 Feb 9, Soviet Aeroflot
airlines formed.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1923 May 2, Lieutenants Okaley
Kelly and John Macready took off from New York for the West Coast on
what would become the first successful nonstop transcontinental
flight.
(HN, 5/2/02)
1923 May 3,
The 1st non-stop flight across the US was completed. Army
lieutenants Kelly and Macready arrived in San Diego from New York in
26 hours and 50 minutes.
(HFA, '96, p.30)(HN, 4/6/98)(NPub, 2002, p.10)
1923 Jun 27, The first
in-flight refueling occurred over San Diego, Ca.
(NPub, 2002, p.10)
1923 Amelia Earhart became the
16th woman to be issue a pilot’s license by the Federation
Aeronautique Internationale.
(ON, 12/07, p.8)
1924 Mar 17, Four Douglas army
aircraft left Los Angeles for an around the world flight.
(HN, 3/17/98)
1924
Apr 1, Imperial Airways was formed in Britain.
(OTD)
1924 Apr 6, Four open-cockpit
biplanes took off from Seattle for a round the world flight. Two of
the planes made it back. They flew 26,000 miles in 363 hours over a
175 days at an average speed of 77 mph. The US Congress had to
approve the financing and the airplanes were built by Douglas
Aircraft. [see May 3, 1923]
(Hem., 2/96, p.43)(HN, 4/6/98)
1924 Jul 1, A regular
transcontinental airmail service formed between NYC and SF.
(MC, 7/1/02)
1924 Sep 28, Two US Army planes
landed in Seattle, Wash., having completed the first round-the-world
flight in 175 days. Three U.S. Army aircraft arrived in Seattle,
Washington, after completing a 22 day round-the-world flight.
(AP, 9/28/97)(HN, 9/28/98)
1925 Apr 6, A Deutsche
Lufthansa flight debuted an in-flight movie, a silent-reel short.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
1925 Sep 3, The dirigible
"Shenandoah" crashed near Caldwell Ohio, 13 die. The 682-foot
Shenandoah, a dirigible built by the U.S. Navy in 1923, broke apart
in mid-air, killing 14 persons aboard.
(HNQ, 1/2/00)(MC, 9/3/01)
1926 May 9, Americans Richard
Byrd and Floyd Bennett made the first flight over the North Pole.
[see 1888-1957, Byrd] Two teams of aviators competed to be the first
to fly over the North Pole. American Navy Lt. Cmdr. Richard E. Byrd
and pilot Floyd Bennett claimed victory when they circled the North
Pole. But even today experts suspect that faulty navigation caused
Byrd to miss the North Pole. Later archivists determined that Byrd
was probably 150 miles short of the pole. His tri-motor Fokker
monoplane named Josephine Ford probably came within 2.25 degrees of
the pole.
(HFA, ‘96, p.30)(TMC, 1994, p.1926)(SFC, 5/9/96,
p.A-13)(HN, 5/9/98)(HNPD, 5/13/99)
1926 May 12, Italian Col.
Umberto Nobile of the Italian army piloted his Norge dirigible over
the North Pole with Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen.
(ON, 10/00, p.5)
1926 Jul 2, The U.S. Army Air
Corps was created by Congress. The Distinguish Flying Cross was
authorized.
(AP, 7/2/97)(HN, 7/2/98)(SC, 7/2/02)
1927 Mar 23, Captain Hawthorne
Gray set a new balloon record soaring to 28,510 feet.
(HN, 3/23/98)
1927 Apr 26, US Navy officers
Cmdr. Noel Davis and Lt. Stanton Wooster were killed when their
aircraft crashed near New York while trying to take off with a huge
load of fuel for a final test flight prior to an attempt to cross
the Atlantic.
(ON, 2/08, p.1)
1927 Apr 29, Construction of
the Spirit of St Louis was completed. B.F. Mahoney was the ‘mystery
man’ behind the Ryan Aeronautical Company that built Lindbergh’s
Spirit of St. Louis. Engineer Donald Hall designed the $10,580 plane
to carry 400 gallons of fuel.
(HN, 4/29/98)(ON, 2/08, p.1)
1927 May 4, The first balloon
flight over 40,000 feet was made.
(HN, 5/4/98)
1927 May 7, Mills Field, later
SFO, opened for business with Captain Frank A. Flynn as
superintendent.
(SFEC, 4/25/99, Z1 p.4)(Ind, 5/5/01, 5A)(SFC,
3/26/04, p.F7)
1927 May 8, French pilots
Charles Nungesser and Francois Coli took off from Paris in their
airplane named L’Oiseau Blanc (the White Bird), in an attempt to
cross the Atlantic. Pilots and plane vanished during the flight.
(ON, 2/08, p.2)
1927 May 10, US aviator Charles
Augustus Lindbergh (1902-1974) picked up his plane, “The Spirit of
St. Louis,” in San Diego and flew it to St. Louis. The next day he
continued to New York using railroad maps that he picked up in a
drugstore for 50 cents each. The plane was powered by an air-cooled
Whirlwind engine built by Ryan Aeronautical Company. Charles Fayette
Taylor (1895-1996) worked on the engine design team. Taylor later
authored "The Internal Combustion Engine in Theory and Practice."
(WUD, 1994, p.832)(SFC, 6/23/96, Z1 p.2)(SFC,
6/30/96, p.B6)(ON, 2/08, p.2)
1927 May 20, Charles Lindbergh
(25) took off from Roosevelt Field in Long Island, NY, at 7:40 AM
aboard the Spirit of St. Louis on his historic solo flight to
France. The Minnesota native had decided to compete for a $25,000
prize, offered in 1919 by Raymond Orteig, NY hotel owner, to the
first pilot to complete the feat. The Spirit of St. Louis, was
capable of flying 4,000 miles on 425 gallons of fuel. His greatest
problems on the 33-hour, 30-minute flight were staying awake and
keeping ice from forming on the airplane’s wings.
(AP, 5/20/97)(HN, 5/20/98)(HNPD, 5/21/00)(USAW,
5/19/02, p.26)(ON, 2/08, p.1)
1927 May 21, Charles Lindbergh
(Lucky Lindy) landed in Le Bourget Field in Paris after a 33.5-hour
nonstop, first solo flight from Roosevelt Field on New York’s Long
Island. In 1953 Lindbergh authored his memoir “The Spirit of St.
Louis.”
(F, 10/7/96, p.68)(AP, 5/21/97)(SFC, 10/20/99,
p.C10)(ON, 2/08, p.1)
1927 Aug, Hermann Koehl
attempted a nonstop flight from Dessau, Germany, to North America in
a Junkers monoplane, the Bremen. He reached Ireland and was forced
to turn back.
(ON, 9/02, p.5)
1927 Japan's Imperial
Aeronautics Association launched a competition for a non-stop flight
across the Pacific Ocean. The Ashi Shimbun newspaper offered a
$25,000 prize.
(ON, 1/03, p.10)
1928 Feb 7, Australian Bert
Hinkler took off from London in a two-seat Avro 581E Avian biplane
on the first leg of his solo flight from England to Australia. On
February 22, after flying 128 hours in less than 16 days, Hinkler's
11,250-mile adventure ended in Darwin, Australia.
(HNQ, 2/7/01)
1928 Apr 12, Hermann Koehl
attempted a 2nd nonstop flight Europe to North America in a Junkers
monoplane, the Bremen. Koehl along with a navigator and passenger
departed from Ireland and reached Greenly Island, Quebec, the next
day.
(ON, 9/02, p.5)
1928 Apr 14, The first air
service from SF to Los Angeles began. Mines Field opened in LA on a
640-acre portion of the 3,000-acre Bennett Rancho, which had become
a popular landing strip for area aviators.
(SFEC, 4/25/99, Z1 p.4)(Hem, 9/04, p.34)
1928 May 1, Pitcairn Airlines
(later Eastern) began service.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1928 May 24, The dirigible
Italia crashed while attempting to reach Spitzbergen. Nine men
survived the initial crash. In 2000 Wilbur Cross authored "Disaster
at the Pole," a revised edition of the 1960 version of the disaster
led by Italian aviator Umberto Nobile.
(ON, 10/00, p.6)(SSFC, 1/7/01, Par p.14)
1928 May 31, The first flight
over the Pacific took off from Oakland. Charles Kingsford-Smith
& Charles Ulm departed from Oakland, Ca., and arrived in
Australia on June 9.
(HN, 5/31/98)(NPub, 2002, p.11)
1928 Jun 3, Commander Amelia
Earhart departed with pilot Bill Stultz from Boston Harbor to
Halifax, Nova Scotia, and then to Trepassey, Newfoundland. From
there on June 17 they embarked on a trans-Atlantic flight from
Newfoundland to Wales.
(AP, 6/17/97)(HNQ, 3/8/02)(ON, 12/07, p.8)
1928 Jun 9, Charles
Kingsford-Smith & Charles Ulm were the 1st to fly across the
Pacific when they ended their flight from California to Brisbane,
Australia.
(NPub, 2002, p.11)
1928 Jun 17, Amelia Earhart
embarked on a trans-Atlantic flight from Newfoundland to Wales with
pilots Wilmer Stultz and Louis Gordon, becoming the first woman to
make the trip as a passenger.
(ON, 12/07, p.9)(AP, 6/17/08)
1928 Jun 18, Aviator Amelia
Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean as
she completed a flight from Newfoundland to Wales in about 21 hours
as a passenger.
(AP, 6/18/97)(HN, 6/18/98)(HNQ, 3/8/02)
1928 Jun28-1928 Jun 29, Albert
Hegenbeerger and Lester Maitland accomplished the first nonstop
flight across the Pacific.
(NPub, 2002, p.12)
1928 Aug 16, The US Navy
selected the Oakland municipal airport as the site of a US Naval
Reserve aviation base.
(SFC, 8/15/03, p.E9)
1928 Aug, Amelia Earhart became
the 1st woman to make back-to-back solo transcontinental flights as
she flew across back forth across America.
(ON, 12/07, p.9)
1928 Oct 25, An American group,
led by James A. Talbot of Richfield Oil, acquired control of the
American airplane business of Anthony H.G. Fokker.
(SFC, 10/24/03, p.E10)
1928 Oct 26, The Pickwick Stage
System filed documents to form a passenger airplane service
connecting SF, San Diego and Chicago. It planned to use a fleet of
tri-motored, 12 passenger Bach monoplanes.
(SFC, 10/24/03, p.E10)
1928 Transcontinental Air
Transport, the forerunner of Trans World Airlines (TWA), was
incorporated. Thomas B. Eastland acquired enough shares to become
the West Coast Director. Clement M. Keys was president and hired
Charles Lindbergh as chairman of the technical committee.
(Ind, 11/16/02, 5A)
1928 The first diesel powered
aircraft, a modified Stinson, took to the air.
(Econ, 9/6/08, TQ p.8)
1929 Jan 2, Evelyn "Bobbi"
Trout (d.2003 at 97) shattered the female pilot endurance record of
8 hours with a flight of 12 hours and 11 minutes.
(SFC, 2/1/03, p.A18)
1929 Mar 26, The SF board of
Supervisors voted 14-1 to remove Captain Frank A. Flynn from his
post as superintendent of Mills Field, following the story of a
Lindbergh complaint. Charles Lindbergh had come to San Francisco’s
Airport, Mills Field, to promote his airline, Transcontinental Air
Transport. His plane was forced off the field by another plane and
became stuck in the mud.
(SFEC, 6/29/97, AS p.6)(SFC, 3/26/04, p.F7)
1929 Jul 16, Col. Charles
Lindbergh was severely angered when he realized a sound-camera man
had recorded a private conversation using a concealed microphone.
The “voice that has never been filmed” left San Francisco’s Mills
Field airport on the cameraman’s reel.
(SFC, 7/16/04, p.F4)
1929 Jul, Transcontinental Air
Transport began regularly scheduled between NY and LA. Service took
48 hours with trains for night travel. A ticket cost $310. [see Oct
23]
(Ind, 11/16/02, 5A)
1929 Aug 8, The Graf Zeppelin
embarked from Lakehurst, New Jersey, on the first round-the-world
passenger voyage.
(Hem., 2/96, p.43)(MC, 8/8/02)
1929 Aug 18, The first
cross-country women's air derby began. Louise McPhetride Thaden won
first prize in the heavier-plane division, while Phoebe Fairgrave
Omlie finished first in the lighter-plane category.
(HN, 8/18/98)
1929 Aug 25, Graf Zeppelin
passed over SF for LA following a trans-Pacific voyage.
(MC, 8/25/02)
1929 Aug 29, The Graf Zeppelin
returned to Lakehurst, New Jersey, after 21 days 4 hours, a new
world record.
(Hem., 2/96, p.43)(MC, 8/29/01)(ON, 1/03, p.10)
1929 Sep 1, Maddux Air began
the 1st direct aerial passenger service from SF to NY. The 48 hour
trip included 2 nights on trains.
(SSFC, 8/22/04, p.F8)
1929 Sep 24, U.S. Army pilot
Lt. James H. Doolittle guided a Consolidated NY2 Biplane over
Mitchel Field in New York in the first all-instrument flight.
(AP, 9/24/97)(HN, 9/24/98)
1929 Sep 30, The 1st manned
rocket plane flight was made by auto maker Fritz von Opel at
Frankfurt-am-Main [see May 29, 1928].
(http://strangevehicles.greyfalcon.us/OPEL%20ROCKET%20VEHICLES.htm)
1929 Oct 23, First
transcontinental air service began from New York to Los Angeles.
[see July]
(HN, 10/23/98)
1929 Oct 28, Universal Pictures
joined with Transcontinental Air Transport to offer moving pictures
for air passengers bound for California.
(SFC, 10/29/04, p.F11)
1929 Nov 28, Commander Richard
E. Byrd embarked on the first South Pole flight.
(NPub, 2002, p.12)
1929 Nov 29, Navy Lt. Cmdr.
Richard E. Byrd radioed that he'd made the first airplane flight
over the South Pole: "My calculations indicate that we have reached
vicinity of South Pole." He was wrong [see 1888-1957, Byrd].
(TMC, 1994, p.1929)(HFA, '96, p.42)(AP,
11/29/97)(NPub, 2002, p.12)
1929 Hangar 1, the first modern
air terminal of LA, was completed at Mines Field in Spanish Colonial
Revival style. In 2005 it was still part of LAX.
(Hem., 5/97, p.70)(Hem, 9/04, p.34)
1929 Amelia Earhart and other
female aviation pioneers founded the Ninety-Nines (a women’s pilot’s
association). Only about 150 of the nation’s 9,800 licensed pilots
were women. While the number of female pilots increased, it was
stunted by a Depression-era society no longer tolerant of the
feminist activism of the 1920s.
(HNQ, 3/16/01)
1929 Ira C. Eaker and three
other pilots set an endurance record for flying. Eaker set flying
records in 1929 and 1936, became the commander of VIII Bomber
Command and later the entire Eighth Air Force in World War II.
(HNQ, 3/9/01)
1929 William Green developed
the first automatic pilot used on an airliner.
(NPub, 2002,
p.12)(www.spaceday.org/index.php/History-of-Flight-Timeline.html)
1929 The pilot of a Fokker C.IV
crashed in Vancouver, Canada, during an attempt to fly nonstop from
Seattle to Tokyo. The 1923 plane became a tourist attraction, then
burned and ended up in Maine, where it was restored for the Owls
Head Transportation Museum.
(SFC, 9/13/07, p.E3)
1930 Jan 6, Aviator Douglas
Campbell, the 1st American ace of WW I, visited C.A. “Mother” Tusch
at 2211 Union St. in Berkeley, Ca. Tusch’s home was known s the
“Hangar” because it was one of the most complete privately owned
aviation museums in America.
(SFC, 1/7/05, p.F6)
1930 Apr 6, 1st
transcontinental glider tow was completed.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1930 Apr 20, Charles (d.1974)
and Anne Lindbergh (d.2001 at 94) set a transcontinental speed
record flying from Los Angeles to New York in 14 hours and 45
minutes. Anne was 7 months pregnant. [see Jan 20]
(SFC, 2/8/01, p.C2)
1930 May 15, Ellen Church, the
first airline stewardess, went on duty aboard an Oakland-to-Chicago
flight operated by Boeing Air Transport, a forerunner of United
Airlines.
(HN, 5/15/98)(AP, 5/15/07)
1930 May 20, The first
airplane, piloted by Charles Nicholson, was catapulted from a
dirigible.
(HN, 5/20/98)(MC, 5/20/02)
1930 May 24, Amy Johnson became
the first woman to fly from England to Australia.
(HN, 5/24/98)
1930 Aug 13, Captain Frank M.
Hawks, superintendent of the Aviation Division of Texaco, flew a
red-and-white Travel Air monoplane from Los Angeles to New York in
12 hours, 25 minutes and 3 seconds. According to Hawks' own widely
publicized account, the Travel Air performed flawlessly, with an
average airspeed of 215 mph. Hawks made three 15-minute refueling
stops during the 2,510-mile journey. He battled a rainstorm,
crosswinds, hunger and a thick haze that made "the ground barely
visible at 8,000 feet," but reached New York City in time for
dinner.
(HNPD, 8/20/99)
1930 Aug 18, Eastern Airlines
began passenger service.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1930 Sep 2, The first non-stop
airplane flight from Europe to the US was completed as Captain
Dieudonne Coste and Maurice Bellonte of France arrived in Valley
Stream, New York, aboard a Breguet biplane. The plane was known as
"The Question Mark" because it bore a large question mark, instead
of a name, on each side..
(AP, 9/2/08)
1930 Dec 10, Lady aviator Ruth
Nichols set a new women's record for coast to coast flight,
traveling from Los Angeles to New York in 13 hours 22 minutes.
(NY Times, 11/12/1930, p.1)
1931 Feb 7, Amelia Earhart
(33), aviatrix, married George Palmer Putnam (45), divorced heir to
a publishing empire in Noank, Conn.
(SFEM, 1/25/98, p.31)(HN, 2/7/99)
1931 Mar, United
Aircraft-Transport Corp. acquired National Air Transport. 3 months
later it bought Varney Air Lines and incorporated as United Air
Lines Inc.
(WSJ, 12/6/02, p.B5)
1931 May 18, Japanese pilot
Seiji Yoshihara crashed his plane in the Pacific Ocean while trying
to be the first to cross the ocean nonstop. He was picked up seven
hours later by a passing ship.
(HN, 5/18/99)
1931 May 27, Piccard and
Knipfer made the first flight into stratosphere, by balloon.
(HN, 5/27/98)
1931 Jun 23, Wiley Post and
Harold Gatty flew in a single-engine plane, the Winnie Mae, from New
York on a round-the-world flight and returned to New York on July 1
after 8 days, 15 hrs, and 51 min., a new world record.
(AP, 6/23/97)(ON, 12/03, p.10)(NPub, 2002, p.12)
1931 Jul 28, Clyde Panghorn and
Hugh Herndon took off from Roosevelt Field, NY, in an attempt to set
a round-the world speed record. They got delayed in Siberia and
changed their plan to pursue a record non-stop flight from Japan to
the US. Herndon's mother, an heiress of Standard Oil Company money,
financed most of the trip.
(ON, 1/03, p.10)
1931 Aug, Clyde Panghorn and
Hugh Herndon landed at Japan's Tachikawa Airport and were arraigned
for landing illegally. They paid fines of $1,050 apiece to be
released.
(ON, 1/03, p.10)
1931 Oct 2, Aerial circus star
Clyde Pangborn and playboy Hugh Herndon, Jr. set off in Miss Veedol
to complete the first nonstop flight across the Pacific Ocean from
Sabishiro Beach in Misawa City, Japan. A young boy gave Panghorn 5
apples from Misawa City.
(HN, 10/2/99)(ON, 1/03, p.10)
1931 Oct 3, Clyde Pangborn and
Hugh Herndon, Jr. belly landed Miss Veedol, a Bellanca CH-200
monoplane, in Wenatchee, Wa., to complete the first nonstop flight
across the Pacific Ocean from Japan. They won a $25,000 prize from
the Japanese Ashi Shimbun newspaper. Panghorn sent apple cuttings
from Wenatchee's Richard Delicious apples to Japan which were soon
distributed across Japan.
(ON, 1/03, p.10)
1931-1975 Raymond Kelly (d.2003 at 102), flight
engineer, shot 8mm movies of various flights. A 45-minute
compilation was later made: "44 years in Aviation, 1931-1975," and
kept at the national Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.
(SFC, 10/8/03, p.A27)
1932 Mar 20, The German
dirigible, Graf Zepplin, made the first flight to South America on
regular schedule.
(HN, 3/20/98)
1932 May 20, Amelia Earhart
took off from Newfoundland to become the first woman to fly solo
across the Atlantic. Because of weather and equipment problems,
Earhart set down in Northern Ireland after 13 ½ hours instead
of her intended destination, France.
(HFA, '96, p.30)(HN, 5/20/01)(AP, 5/20/07)(ON,
12/07, p.9)
1932 May 21, Amelia
Earhart made her first transatlantic solo flight from
Newfoundland to Ireland.
(HN, 5/21/98)(AP, 5/20/97)
1932 Jul 23, Alberto
Santos-Dumont (b.1873), aviation pioneer, hanged himself in Guaraja,
Brazil after hearing a bomber discharge its load on fellow
countrymen. In 2003 Paul Hoffman authored "Wings of Madness: Alberto
Santos-Dumont and the Invention of Flight."
(SSFC, 6/28/03, p.M1)
1932 Aug 18, Auguste Piccard
and Max Cosijns reached 16,201m in a balloon.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1932 Aug 24, Amelia Earhart
became the first woman to fly nonstop across the United States,
traveling from Los Angeles to Newark, N.J., in just over 19 hours.
(AP, 8/24/97)
1932 Aug 25, Amelia
Earhart completed a transcontinental flight.
(chblue.com, 8/25/01)
1932 Night flying was
introduced in the US and transcontinental travel was cut to 24
hours.
(Ind, 11/16/02, 5A)
1933 Feb 8, The 1st flight of
all-metal Boeing 247.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1933 Apr 3, The dirigible Akron
crashed into the Atlantic off of New Jersey and killed 73 0f the 76
men aboard.
(SFC, 9/20/97, p.A21)
1933 Apr 13, The first flight
over Mount Everest was completed by Lord Clydesdale.
(HN, 4/13/98)
1933 Jul 15, Wiley Post began
the 1st solo flight around world.
(MC, 7/15/02)(ON, 12/03, p.12)
1933 Jul 22, American aviator
Wiley Post completed the first solo flight around the world as he
returned to New York's Floyd Bennett Field after traveling for 7
days, 18 and 3/4 hours.
(AP, 7/22/08)
1933 Pan American Airlines took
over China Airways, founded by Clement Keys, and renamed it China
National Aviation Corp. (CNAC).
(SFEM, 2/13/00, p.38)
1933 The first unmanned aerial
vehicle (UAV) was the radio-controlled “Fairey Queen” biplane. It
was catapulted into the air and survived 2 hours of live fire from a
British warship. In 1934 Britain’s Air Ministry ordered 420 such
aircraft, known as the Queen Bee, which gave rise to the word drone
to describe such aircraft.
(Econ, 12/8/07, TQ p.23)
1934 May 18, TWA began
commercial service.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1934 Aug 2, The 1st airplane
train towed 3 mail gliders behind it.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1935 Jan 1, Eastern Airlines
hired Eddie Rickenbacker as GM.
(MC, 1/1/02)
1935 Jan 1, Helen Richey became
the 1st woman employed as an airplane pilot. She resigned 10 months
later after the all-male pilot's union refused to accept her.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
1935 Jan 11, Aviator Amelia
Earhart began a trip from Honolulu to Oakland, Calif., becoming the
first woman to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean.
(AP, 1/11/98)
1935 Feb 12, The 785-foot USS
Macon, the last US Navy dirigible (ZRS-5), crashed on its 55th
flight off the coast of California, killing two people. After
takeoff from Point Sur, California, a gust of wind tore off the
ship's upper fin, deflating its gas cells and causing the ship to
fall into the sea. Two of Macon 's 83 crewmen died in the accident.
The U.S. Navy lost the airships Shenandoah in 1925 and Akron in
1933. Some considered airships too dangerous for the program to
continue at that point, and work on them in the United States halted
temporarily.
(HNQ, 2/7/99)(SFC, 9/27/06, p.B1)
1935 Mar 11, Hermann Goering
made the German Air Force an official organ of the Reich.
(HN, 3/11/98)(MC, 3/11/02)
1935 Aug 15, Humorist Will
Rogers (55), American comedian and "cowboy philosopher," and
aviation pioneer Wiley Post (36) were killed when their airplane
crashed near Point Barrow, Alaska. Rogers once said: "Even if you're
on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."
(AP, 8/15/97)(HN, 8/15/98)(MC, 8/15/02)
1935 Sep 12, Millionaire Howard
Hughes flew his own designed plane at 352.46 mph.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1935 Oct 30, The US Army Air
Corps held a competition to see which company would build the
country’s next-generation of long-range bombers. Boeing’s “flying
fortress” crashed shortly after takeoff and Martin and Douglas won
by default.
(Econ, 1/16/10, p.84)
1935 Nov 22, Pan Am inaugurated
the first transpacific airmail service, San Francisco to Manila. The
Pan Am China Clipper under Captain Ed Musick took off from Alameda
Point bound for the Philippines with 111,000 letters. It was the
company's first trans-Pacific flight. The plane was a 25-ton Martin
M-130 flying boat with a wingspan of 130 feet, and was the largest
aircraft in world service.
(HN, 11/22/98)(Ind, 5/1/99, p.5A)(SFEM, 2/13/00,
p.35)(NPub, 2002, p.13)
1935 Dec 1, The fist airway
traffic control center went into operation.
(NPub, 2002, p.13)
1935 Dec, The fist Douglas DC-3
airplane was introduced. By 1938 it carried the bulk of American air
traffic. It was the first practical passenger plane and stemmed from
the DC-1, whose design was led by Arthur E. Raymond (d.1999 at 99).
Raymond helped found the Rand Corp. in 1948.
(SFC, 3/27/99, p.C2)(NPub, 2002, p.13)
1935-1945 There were 12,731 B-17 bomber airplanes
built. Nicknamed the "Flying Fortress," over 4,000 never returned
from combat.
(WSJ, 9/9/98, p.A20)
1936 Jan 14, American explorer
Lincoln Ellsworth and Canadian pilot Herbert Hollick-Kenyon were
rescued by the research ship Discovery II. The pair had made the
first flight across Antarctica, 2,300 miles from the Weddell Sea to
the Ross Sea. They landed when their plane's engine faltered, and
waited in the previously constructed shelter at Little America for a
month to be picked up. After his earlier attempts to cross
Antarctica failed, Ellsworth set out with Hollick-Kenyon in the
Northrop Gamma monoplane, Polar Star, and succeeded. Part of the
area that Ellsworth and Hollick-Kenyon flew over in 1935 has been
named the Ellsworth Highlands.
(HNPD, 1/14/99)(AH, 2/06, p.14)
1936 Mar 4, The 1st test flight
of airship Hindenburg was made in Germany.
(www.airships.net/hindenburg)
1936 Mar 5, Spitfire made it's
1st flight at the Eastleigh Aerodrome in Southampton, England.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1936 Apr 18, Pan-Am Clipper
began regular passenger flights from SF to Honolulu.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1936 May 6, The Hindenburg
airship departed Germany and on the 9th on May, it arrived at
Lakehurst, N.J., having completed the first scheduled transatlantic
dirigible flight.
(www.airships.net/hindenburg/flight-schedule/maiden-voyage/passenger-account)
1936 Jun 26, The 1st flight of
Fw61 helicopter.
(MC, 6/26/02)
1936 Sep 2, The 1st
transatlantic round-trip air flight took place. [see Sep 6]
(MC, 9/2/01)
1936 Sep 6, Aviator Beryl
Markham flew the first east-to-west solo flight across the Atlantic
Ocean. [see Sep 2]
(HN, 9/6/00)
1936 The multi-airlines
magazine "Airlanes" was begun to popularize passenger flying.
(Hem, 11/02, p.53)
1937 Jan 19, Millionaire Howard
Hughes set a transcontinental air record by flying his monoplane
from Los Angeles to Newark, N.J., in seven hours, 28 minutes and 25
seconds.
(AP, 1/19/06)
1937 Mar 17, Amelia Earhart
took off from Oakland, Ca., in an attempt to become the first pilot
to fly around the globe at the equator.
(SFC, 3/1/97, p.A8)
1937 Apr 25, Clem Sohn (26),
air show performer, died when his chute failed to open.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1937 May 6,
At 7:25 p.m. the giant German airship (dirigible or zeppelin)
Hindenburg burst into flames and crashed to the ground as it
attempted to dock with a mooring mast at Lakehurst Naval Air Station
in New Jersey. Carrying 36 passengers and 61 crew, Hindenburg left
Frankfurt on May 4 for its first transatlantic voyage of the 1937
season. A total of 36 died when the fire ignited the 16
hydrogen-filled cells and destroyed the zeppelin in only 34 seconds.
It was 803 feet long and had private rooms for 50 passengers. It had
an 11,000 mile range. A newsreel film of the Hindenburg Disaster was
made. The true cause of the disaster remains a mystery, although
crash investigators considered claims that Hindenburg was lost due
to sabotage or an accidental charge of static electricity.
(TMC, 1994, p.1937)(Hem., 1/96, p.108)(AP,
5/6/97)(SFC,11/21/97, p.C17)(HNPD, 5/6/00)
1937 Gibbs Field opened in San
Diego, Ca. On May 20, 1950, it was formally re-dedicated as
Montgomery Field in honor of John Montgomery, the man who made the
first controlled flight in a fixed wing craft (1883).
(GenIV, Winter 04/05)
1937 In Iceland an airline was
founded that developed into Icelandair.
(WSJ, 10/14/08, p.B10)
1938 Jun 7, Boeing 314 Clipper
flying boat was 1st flown (Eddie Allen).
(SC, 6/7/02)
1938 Jul 10, Howard Hughes and
the "Yankee Clipper" began the 1st passenger flight around the world
flight from NYC. [see Jul 14]
(MC, 7/10/02)
1938 Jul 14, Howard Hughes
landed at Floyd Bennet Field in NY with a crew of four after flying
around the world in 3 days, 19 hours, and 17 min., a new record.
(Hem., 2/96, p.44)
1938 Jul 18, Douglas "Wrong
Way" Corrigan arrived in Ireland. He had left NY for Calif. [see Jul
17]
(MC, 7/18/02)
1939 Mar 3, Eleanor Roosevelt
christened Pan Am's new Boeing built Yankee Clipper.
(SFEM, 2/13/00, p.38)
1939 May 20, Regular
trans-Atlantic air mail service began as a Pan American Airways
plane, the Yankee Clipper, took off from Port Washington, N.Y.,
bound for Marseilles, France.
(AP,
5/20/97)(www.airliner.net/pan-am-clipper-flying-boat/transatlantic-airline-service/)
1939 Jun 28, Pan American
Airways began regular trans-Atlantic passenger air service as the
"Dixie Clipper" left Port Washington, N.Y., for Portugal.
(AP, 6/28/99)(NPub, 2002, p.13)
1939 Jul 3, Ernst Heinkel
demonstrated an 800-kph rocket plane to Hitler.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1939 Aug 27, The world's first
jet-propelled plane, the Heinkel He-178, made its first flight at
Marienehe, north Germany. Hans von Ohain’s aircraft became the first
jet-powered airplane to fly. It remained airborne for 7 minutes.
Erich Warsitz made the 1st jet-propelled flight.
(SFC, 8/10/96, p.A20)(Reuters, 8/28/01)(MC,
8/27/01)
1939 Oct 15, The New York
Municipal Airport was dedicated. It was the largest, most advanced
commercial airport in the world. Its new terminal featured
innovative design that kept arriving and departing passengers
separated on two levels for greater efficiency. It was also
terminals adorned with Art Deco details and fine restaurants and a
rooftop viewing promenade as well as many technological details that
made flying safer and less expensive. On Mar 31, 1940, the new
airport was rechristened LaGuardia Airport after the mayor, who had
been a bomber pilot in World War I and whose interest in aviation
lasted throughout his lifetime, barely a month after it opened.
(www.arcadiapublishing.com/news_article.html?id=1816)(AP, 10/15/97)
1939 Dec 2, New York's
Municipal Airport began operations as an airliner from Chicago
landed at one minute after midnight. The North Beach Airport opened
in Queens, NYC, with 2 levels for passenger circulation. It was
renamed LaGuardia on March 31, 1940.
(Hem., 5/97, p.70)(AP, 12/2/98)
1940 Mar 31, The New York
Municipal Airport, opened in October, 1939, was renamed La Guardia
airport, after the mayor, who had been a bomber pilot in World War I
and whose interest in aviation lasted throughout his lifetime,
barely a month after it opened.
(www.arcadiapublishing.com/news_article.html?id=1816)
1940 May 20, Igor Sikorsky
unveiled his helicopter invention.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1940 May 23, The 1st great
dogfight between Spitfires took place.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1940 Jul 18, The 1st successful
helicopter flight was made at Stratford, Ct.
(MC, 7/18/02)
1940 Aug 25, The first
parachute wedding ceremony was performed by Rev. Homer Tomlinson at
the New York City World’s Fair for Arno Rudolphi and Ann Hayward.
The minister, bride and groom, best man, maid of honor and four
musicians were all suspended from parachutes.
(HN, 8/25/00)
1940 Sep 16, The Luftwaffe
bombed the Bristol Aeroplane Company.
(http://www.fishponds.freeuk.com/nluftbri1.htm)
1941 Jan, The US War Dept.
formed an all-black flying unit that achieved fame as the Tuskegee
Airmen. On June 20 the Tuskegee program officially began with the
formation of the 99th Fighter Squadron at the Tuskegee Institute in
Alabama. Their 1st mission was in June 1943. African-Americans were
barred from the Air Corps until this year, and then were shunted to
all-black squadrons.
(SFC, 9/22/99, p.A24) (WSJ, 8/17/99, p.A1)(NPub,
2002, p.14)
1941 Mar 15, Philippine
Airlines maid its maiden flight from Manila to Baguio.
(SFC, 9/24/98, p.A19)
1941 Apr 15, 1st helicopter
flight of 1 hour duration took place at Stratford, Ct.
(MC, 4/15/02)
1941 May 11, The 1st
Messerschmidt 109F was shot down above England.
(MC, 5/11/02)
1941 May 15, 1st British
turbojet flew.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1942 Jan 6, The Pan American
Airways "Pacific Clipper" arrived in New York under Captain Robert
Ford. He flew west from New Zealand to avoid Japanese attacks and
became the first commercial pilot to make a round-the-world trip.
The Pacific Clipper was known as a "flying boat." This flight was
31,500 miles and took 209 hours to complete.
(AP,
1/6/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_314)
1942 Mar 3, Canada's Avro
Lancaster military plane made its 1st combat flight.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1942 May 13, A helicopter made
its 1st cross-country flight.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1942 Jun 6, The 1st nylon
parachute jump was made in Hartford, Ct., by Adeline Gray.
(MC, 6/6/02)
1942 Jun 18, Eric Nessler of
France stayed aloft in a glider for 38h 21m.
(MC, 6/18/02)
1942 Jul 18, The German
Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalbe, the first jet-propelled aircraft to
fly in combat, made its first flight. Walter Nowotny was a rising
your star in the Luftwaffe, chosen by Hitler to be the point man to
lead the new jet fighter under the tutelage of General of Fighters
Adolf Galland who was assigned to prove the airplane in battle. The
Axis hopes were dashed when Nowotny was attacked by American pilots
during landing and crashed. Col. Edward R. "Buddy" Haydon was one of
those American pilots.
(www.fighter-planes.com/info/me262.htm)(HNQ,
9/2/02)
1942 Aug 1, Ensign Henry C.
White, while flying a J4F Widgeon plane, sank U-166 as it approaches
the Mississippi River, the first U-boat sunk by the U.S. Coast
Guard. In the summer of 1942, German submarines put saboteurs ashore
on American beaches. [see Jul 30, 1942]
(HN, 8/1/98)(SFC, 6/9/01, p.A5)
c1942-1945 The Bell P-39 Airacobra was liked for
its easy-to-taxi tricycle landing gear and the 37mm cannon that
fired through the propeller hub. But the engine mounted behind the
pilot led to balance concerns and the lack of a turbosupercharger in
the overweight airplane rendered it useless against
higher-performing enemy aircraft at higher altitudes. Allied pilots
considered it an accomplishment to even survive in the P-39, much
less to win in aerial battle against the vaunted Japanese Zero,
whose pilots considered the Airacobra "cold meat."
(HNQ, 9/13/02)
1943 Jan 11, President Franklin
D. Roosevelt flew to Morocco for a top-secret meeting with British
Prime Minister Winston Churchill. He had not flown since 1932, when
he traveled from Albany, New York, to Chicago to accept his
nomination at the Democratic national convention. No U.S. president
had previously flown while in office because the Secret Service
regarded flying as a dangerous mode of transport. Air travel was the
only realistic option for the trip to Casablanca because German
submarines lurking in the Atlantic made a surface crossing too
risky.
(HNQ, 4/8/02)
1943 Mar 5, The Gloster Meteor
first flew. Great Britain emerged from World War II with a decided
head start in jet technology, the only Allied power to have had a
jet fighter operational in squadron strength before the German
surrender on May 8, 1945. On July 21, 1944, the first two production
Meteors arrived at Culmhead and formed the nucleus of No. 616
Squadron, Royal Air Force (RAF). Appropriately, the Meteor’s first
duty was to defend Britain from attacks by German V-1 pulse
jet-powered guided bombs, of which they destroyed 13 by the end of
the war. Meteor IIIs of No. 616 Squadron were committed to
Continental Europe in the last months of the conflict, but they
never got the opportunity to meet the German Me-262A in battle.
(HNQ, 8/21/01)
1943 Mar 19, Airship Canadian
Star was torpedoed and sank.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1943 Apr 11, Frank Piasecki,
Vertol founder, flew his 1st (single-rotor) craft.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1943 May 15, Halifax bombers
sank U-463.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1943 May 22, The 1st US jet
fighter was tested. Lockheed Martin had picked Clarence Johnson, a
Univ. of Michigan graduate (1932) to develop the nation’s 1st jet
fighter. He had already designed the P-38 Lightning. Johnson and his
staff developed a jet prototype, the Shooting Star, in 143 days.
(MC, 5/22/02)(MT, Summer/04, p.7)
1943 Jul 18, The US Navy
airship K-74 was shot down by anti-aircraft fire from a German
U-boat.
(HN, 7/18/98)
1943 Jacqueline "Jackie"
Cochran convinced the U.S. military that qualified women pilots
could free men for combat duty by performing non-combat missions.
Supported by Eleanor Roosevelt and Army aviation chief General Henry
H. "Hap" Arnold, Cochran's goal was achieved with the formation of
the Women's Air Force Service Pilots (WASPs).
(HNPD, 2/25/99)
1944 Mar 23, Nicholas Alkemade
fell 5,500 meter without a parachute and lived. [see Mar 25]
(SS, 3/23/02)
1944 Mar 25, RAF Sgt. Nickolas
Alkemade survived a jump from his Lancaster bomber from 18,000 feet
without a parachute. [see Mar 23]
(MC, 3/25/02)
1944 Jun 13, Only one week
after the Normandy invasion, the first German V-1 buzz bomb, also
called the doodlebug (Fieseler Fi-103), was fired at London. The
first guided missile to be used in force, the V-1 was powered by a
pulse-jet engine and resembled a small aircraft. Only one of the
four missiles London saw that day caused any casualties, but a
steady stream of V-1s causing severe damage and casualties fell on
London in coming months. At times, nearly 100 bombs fell each day.
Many German buzz bombs never reached their targets because of
primitive guidance systems or because they were destroyed in flight
by anti-aircraft fire or intercepting Allied fighters.
(AP, 6/13/97)(HNQ, 6/13/98)(MC, 6/13/02)
1944 Jul 4, Stanley Hiller Jr.
(1925-2006) flew his XH-44 helicopter free from its tether for the
1st time in the stadium of UC Berkeley. A public demonstration took
place in SF on Aug. 30, 1944.
(SSFC, 4/23/06,
p.B7)(www.helis.com/timeline/hiller.php)
1944 Jul 25, The Messerschmitt
262 became the 1st jet fighter used in combat.
(SC, 7/25/02)
1944 Nov, An Int'l. Civil
Aviation Conference established English as the air traffic control
language. The Chicago Convention on air travel attempted to lay down
technical and legal rules for the post-war order in int’l. air
transport.
(SFC, 5/16/03, p.A25)(Econ, 10/4/03, p.66)(Econ,
7/9/11, p.69)
1946 Mar 8, The 1st helicopter
licensed for commercial use was in NYC.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1946 Apr 24, The Chief of Naval
Operations, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, ordered the establishment of
the Blue Angels team. In 1985 funding for the program was $4.2
million, about half the cost of replacements for the two A-4 jets.
By 2005 21 pilots died during Angels shows. Navy officials said the
super-trained unit and its dazzling displays are valuable in
attracting young and talented recruits into the Navy and Air Force.
By 2009 on the average, one F/A-18 used approximately 8,000 pounds
or 1,300 gallons of JP-5 jet fuel at a cost of roughly $1,378. Fat
Albert, which transports the crew to shows, holds 46,000 pounds of
fuel.
(www.navy.com/about/navylife/onduty/blueangels/faq/)(http://tinyurl.com/ydn8pes)
1946 May 28, The US Army Air
Force initiated the Nuclear Energy for the Propulsion of Aircraft
program (NEPA). Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corp. was selected to
study the possibility of developing a long range strategic bomber
powered by a nuclear reactor.
(AH, 2/03,
p.52)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Nuclear_Propulsion)
1946 Heathrow Airport, a base
near London for fighter planes during WWII, was converted to
civilian use.
(Econ, 3/29/08, p.91)
1947 May 1, Radar for
commercial and private planes was 1st demonstrated.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1947 Jun 17, Pan Am Airways was
chartered as the 1st worldwide passenger airline.
(Hem., 2/96, p.44)(MC, 6/17/02)
1947 Jul 8, In New Mexico the
Roswell Daily Record reported the military’s capture of a flying
saucer. It became know as the Roswell Incident. Officials later
called the debris a "harmless, high-altitude weather balloon. In
1994 the Air Force released a report saying the wreckage was part of
a device used to spy on the Soviets.
(SFC, 6/23/96, p.T4)(USAT, 6/28/96, p.7D)
1947 Aug 10, William Odom set a
solo record by completing a round-the-world flight in 73 hours and 5
minutes, landing at Chicago's Douglas Airport.
(AP, 8/10/97)
1947 Aug 25, Marion Carl, US
Navy test pilot, set a world speed record of 651 mph in a D-558-I at
Muroc Field (later Edwards AFB), Ca. He was shot to death in Oregon
by a house robber in 1998 at age 82.
(SFC, 6/30/98, p.A3)(chblue.com, 8/25/01)
1947 Oct 14, Air Force test
pilot Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager (24) flew the experimental Bell X-1
[Bell XS-1] rocket plane aircraft and broke the sound barrier to
Mach 1.07 for the first time over Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.,
which was then called Muroc Army Air Field. The area has the largest
dry lake bed in the world, a 44-square mile area known as Rogers
Lake. Suspended from the belly of a Boeing B-29, Glamorous Glennis
was dropped at 10:26 a.m. from a height of 20,000 feet. Yeager (who
had broken two ribs in a riding accident the night before) fired the
four rocket motor chambers in pairs, breaking through the sound
barrier as he increased airspeed to almost 700 mph and climbed to an
altitude of 43,000 feet. The XS-1 remained at supersonic speeds for
20.5 seconds, with none of the buffeting that characterized
high-speed subsonic flight. The 14-minute flight was Yeager’s ninth
since being named primary pilot in June 1947. The Air Force and the
National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (the forerunner of NASA)
did not make the event public until Jun 10, 1948.
(SFC, 8/5/96, p.A3)(SFC, 10/13/97, p.A7)(AP,
10/14/97)(HNPD, 10/14/98)
1947 Nov 2, Howard Hughes
piloted his huge wooden airplane, known as the Spruce Goose, on its
only flight, which lasted 70 sec. over Long Beach Harbor in
California. The plane had an 8-story tail and a 320-foot wingspan.
It was designed to take seven hundred soldiers into battle. The
plane had a wing span longer than a football field, and was powered
by 8 engines and was crafted out of 200 tons of plywood. The war
ended before the plane was deployed, but Hughes proved the Spruce
Goose's was air-worthy.
(AP, 11/2/97)(SFC, 7/29/98, p.A20)(HN,
11/2/98)(MC, 11/2/01)
1947 The first airport
duty-free store opened at Shannon Airport, Ireland.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R49)
1948 Mar 23, John Cunningham
set a world altitude record at 54,492' (18,133 meters).
(SS, 3/23/02)
1948 May 5, 1st air squadron of
jets aboard a carrier
(MC, 5/5/02)
1948 Jun 26, The Berlin
Airlift began in earnest as the United States, Britain and France
started ferrying supplies to the isolated western sector of Berlin,
after the Soviet Union cut off land and water routes. The Soviets
had been harassing the French, British and American authorities in
Berlin for weeks, trying to force them from the city. Finally, when
all surface routes to the city were blockaded, it became clear that
an airlift through the Allied sectors was the only way to re-supply
the 2 million West Berliners. In spite of the enormous human and
financial cost, “Operation Vittles” supplied food, fuel and hope to
beleaguered citizens until the Soviet barricades were finally lifted
on May 12, 1949. In 2010 Richard Reeves authored “Daring Young Men:
The Heroism and Triumph of the Berlin Airlift, June 1948-May 1949.”
(AP, 6/26/98)(HN,
6/26/99)(http://tinyurl.com/gqhi)(Econ, 1/2/10, p.63)
1948 Jul 1, New York
International Airport at Idlewild, later renamed John F. Kennedy
International Airport, was officially opened.
(AP, 7/1/98)
1948 The John Murtha Airport
opened in Jonestown, Pennsylvania. From 1989-2009 Congressman John
Murtha steered some $150,000,000 to the airport. In 2009 there were
a total of 18 commercial flights per week, all of which went to
Dulles Airport in Washington, DC.
(http://tinyurl.com/nsdv8k)(Econ, 1/23/10, p.26)
1949 Feb 26, A USAF plane began
a 1st nonstop around-the-world flight.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1949 Mar 2, The Lucky Lady II
(USAF B-50 Superfortress), landed at Fort Worth , Texas, after
completing the first non-stop, round-the-world flight: 23,452-mis in
94 hours.
(AP, 3/2/98)(SC, 3/2/02)
1949 May 13, The 1st
British-produced jet bomber, Canberra, made its 1st test flight.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1949 Jul 27, The British
36-seat jet-propelled De Havilland Comet 1 flew for the first time.
(www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Commercial_Aviation/Opening_of_Jet_era/Tran6.htm)
1949 Sep 30, The Berlin airlift
ended its operation after 277,264 flights. Through accidents 31
Americans lost their lives in support of the airlift. The Berlin
Airlift, which began on June 26, 1948, and lasted 321 days,
consisted of 272,264 flights by British and American airmen. They
transported some 2.3 million tons of food to supply the 2.1 million
residents of the blockaded portion of the city. The operation ended
after 278,288 flights and delivery of 2,326,406 tons of supplies. In
2010 Richard Reeves authored “Daring Young Men: The Heroism and
Triumph of the Berlin Airlift, June 1948-May 1949.”
(EWH, 1968, p.1180)(AP, 9/30/97)(SFC, 5/12/98,
p.A14)(HNQ, 7/9/98)(SSFC, 3/28/10, p.f3)
1950 Apr 8, A US Navy privateer
airplane flew from Wiesbaden, West Germany, to spy over the Soviet
Union with 10 people on board. Soviet reconnaissance spotted the
plane over Latvia and shot it down.
(SFEC,12/21/97, p.A26)
1950 Apr 11, A US B-29 bomber
was shot down above Latvia.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1950 Apr 18, The first
transatlantic jet passenger trip was made.
(HN, 4/18/98)
1951 The US Atomic Energy
Commission and the Air Force instituted the Aircraft Nuclear
propulsion development Program (ANP). It ended in 1961 under Pres.
John F. Kennedy.
(AH, 2/03, p.52, 56)
1952 Apr 15, The 1st B-52
prototype test flight was made.
(MC, 4/15/02)
1952 Apr 21, BOAC began 1st
passenger service with jets from London to Rome.
(MC, 4/21/02)
1952 May 1, TWA introduced
tourist class.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1952 May 2,The British
Overseas Aircraft Corporation (BOAC), the national British carrier,
introduced the world’s 1st commercial jet airliner service. Initial
flights took passengers from London to Johannesburg in South Africa,
with stops.
(www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Commercial_Aviation/Opening_of_Jet_era/Tran6.htm)
1952 May 3, The first airplane
landed at geographic North Pole. It was a ski-modified U.S. Air
Force C-47, piloted by Lieutenant Colonel William P. Benedict
(d.1974) of California and Lieutenant Colonel Joseph O. Fletcher of
Oklahoma. In 2002 Charles B. Compton authored "Born to Fly: Some
Life Sketches of Lieutenant Colonel William P. Benedict."
(Polar Times, Fall, 97)(CBC)
1952 KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
began offering first class passengers ceramic houses filled with
liquor. Industry rules capped handouts at 75 cents, but there was no
limit on booze. In 2008 the 89th house in the series made it debut
on Oct 7, the airline’s 89th birthday.
(WSJ, 5/31/08, p.A1)
1953 May 18, Jacqueline Cochran
became the first woman to break the sound barrier as she piloted a
North American F-86 Canadair over Rogers Dry Lake, Calif.
(AP, 5/18/97)
1953 Jul 9, The 1st helicopter
passenger service began in NYC.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1953 Aug 7, Eastern Airlines
entered the jet age with the Electra prop-jet.
(MC, 8/7/02)
1953 Aug 21, Marion Carl in
Douglas Skyrocket reached a record 25,370 m.
(SC, 8/21/02)
1953 Oct 19, America's
first ever non-stop transcontinental service began with flights by
American Airlines using DC-7 aircraft.
(www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Commercial_Aviation/Opening_of_Jet_era/Tran6.htm)
1953 Nov 20, Scott Crossfield
(1921-2006), test pilot for the National Advisory Committee for
Aeronautics (NACA), flew a D-558-II Skyrocket to a record speed of
over 1,320 mph.
(SFC, 4/21/06, p.B9)
1953 Dec 12, Chuck Yeager, test
pilot for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA),
reached Mach 2.43 in Bell X-1A rocket plane.
(SFC, 4/21/06, p.B9)
1954 Feb 6, A US Air Force
4-engine RC-121 Super Constellation, one of the new flying radar
stations, crashed in the shallows of San Pablo Bay. All 13 crew
members survived.
(SFC, 2/6/04, p.E12)
1954 Apr 1, U.S. Air Force
Academy was founded in Colorado. President Dwight Eisenhower signed
a bill authorizing the establishment of an Air Force Academy,
similar to West Point and Annapolis. On July 11, 1955, the first
class was sworn in at Lowry Air Force Base. The academy moved to a
permanent site near Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 1958.
(HN, 4/1/98)(HNQ, 2/22/99)(MC, 4/1/02)
1954 Jul 5, The B-52A bomber
made its maiden flight.
(MC, 7/5/02)
1954 Jul 15, The Boeing “Dash
80,” a prototype of the 707, made its first test flight.
(NPub, 2002, p.17)
1954 Aug 3, The 1st VTOL
(Vertical Take-off & Land) aircraft was flown.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1954 Aug 29, The SF
International Airport’s (SFO) Terminal 2 opened with a ceremony led
by Mayor Robinson. Mills Field became SF Airport.
(SFEC, 5/16/99, Z1 p.4)(SSFC, 8/22/04, p.F8)
1954 Col. John Paul Stapp, an
Air Force medical researcher, accelerated to 632 mph on a rocket
powered sled in 5 sec. The sled then decelerated to a dead stop in
1.4 sec. with 40 times the pull of gravity.
(SFC, 11/18/99, p.C7)
1954 In Lebanon Beirut Int’l.
Airport opened. In 1998 a new $460 million airport was under
construction.
(WSJ, 4/6/98, p.A1)y
1955 Feb 26, G.F. Smith became
the 1st aviator to bail out at supersonic speed.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1955 May 21, The first
transcontinental round-trip solo flight was completed.
(HN, 5/21/98)
1955 Jun 11, The 1st jet
magnesium airplane was flown.
(SC, 6/11/02)
1955 Aug 4, The U-2
reconnaissance prototype made its first flight.
(NPub, 2002, p.17)
1955 Sep 17, A US Convair B-36
bomber took off from Carswell AFB, Texas, becoming the first
aircraft in the world to fly with a nuclear reactor. Over the next 2
years the Convair Crusader made 47 flights.
(AH, 2/03, p.51)
1955 In England Heathrow
Airport’s Terminal 2 was completed.
(Econ, 3/29/08, p.91)
1956 Jul 23, The Bell X-2
rocket plane set a world aircraft speed record of 3,050 kph.
(MC, 7/23/02)
1957 Jan 16, Three B-52's
(accompanied at first by two spare aircraft) took off from Castle
Air Force Base in California on the first nonstop, round-the-world
flight by jet planes, which lasted 45 hours and 19 minutes.
(AP, 1/16/07)
1957 Jan 18, A trio of B-52's
completed the first nonstop, round-the-world flight by jet planes,
landing at March Air Force Base in California after more than 45
hours aloft.
(AP, 1/18/07)
1957 Apr 11, The Ryan X-13
Vertijet became the 1st jet to take-off and land vertically.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1957 May, Two US fighter planes
were scrambled and ordered to shoot down an unidentified flying
object (UFO) over the English countryside. This was only made public
on Oct 20, 2008, when Britain made public secret files on UFOs.
(Reuters, 10/20/08)
1957 Jul 16, Marine Maj. John
Glenn set a transcontinental speed record when he flew a jet from
California to New York in 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8 seconds.
(AP, 7/16/97)
1958 Mar 25, Canada’s era of
supersonic flight began, when pilot Jan Zurakowski took off from
Malton Airport near Toronto in an Avro CF-105 Arrow for a 35-minute
maiden flight. Less than a month later, Zurakowski flew the Arrow at
Mach 1.5 at an altitude of 50,000 feet. In spite of the aircraft’s
early promise, the Canadian government scrapped the project before
the Arrow could be put into production.
(HNPD, 8/21/00)
1958 Mar 29, Aerial circus star
Clyde Pangborn died. He and playboy Hugh Herndon, Jr. complete the
first nonstop flight across the Pacific Ocean in 1931.
(HN, 10/2/99)(ON, 1/03, p.10)
1958 May 7, Howard Johnson set
an aircraft altitude record in F-104.
(HN, 5/7/98)
1958 May 16, A man endured a
record 82.6 G for .04 seconds on a water-braked rocket sled at
Holloman Air Force Base. He was hospitalized for 3 days for
recovery.
(SFEC, 7/2/00, Z1 p.2)
1958 Jul, Soviet fighter planes
shot down an RB-50G US reconnaissance plane over the east coast of
the USSR. In 2002 William E. Burrows authored “by Any Means
Necessary: America’s Secret Air War in the Cold War.”
(AH, 6/02, p.70)
1958 Aug 29, Air Force Academy
opened in Colorado Springs, Colo.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1958 Oct 4, The first
trans-Atlantic passenger jetliner service was begun by British
Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) with flights between London and
New York.
(AP, 10/4/97)
1958 Oct 26, Pan American
Airways pilot Samuel H. Miller (d.2001 at 84) flew the first Boeing
707 passenger service jetliner from New York’s Idlewild Airport
(later JFK) to Paris; the trip took eight hours and 41 minutes. 111
passengers flew aboard the Clipper America and a ticket cost
$489.60. The plane was christened a week earlier by Mamie
Eisenhower. The first New York London transatlantic jet passenger
service was inaugurated by BOAC. [see Oct 4]
(AP, 10/26/97)(WSJ, 10/23/98, p.W6)(HN,
10/26/98)(SFC, 9/12/01, p.A21)
1958 Dec 10, The first domestic
passenger jet flight took place in the United States as a National
Airlines Boeing 707 flew 111 passengers from New York City to Miami.
(AP, 12/10/97)
1958 Passenger service by air
over the Atlantic exceeded passenger steamship crossings for the 1st
time.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
1959 Jun 8, The NASA rocket
powered X-15 made its first glide flight.
(http://history.nasa.gov/x15/chrono.html)
1959 Sep 15, Scott Crossfield
(1921-2006) flew the rocket-powered X-15 faster and higher than any
aircraft in history.
(NPub, 2002, p.19)
1959 Sep 17, The North American
Aviation X-15 rocket plane, piloted by Scott Crossfield, made its
first powered flight.
(SFC, 4/21/06,
p.B9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Scott_Crossfield)
1959 Industrialist Henry Kremer
offered the Kremer Prizes of £5,000 for the first man-powered
aeroplane to fly a figure-of-eight course round two markers
half-a-mile apart.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human-powered_flight)
1960 May 17, The YF4H-1 Phantom
fighter and Douglas DC-8 were unveiled.
(NPub, 2002, p.19)
1961 Apr 30, Eastern Airlines
began the 1st shuttle flights began between Wash DC, Boston and NYC.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1961 May 26, A USAF bomber flew
the Atlantic in a record of just over three hours.
(HN, 5/26/98)
1961 Jul 24, A US commercial
plane was hijacked to Cuba and began a trend.
(MC, 7/24/02)
1961 Nov 1, Pres. J.F. Kennedy
signed executive order 10971 creating a board of three members to
investigate a dispute between TWA and certain of its employees.
(www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/jfkeo/eo/10971.htm)
1961 United Airlines merged
with Capital Airlines and became the world’s largest commercial
airline.
(WSJ, 12/6/02, p.A1)
1962 American Airlines rolled
out its proprietary computerized reservation system, Sabre.
(Econ, 4/3/04, p.70)
1963 Jun 27, USAF Major Robert
A. Rushworth reached an altitude of 53.9 miles in the X-15.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_X-15)
1963 Aug 22, The X-15 aircraft
set an altitude record of 67 miles.
(NPub, 2002, p.20)
1964 Apr, In Marin County, Ca.,
Danny Nowell (11) was caught by the hand on a hot-air balloon rope
and went airborne for about 10 minutes and 2 miles before
being rescued.
(SFC, 10/20/09, p.A1)
1964 The US used an unmanned
aerial vehicle (UAV) called the Firebee, a small jet-powered drone,
for taking photographs over China. It was launched from another
plane and released a parachute upon return for pickup by a
helicopter. It was later used in the Vietnam war.
(Econ, 12/8/07, TQ p.23)
1966 Apr 13, Pan Am placed a
$525,000,000 order for 25 Boeing 747s. The 747 jumbo jet
revolutionized mass air transportation.
(MC, 4/13/02)(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
1966 Jul 8, A US airline strike
began and lasted until Aug 19th.
(MC, 7/8/02)
1967 Sep, The British, French
and German governments signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to
start development of the 300 seat Airbus A300 in order to compete
with American companies. Airbus Industrie was formally set up in
1970.
(www.absoluteastronomy.com/reference/airbus)
1967 Apr 9, The 1st Boeing 737
rolled out.
(MC, 4/9/02)
1967 Trudy Baker, Rachel Jones
and Donald Bain authored “Coffee, Tea or Me: The Uninhibited Memoirs
of Two Airline Stewardesses.” The pseudonymous author turned out to
be a male airline publicist.
(http://tinyurl.com/33hh6e)(Econ, 5/5/07, p.105)
1968 Jun 30, The Lockheed C-5A
Galaxy, a large US Air Force transport plane, made its first flight.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-5_Galaxy)
1968 Jul 15, Commercial air
travel began between US & USSR.
(www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1968/1968%20-%201275.html)
1968 Aug 21, William Dana
reached 81.53 km. in the last high-altitude X-15 flight.
(http://pages.prodigy.net/pxkb94ars/Astro_X-15_Flights_9.htm)
1968 Sep 30, The 1st Boeing 747
was rolled out of the Everett, Wa., assembly building.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747)
1968 Nov 23, Five Cubans
hijacked a US B-727 jet, from Chicago to Cuba.
(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)
1968 Nov 24, Three Latins
hijacked a US B-707 jet, from New York’s Kennedy Int’l. to Cuba.
Pena Soltren, a US citizen, and two accomplices used weapons hidden
in a diaper bag to hijack Pan Am Flight 281. In 2009 Luis Armando
Pena Soltren (66) voluntarily returned to the same airport to
surrender and face prosecution. On Jan 4, 2011, Soltren was
sentenced to 15 years in prison.
(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)(AP, 10/12/09)(SFC,
1/5/11, p.A4)
1968 Dec 5, Eduardo Castera, a
Latin successfully hijacked a B-727 from Tampa to Cuba.
(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)
1968 Dec 11, Two blacks
successfully hijacked a DC-8 from St. Louis to Cuba.
(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)
1968 Dec 28, Israel attacked
the Beirut Int’l. Airport, destroying 13 civilian planes. This was
in response to an attack on an Israeli airliner in Athens by the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Israeli_raid_on_Lebanon)
1968 Dec 31, The Soviet Union's
TU-144, similar in appearance to the Concorde, made its 1st flight.
The first Tu-144S production aircraft crashed at the 1973 Paris Air
Show.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-144)
1969 Feb 9, The Boeing 747, the
world's largest airplane, made its 1st commercial flight. The Juan
T. Trippe, named after the founder of Pan Am, was sold in 2000 to a
South Korea couple, who transformed it into an aviation themed
restaurant. The venture failed in 2005 and the plane was demolished
in late 2010.
(www.boeing.com/commercial/747family/pf/pf_milestones.html)(SFC,
12/13/10, p.A2)
1969 Mar 2, The Concorde
jetliner's 1st test flight took place in Bristol, England.
(www.xent.com/pipermail/fork/Week-of-Mon-20031013/026200.html)
1969 Apr 9, The maiden flight
of Concorde 002 was from Filton to Bristol.
(www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects/aeronautics/1977-45.aspx)
1969 Jun 4, A 22-year-old man
sneaked into wheel pod of a jet parked in Havana & survived a
9-hr flight to Spain despite thin oxygen levels at 29,000 ft.
(MC, 6/4/02)
1969 Oct 5, Lieutenant Eduardo
Guerra Jimenez, a Cuban defector, entered US air space undetected
and landed his Soviet-made MiG-17 at Homestead Air Force Base near
Miami, Florida, where the presidential aircraft Air Force One was
waiting to return President Richard M. Nixon to DC.
(www.missilesofkeywest.bravepages.com/penetrated.htm)
1969 Dec 12, PanAm signed for
the first delivery of the new Boeing 747-100. Commercial service
began Jan 21, 1970.
(Econ, 11/4/06, p.21)(http://tinyurl.com/ye3vwv)
1969 Dec 30, The US Federal
Aviation Administration certified the Boeing 747-100 for commercial
service.
(www.boeing.com/commercial/747family/pf/pf_milestones.html)
1969 Pan Am selected Najeeb
Halaby (d.2003 at 87), former FAA head, as successor to chairman
Juan Trippe. Halaby served 3 years as CEO. His daughter later became
Queen Noor of Jordan.
(SFC, 7/4/03, p.A25)
1969 Embraer SA, an aircraft
maker, was founded by Brazil’s military dictatorship in an effort to
develop an aviation industry. The company was privatized in 1994.
(WSJ, 9/13/04, p.A8)(Econ, 9/11/10, SR p.10)
1970 Jan 21, The Boeing 747-100
made its 1st commercial transatlantic flight from NY to London. The
plane was 231 feet long with a wing span of 195 feet. It could seat
400 people in a cabin 182 feet long.
(WSJ, 7/19/96,
p.B5)(www.boeing.com/commercial/747family/pf/pf_milestones.html)
1970 Mar 25, The Concorde, an
Anglo-French airplane, made its first supersonic flight.
(HN,
3/24/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde)
1970 Apr 30, Yoshimi Tanaka and
a group of students of the Red Army Faction, including Shiro Akagi,
seized a Japan Airlines jet and flew to Pyongyang, N. Korea, in
Japan's first ever case of air piracy. In 1996 Tanaka was sentenced
to 12 years in prison.
(http://tinyurl.com/3c4bk7)(AP,
6/5/07)(www.tkb.org/KeyLeader.jsp?memID=102)
1970 Aug 1,
W. Lain Guthrie (d.1997 at 84), a commercial airline pilot, refused
to dump kerosene into the atmosphere as had been common practice. He
kept his DC-8 on the ground and ordered the ground crew to drain the
waste fuel from the previous flight. He was fired but other pilots
supported him and he was reinstated and the industry stopped its
dumping.
(SFC, 3/28/97, p.D2)
1970 Sep 13, The supersonic
airliner Concorde landed for the 1st time at Heathrow airport.
(www.aviation-news.co.uk/concordeChronology.html)
1970 Oct 24, The X24A lifting
body exceeded Mach 1. The X-24A was the Martin Corporation's
subsonic test version of the US Air Force's preferred manned lifting
body configuration. The lifting bodies were used to demonstrate the
ability of pilots to maneuver and safely land wingless vehicles
designed to fly back to Earth from space and be landed like an
airplane at a predetermined site.
(NPub, 2002,
p.22)(www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Movie/X-24A/index.html)
1970 Airbus Industrie was
formally set up following an agreement between Aerospatiale (France)
and Deutsche Aerospace (Germany). In 1971 it was joined by CASA
(Spain). The name "Airbus" was taken from a nonproprietary term used
by the airline industry in the 1960s to refer to a commercial
aircraft of a certain size and range, as term was acceptable to the
French linguistically.
(www.absoluteastronomy.com/reference/airbus)
1971 Feb 4, Rolls-Royce
collapsed due to rising development costs on the RB.211, the sole
powerplant selected for the Lockheed TriStar.
(http://widebodyaircraft.nl/chro1971.htm)
1971 Jun , Southwest Airlines,
co-founded by Herbert Kelleher, made its 1st flight.
(WSJ, 1/13/03, p.A1)(WSJ, 7/11/03, p.A6)
1971 May 20, The US Congress
cancelled the supersonic SST airplane program.
(WSJ, 7/26/00,
p.A26)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_2707)
1971 Nov 24, On Thanksgiving
eve DB Cooper boarded Flight 305 in Portland, Or., and demanded
$200,000 with the threat of a bomb. He parachuted from a Northwest
Airlines 727 with the money over the Cascade Mountains near Ariel,
Wash., and was never seen again. FBI agent Ralph Himmelsbach
wrote the book NORJAK that described the case. A packet containing
$5,880 of the ransom money was found in 1980 on the north shore of
the Columbia River, just west of the Washington city of Vancouver.
In 2011 evidence was presented that Lynn Doyle Cooper (d.1999) of
Oregon, a Korean war veteran, was the hijacker.
(SFEC, 11/17/96, Z1 p.5)(AP, 11/24/97)(SFC,
8/4/11, p.A8)
1972 Jan 26, A DC-9 exploded
over Serbska Kamenice, Czechoslovakia, and attendant Vesna Vulovic
dropped 33,300 feet and survived following a 27-day coma and a
16-month recovery. The cause of the explosion has never been
established, but was attributed by the Yugoslav and Czechoslovakian
authorities to a bomb placed on the plane by a Croatian Terrorist
group, known as the Ustasa.
(SFEC, 3/14/99, Z1
p.10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesna_Vulovic)
1972 Feb 5, It was reported
that the United States had agreed to sell 42 F-4 Phantom jets to
Israel.
(www.historynet.com/tdih0205.htm)
1972 Apr 7, Richard McCoy
(1942-1974), Vietnam veteran and pilot, hijacked a United Air Lines
jet and extorted $500,000 in copycat version of the DB Cooper crime.
He parachuted into a Utah desert, but was caught with the money in
his house and was sentenced to 40 years in prison. He escaped and
died in a shootout with FBI agent Nicholas O’Hara in Nov, 1974.
(SFEC, 11/17/96, Z1
p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_McCoy,_Jr.)
1972 Apr 25, Hans-Werner Grosse
(b.1922), German glider pilot, glided 907.7 miles (1,461 km) in an
AS-W-12.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Werner_Grosse)
1972 May 8, A Belgian Sabena
aircraft, bound for Tel Aviv, was hijacked by 4 Palestinians. At Lod
Intl. 2 hijackers were shot and killed by Israeli military
personnel, dressed as ground engineers. One passenger died 8 days
later as a result of her wounds. The two women hijackers were
subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment.
(www.prophetofdoom.net/Islamic_Terrorism_Timeline_1972.Islam)
1972 May 30, Three militants of
the Japanese Red Army (PFL) staged a machine-gun and hand-grenade
attack at the Lod Airport in Israel. 24 people were killed and a 100
injured. The terrorists found refuge in Lebanon until 1997 when they
were arrested. Kozo Okamoto served 13 years of a life sentence in
Israel. In 2000 Lebanon granted asylum to Kozo Okamoto. 4 other
Japanese Red Army members were deported to Japan.
(SFC, 2/19/96, p.A8)(SFC, 3/18/00, p.A3)
1972 Jun 18, BEA Trident
crashed after takeoff from Heathrow killing 118.
(MC, 6/18/02)
1972 Jul 31, George Wright,
dressed as a priest and using an alias, hijacked a Delta flight from
Detroit to Miami with four other BLA members and three children.
They released 86 other passengers in exchange for a $1 million
ransom and forced the plane to fly to Boston. There an international
navigator was taken aboard, and the plane was flown to Algeria,
where the hijackers sought asylum. Wright's associates were tracked
down, arrested, tried and convicted in Paris in 1976. In 2011 Wright
(68) was arrested in Portugal.
(www.edmontonsun.com/2011/09/27/us-fugitive-caught-after-41-years)
1972 Aug 21, The 1st hot air
balloon flight over the Alps.
(SC, 8/21/02)
1972 Oct 26, Igor Sikorsky
(b.1889), Ukraine-born helicopter pioneer, died in Connecticut.
(HNPD, 10/27/98)(ON, 3/06,
p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Sikorsky)
1972 Nov 10, Hijackers diverted
a jet to Detroit, demanding $10 million and ten parachutes.
(HN, 11/10/98)
1972 Nov, Three hijackers
threatened to crash a Southern Airways passenger flight after a
stopover in Birmingham, Ala. They threatened to crash into a
research reactor at Oak Ridge, Tenn. The airline turned over $ 2
million and a shootout took place in Orlando. The plane flew on to
Havana where the hijackers were arrested for 8 years. They returned
to Alabama in 1980 and received 20-25 year sentences.
(USAT, 6/11/03, p.2B)
1972 The Alaska Continental
Development Corp. merged with the financially troubled Alaska
Airlines. The airline soon became profitable in part due to the
Alaska oil pipeline.
(WSJ, 1/7/07, p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/6obvr7)
1973 Jan 29, Emily Howell
Warner (b.1939) became the 1st woman pilot permanently employed by a
commercial airline. Her first flight as co-pilot was on the Frontier
Airlines DHC-6 Twin Otter August 1, 1974.
(SSFC, 12/14/03,
p.D2)(http://members.tripod.com/~LAMKINS/Emily_Howell_Warner.txt)
1973 Feb 15, The US and Cuba
reached an anti-hijacking agreement.
(SFC, 7/9/96,
p.A8)(www.historyofcuba.com/history/time/timetbl4.htm)
1973 Jul 20, The Japanese Red
Army and Lebanese guerrillas hijacked a Japan Airlines plane over
the Netherlands. The passengers and crew were released in Libya
where the hijackers blew up the plane.
(SFC, 11/9/00,
p.C2)(www.cdi.org/friendlyversion/printversion.cfm?documentID=1771)
1973 Jul 27, Eddie Rickenbacker
(b.1890), American WW I fighter pilot, died in Zurich. He and
several associates bought Eastern Airlines in 1938 and guided it to
become one of the most profitable airlines in the postwar era.
(HNPD,
10/7/98)(www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=324)
1973 Sep 26, Concorde flew from
Washington DC to Paris in 3hr. 33m.
(www.concordesst.com/02.html)
1973 Nov 25, Three Palestinians
hijacked a KLM B747 enroute to New Delhi to Abu Dhabi.
(www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Terrorism/incidents.html)
1974 Feb 22, Samuel Joseph Byck
(1930–1974), an unemployed former tire salesman, attempted to hijack
a plane flying out of Baltimore-Washington International Airport. He
intended to crash into the White House in hopes of killing US
President Richard M. Nixon. Byck killed pilot Fred Jones and a
aviation officer George Neal Ramsburg before he was shot and wounded
by gunfire through the door of a Delta DC-9 airplane. Byck then shot
himself in the head.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Byck)
1974 Mar 8, Charles the Gaulle
Airport (aka Roissy I) opened outside of Paris.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_de_Gaulle_International_Airport)
1974 Aug 26, Charles Lindbergh
(72), the first man to fly solo, nonstop across the Atlantic, died
at his home in Hawaii. Lindbergh had 3 illegitimate children in
Germany with Brigitte Hesshaimer, a Munich hat maker. In 1998 A.
Scott Berg authored "Lindbergh." Earlier Lindbergh's daughter
authored her memoir "Under a Wing."
(AP, 8/26/97)(SFEC, 11/15/98, Par p.29)(SSFC,
10/24/04, Par p.2)
1975 Apr 25, 1st Boeing Jetfoil
revenue service began between Hong Kong and Macao.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1975 Tony Ryan (1921-2007),
Irish-born aviation entrepreneur, set up Guinness Peat Aviation with
money from Air Lingus, bankers in London and some of his own cash.
GPA rented planes to airlines around the world. Its IPO in 1992
stumbled and General Electric Co. picked up most of the company at a
bargain price.
(WSJ, 10/6/07, p.A17)
1976 Apr 26, Pan Am began
non-stop flights between NYC and Tokyo.
(www.wingnet.org/rtw/rtw006hh.htm)
1976 May 24, Britain and France
opened trans-Atlantic Concorde service to Washington. This was the
1st commercial supersonic transport (SST).
(AP, 5/24/97)
1976 Jun 27, An Air France
Airbus flight AF139, from Tel Aviv to Paris, was hijacked shortly
after departing Athens and taken to Uganda.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France)
1976 Jul 3, Israel launched its
daring mission to rescue 103 passengers and Air France crew members
being held at Entebbe Airport in Uganda by pro-Palestinian
hijackers.
(AP, 7/3/97)
1976 Jul 4, Jonathan Netanyahu,
brother of Benjamin, led and was killed in an Israeli raid called
Operation Thunderball that rescued the [105] hostages held at
Entebbe Airport in Uganda. The raid was by Sayeret Matkal, Israel’s
elite counter-terrorist unit led by Muki Betser, and it freed all
but 3 of the 104 Israeli and Jewish hostages and crew of an Air
France jetliner seized by pro-Palestinian hijackers. The events are
described by Muki Betser and Robert Rosenberg in "Secret Soldier,
The True Life of Israel’s Greatest Commando." 20 Ugandan soldiers, 1
Israeli officer, 3 hostages and 7 hijackers died. The hijacking was
linked to Carlos the Jackal, aka Ilich Ramirez Sanchez.
(SFC, 6/24/96, p.A19)(SFC, 7/16/96, p.E5)(AP,
7/4/97)(SFC,12/11/97, p.C2)(HN, 7/4/98)
1976 Jul 27, Kakuei Tanaka,
former PM (1972-1974) of Japan, was arrested for accepting a bribe
from the US Lockheed Corp. Tanaka was convicted in 1983 but
continued to fight the charges. A. Carl Kotchian (d.2008 at 94), a
Lockheed salesman, had testified that Lockheed had paid $12.6
million in bribes to Japanese businessmen and government officials.
(www.international.ucla.edu/eas/restricted/lockheed.htm)(Jap. Enc.,
BLDM, p. 216)(SFC, 12/24/08, p.B7)
1976 Jul 28, Eldon Joersz &
Geo Morgan set a world air speed record of 3,530 kph.
(SC, 7/28/02)
1976 Sep 10, 5 Croatian
terrorists captured a TWA-plane at La Guardia Airport, NY.
(http://nycslav.blogspot.com/2005/11/croatian-terroristsin-new-york.html)
1977 Sep 26, Sir Freddie Laker
began his cut-rate "Skytrain" service from London to NY. Laker
airways collapsed into bankruptcy in 1982.
(SSFC, 2/12/06,
p.B8)(www.cnn.com/almanac/9709/26/)
1977 Aug 23, The Gossamer
Condor 2 flew the first figure-of-eight, a distance of 2,172 meters
winning the first Kremer prize at Minter Field in Shafter,
California. It was built by Dr Paul B. MacCready and piloted by
amateur cyclist and hang-glider pilot Bryan Allen.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossamer_Condor)
1977 Oct 13, A Lufthansa Boeing
737, bound for Frankfurt, was hijacked by Palestinians shortly after
take-off. The plane is diverted to Rome's Fiumicino Airport. Almost
all of the passengers are German vacationers. "This is Captain
Martyr Mohammed speaking," announces one of the hijackers to the
Rome air-traffic controllers. "The group I represent demands the
release of our comrades in German prisons [see Oct 18].
(www.baader-meinhof.com/timeline/1977.html)
1977 Oct 18, West German
commandos stormed a hijacked Lufthansa jetliner that was on the
ground in Mogadishu, Somalia, freeing all 86 hostages and killing
three of the four hijackers, Palestinians of the Popular Front for
the Liberation of Palestine. In 1996 Suhaila al-Sayeh was sentenced
to 12 years in prison by a German court.
(SFC, 11/20/96, p.A17)(AP, 10/17/07)
1977 Nov 22, Regular passenger
service between New York and Europe on the supersonic Concorde began
on a trial basis.
(AP, 11/22/97)
1978 Mar 14, Clayton Thomas
(27) surrendered in Denver after hijacking United Flight 696 from
SF.
(SFC, 3/14/03, p.E8)
1978 Aug 17, The helium-filled
balloon, Double Eagle II, crossed the Atlantic in 6 days. The first
successful trans-Atlantic balloon flight ended as Americans Maxie
Anderson, Ben Abruzzo and Larry Newman landed outside Paris.
(AP, 8/17/97)(HN, 8/17/98)
1978 Sep 13, The US Navy's F-18
Hornet makes its public debut during rollout ceremonies in St.
Louis, Mo.
(www.boeing.com/defense-space/military/fa18/fa18_milestones.htm)
1978 Sep 15, Willy
Messerschmitt (b.1898), German aircraft builder, died in Munich.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willy_Messerschmitt)
1978 Oct 24, Pres. Carter
signed the Airline Deregulation Act. The main purpose of the act was
to remove government control from commercial aviation and expose the
passenger airline industry to market forces. Alfred Kahn (1917-2010)
was the head of America’s Civil Aeronautics Board and the driving
force behind the deregulation of air travel.
(WSJ, 10/5/04,
p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_Deregulation_Act)(Econ,
1/8/11, p.67)
1978 Dec 11, Six masked men
bound 10 employees at Lufthansa cargo area at NY Kennedy Airport
& made off with $5.8 M in cash & jewelry. Nicholas Pileggi
wrote "Wise Guys," which described his participation in the heist.
The robbery inspired the movie "Goodfellas."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lufthansa_heist)(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A3)
1979 Jan 23, The USAF's 388th
Tactical Fighter Wing at Hill AFB, Utah, became the first unit
anywhere to receive the F-16 Fighting Falcon. Lockheed Corp.
produced the F-16 fighter jet. It became the first production
military aircraft to incorporate a fly-by-wire control system.
(WSJ, 3/22/96, p.A-1)(NPub, 2002,
p.23)(www.f-16.net/timeline_1979.html)
1979 Jun 12, Cyclist Bryan
Allen (26) flew the manpowered Gossamer Albatross across the English
Channel. This was the first man powered craft to fly across the
English Channel. The bicycle plane was designed by Paul MacCready
(1925-2007).
(Hem, Nov.'95, p.138)(AP, 6/12/97)(WSJ, 9/1/07,
p.A4)
1979 Jun 20, Nikola Kavaja
(d.2008 at 77) hijacked a US passenger jet with the intention of
crashing it into Yugoslav Communist Party headquarters in Belgrade.
He abandoned his hijack mission in Ireland, saying at the time he
was not sure of the exact location of the downtown party office and
did not want innocent civilians to die if the jet missed the target.
(AP,
11/12/08)(www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/world/europe/12kavaja.html)
1980 May 8, Maxie Anderson (45)
and his son Kris (23) lifted off from Fort Baker in Marin Ct., Ca.,
in a helium-filled balloon to make the 1st transcontinental balloon
crossing.
(SFC, 5/6/05, p.F2)
1980 May 12, Maxie Anderson
(45) and his son Kris (23) completed the 1st balloon crossing of the
American continent as they landed their helium-filled balloon on
Canada’s Gaspe Peninsula. Their journey began May 8 in Marin Ct.,
Ca.
(SFC, 5/6/05, p.F2)
1980 Jun 10, A package bomb
injured United Airlines Pres. Percy Wood at his home in Lake Forest,
Ill. It was later attributed to the Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski.
(SFEC,11/9/97, Z1
p.4)(www.courttv.com/trials/unabomber/bombings.html)
1981 Feb, John King
(1917-2005), at the behest of PM Margaret Thatcher, became chairman
of British Airways with a brief to clean the company up for
privatization. Over the next 12 years he steered the company to
profitability.
(Econ, 7/16/05, p.54)(http://tinyurl.com/3xl527)
1981 Mar 2, A Pakistan Airways
Boeing 720 was hijacked by 3 Pakistani terrorists. The passengers
and crew were released March 15 in Syria.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/15/newsid_2818000/2818437.stm)
1981 May 1, American Airlines
instituted the 1st "frequent flyer" program to keep customers
returning.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)(http://tinyurl.com/2uvcut)
1981 May 26, 14 people were
killed when a Marine jet crashed onto the flight deck of the
aircraft carrier USS Nimitz off Florida.
(AP, 5/26/97)
1981 Jul 7, The 1st
solar-powered aircraft, Solar Challenger, crossed the English
Channel flying 163 miles from Paris to Canterbury. It was created by
Dupont and Paul MacCready.
(www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news/FactSheets/FS-054-DFRC.html)(Econ,
9/8/07, p.88)
1981 Aug 3, US air traffic
controllers (PATCO) went on strike, despite a warning from President
Reagan they would be fired. Most of the 13,000 controllers defied
Reagan’s order to return to work within 48 hours and were fired.
(AP, 8/3/02)(SFC, 10/4/02, p.A17)
1981 Oct 22, The Professional
Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) was decertified by the
US federal government for its strike the previous August.
(AP, 10/22/06)
1981 Nov 12, The Double Eagle V
landed in California 84 hours and 31 minutes following its Nov 10
launch in Japan. It was the 1st balloon to cross the Pacific ocean.
Rocky Aoki (1938-2008), founder of the Benihana steakhouse (1964),
was part of the crew.
(http://www.benihana.com/ballooning_history.asp)(SFC, 7/12/08, p.B5)
1982 Feb 5, Laker Airways,
founded in 1966 by Sir Freddie Laker, collapsed owing $351M.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laker_Airways)
1982 May 12, Braniff Airlines
ceased operations. N601BN "747 Braniff Place" made the very last
Braniff flight from Hawaii to Dallas/Fort Worth on May 13.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braniff_Airways)
1982 Jul 2, Larry Walters
(1949-1993), a Los Angeles truck driver, flew 16,000 feet into the
air with 42 helium balloons attached to a lawn chair. Walters
surprised an airline pilot, who radioed the control tower that he
had just passed a guy in a lawn chair with a gun. The weapon was to
shoot balloons and descend. Walters paid a $1,500 penalty for
violating air traffic rules. Eleven years later, he committed
suicide at age 44.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Walters)(SFC,
7/3/02, p.A17)(AP, 7/10/07)
1982 Aug 11, Pan Am flight 830
from Tokyo to Honolulu was bombed. One boy was killed and 15 people
were injured. In 1998 Mohammed Rashid, a Palestinian national, was
turned over to the US by Egypt on charges related to the bombing.
(SFC, 6/4/98,
p.A4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_830)
1982 Charles F. Ehret
(1923-2007), a scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, released
the “Argonne Anti-Jet-Lag Diet.”
(WSJ, 3/10/07, p.A4)
1982 Braniff Airlines, based in
Dallas, ceased operations with $1 billion in debt. Harding Lawrence
(d.2002 at 81) led the company from 1965-1980.
(SFC, 1/21/02, p.B5)
1982 The Pentagon acknowledged
for the 1st time the existence of a "stealth" aircraft.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
1982 A US federal law was
passed that prohibited airport revenue from being transferred to
local city general funds.
(SFC, 7/20/96, p.A11)
1983 Jun 2, A toilet caught
fire on Air Canada's DC-9 and 23 died at Cincinnati.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1983 Jun 27, Maxie Anderson and
Don Ida died during a balloon race.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1983 In Saudi Arabia the King
Khalid Int'l. Airport opened in Riyadh and was touted as the largest
in the world. One of the terminals was mothballed at opening and
remained so in 2008.
(WSJ, 8/20/96, p.A1)(Econ, 4/26/08, p.15)
1984 Jun 22, Richard Branson
led the inaugural flight of his Virgin Airlines from London to
Newark, NJ.
(Econ, 6/16/07, SR p.10)
1984 Dec 4, A five-day hijack
drama began as four armed men seized a Kuwaiti airliner en route to
Pakistan and forced it to land in Tehran, where the hijackers killed
American passenger Charles Hegna.
(AP, 12/4/04)
1984 Dec 9, In Iran a five-day
hijack drama ended when Iranian commandos captured the Kuwaiti
plane. 4 armed men had seized a Kuwaiti airliner en route to
Pakistan and forced it to land in Tehran, where the hijackers killed
American passenger Charles Hegna.
(AP, 12/4/04)
1984 Dec 14, The maiden flight
of NASA’s X-29, a forward swept wing aircraft, took place.
(NPub, 2002, p.24)
c1984 Air Serv International
was founded to ferry humanitarian workers to world hot spots.
(WSJ, 12/8/03, p.B1)
1985 Gulf Air, a joint venture
between Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar, decided to cut back its
services to Dubai. This prompted Dubai to launch its own airline.
The Emirates Airline began in the UAR with 2 rented planes and a $10
million investment from Dubai’s ruling family under the direction of
Maurice Flanagan. In 2005 the state-owned operation planned to
double its 73-plane fleet.
(WSJ, 1/11/05, p.A1)(Econ, 6/5/10, p.75)
1985 Ryanair was founded by
Cathal and Declan Ryan (after whom the company is named), Liam
Lonergan (owner of an Irish tour operator named Club Travel), and
noted Irish businessman Tony Ryan (1936-2007), founder of Guinness
Peat Aviation and father of Cathal and Declan. The small airline,
flying a short hop from Waterford to London, grew to become one of
Europe's largest carriers.
(WSJ, 10/6/07,
p.A17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryanair)
1986 Sep 5, The Pakistan army
stormed a hijacked US B-747 in Karachi and 22 people were killed. In
2001 Zayd Hassan Abd Al-latif Masud Al Safarini, jailed in Pakistan
for 15 years, arrived in Alaska and was expected to face a 1991
indictment for the 1986 hijacking of a Pan Am jet. In 2003 Safarini
pleaded guilty and agreed to 3 life sentences plus 25 years. On Jan
3, 2008, Pakistani authorities freed and deported four Palestinians
convicted in the hijacking.
(SFC, 10/2/01, p.A3)(SFC, 12/17/03, p.A4)(AP,
9/5/06)(AP, 1/3/08)
1986 Dec 23, The experimental
airplane Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, completed
the first non-stop, round-the-world flight without refueling as it
landed safely at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
(AP, 12/23/97)
1987 Mar, Britain’s PM Margaret
Thatcher privatized BAA (British Airports Authority). From a
lethargic government bureaucracy it grew to become a major airport
operator.
(TMC, 1994, p.1987)(WSJ, 9/24/96, p.A1)
1987 Apr 18, An unconscious
skydiver was rescued by another diver in mid-air.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1987 Japan privatized Japan
Airlines (JAL). By 2001 it required 3 state bailouts.
(Econ, 10/3/09, p.76)
1988 Mar 20, Eight-year-old
DeAndra Anrig found herself airborne when the string of her kite was
snagged by an airplane flying over Shoreline Park in Mountain View,
Calif. Not seriously hurt, she was lifted 10 feet off the ground and
carried 100 feet until she let go.
(AP, 3/20/98)
1988 Apr 23, A federal ban on
smoking during domestic airline flights of two hours or less went
into effect.
(AP, 4/23/98)(WSJ, 1/27/04, p.D12)
1988 Apr 23, Greek cycling
champion Kanellos Kanellopoulos pedaled a self-powered aircraft
named Daedalus 88 for 74 miles. The MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics
Department's Daedalus was a human-powered aircraft flew from
Iraklion Air Force Base on Crete, Greece, crashing in the sea just
short of the island of Santorini in 3 hours, 54 minutes. Daedalus 87
had crashed on Rogers Dry Lakebed on 17 February 1988, and was
rebuilt as a backup.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Daedalus)
1988 Jun 8, Nippon Airways
announced that painting eyeballs on Jets cut bird collisions by 20%.
(MC, 6/8/02)
1988 Dec 2, The 5 gunmen, who
hijacked Soviet Aeroflot jet, surrendered in Israel.
(http://tinyurl.com/hkvkb)
1988 Tony Ryan, the founder of
Guinness Peat Aviation, brought on Michael O’Leary to do whatever
was necessary to make Ryanair profitable. In 2007 Alan Ruddock
authored “Michael O’Leary: A Life in Full Flight.”
(Econ, 8/25/07, p.76)
1989 Mar 3, Machinists struck
Eastern Airlines and pilots honored the picket lines.
(SC,
3/3/02)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Airlines)
1989 Mar 4, Eastern Airlines
machinists went on strike and were joined by pilots and flight
attendants.
(AP, 3/4/99)
1989 Mar 5, Machinists striking
Eastern Airlines withdrew an immediate threat to picket the nation's
railroads, after a federal judge issued an order temporarily
prohibiting rail workers from honoring the Eastern picket lines.
(AP, 3/5/99)
1989 Mar 6, With nearly 90
percent of its pilots honoring the picket lines of striking
machinists, Eastern Airlines shut down operations on all but three
routes.
(AP, 3/6/99)
1989 Mar 9, Eastern Airlines
filed for bankruptcy.
(HN, 3/9/98)
1989 May 12, The nation's
largest airline computer reservation system, the American Airlines
Sabre system, shut down for nearly 12 hours, disrupting the
operations of thousands of travel agencies nationwide.
(AP, 5/12/99)
1989 May 25, Eastern Airlines
graduated its 1st class of non-union pilots.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1989 Jul 17, The controversial
B-2 Stealth bomber underwent its first test flight at Edwards Air
Force Base in California, two days after a technical problem forced
a postponement.
(AP, 7/17/99)
1989 Aug 13, 2 hot-air balloons
crashed at Alice Springs, Australia, and 13 were killed.
(MC, 8/13/02)
1989 Nov 1, A Scandinavian
Airlines System (SAS) and Finnair ban on smoking took effect for all
Nordic flights.
(http://tc.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/13/suppl_1/i20)
1989 Nov 21, A law banning
smoking on most domestic flights signed by President Bush.
(http://tinyurl.com/gf6zq)
1989 Nov 22, Eastern Airlines
pilots and flight attendants ended their strike. President Bush
vetoed a bill that would set up panel to investigate walkout. The
strike by machinists continued.
(http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1989-11/1989-11-22-ABC-11.html)
1990 Apr 18, Bankruptcy court
forced Frank Lorenzo (b.1940) to give up Eastern Airlines.
(www.airlinesafety.com/Unions/UnionVictoryAtEastern.htm)
1990 Aug 20, Three former
Northwest Airlines pilots were convicted in Minneapolis of flying
while intoxicated.
(AP, 8/20/00)
1990 Sep 29, The YF22 fighter,
an American prototype fighter aircraft designed by Northrop and
McDonnell Douglas, was first flown by Lockheed test pilot Dave
Ferguson.
(NPub, 2002,
p.25)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YF-23)
1990 Oct 11, The first flight
of the X-31 took place. The collaborative US-German Rockwell-MBB
X-31 Enhanced Fighter Maneuverability program was designed to test
fighter thrust vectoring technology.
(NPub, 2002,
p.25)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-31)
1990 Smoking was banned on US
domestic flights 6 hours or less.
(WSJ, 1/27/04, p.D12)
1991 Jun, Alaska Airlines began
the 1st regularly scheduled service from the US to the Soviet Far
East.
(WSJ, 1/7/07, p.A4)
1991 Aug 27, The first flight
of the YF23 V-22 Osprey tiltrotor took place.
(NPub, 2002, p.25)
1991 Sep 17, The first flight
of the McDonnell Douglas C-17 military cargo transport took place.
(NPub, 2002, p.25)
1991 Dec 4, Pan American World
Airways ceased operations. Pan Am’s records went to the Univ. of
Florida and artifacts went to the Historical Museum of South
Florida. However, a new, smaller version of Pan Am was later formed.
(AP, 12/4/01)(SSFC, 11/4/07, p.A9)
1992 Jun 26, Supreme Court
ruled that fund soliciting can be banned at airports.
(MC, 6/26/02)
1992 Boeing and Airbus reached
a truce whereby EU aid to Airbus was limited to a third of
development costs and Boeing government subsidies to 4% of its
turnover. The truce ended in 1998 as Airbus approached 50% of the
market.
(Econ, 6/4/05, p.59)
1993 Nov 18, American Airlines
flight attendants went on strike. They ended their job action four
days later.
(AP, 11/18/98)
1993 Nov, Wang Zhihua boarded a
scheduled flight from Hangzhou to Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian
province opposite Taiwan. He showed fake explosives to the crew,
saying he had a bomb, and forced the plane to fly to Taiwan. In 2008
Wang was returned to China and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
(AP, 12/5/08)
1994 Feb 10, Jeannie Flynn
(b.1966)), the first female combat pilot in the US Air Force,
finished flight training in the F-15.
(http://tinyurl.com/n5ehhg)(NPub, 2002, p.26)
1994 Jun 7, Vicki Van Meter
912) of Meadville, Pa., completed a trans-Atlantic flight, landing
in Glasgow, Scotland. She was accompanied by her flight instructor.
(www.zinkle.com/p/articles/mi_m1590/is_n3_v51/ai_15823355)
1994 Jun, Carlo Toto, an
Italian contractor, purchased a Boeing 737 at a court auction and
began a small-charter airline service that became Air One.
(WSJ, 9/24/04, p.A13)
1994 Jul 12, The shareholders
and employees of United Airlines approved a deal giving the majority
ownership to the employees (76,000+).
(Hem, Dec. 94, p.13)
1994 Oct 31, An American Eagle
French-built ATR-72, en route from Indianapolis to Chicago, crashed
in Roselawn, Ind., and killed 68 people. In 1997 American Airlines
and 7 other companies settled a suit filed by relatives for $110
million.
(SFC, 9/23/97, p.A4)(AP, 10/31/97)
1994 An investor group led by
Banco Bozano, Simonsen SA, bought the loss-ridden aircraft maker
Embraer SA from the Brazilian government.
(WSJ, 3/21/97, p.A17)(WSJ, 9/13/04, p.A8)
1995 Feb 28, Denver
International Airport opened after 16 months of delays and $3.2
billion in budget overruns. A $250 million automated baggage
handling system contributed to the delays. United Airlines gave up
on the system in 2005.
(AP, 2/28/98)(WSJ, 6/7/05, p.D5)
1995 Nov, Air One launched
service between Rome and Milan, a route on which Alitalia had held a
monopoly.
(WSJ, 9/24/04, p.A13)
1995 The US Predator
surveillance drone was 1st used over Bosnia. In 2001 it was equipped
with the hell-fire missile and used over Afghanistan. This unmanned
aerial vehicle (UAV) flew as slowly as a Cessna.
(SFC, 11/23/01, p.A12)(Econ, 12/8/07, TQ p.22)
1995 Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou
(b.1967), a Greek-Cypriot-born British entrepreneur, founded
easyJet, a budget airline.
(Econ, 11/22/08,
p.75)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EasyJet)
1995 Mexico created Cintra, a
holding company to rescue Aeromexico and Mexicana airlines.
(Econ, 3/26/05, p.63)
1996 Jan 4, The Boeing Sikorsky
Comanche helicopter was unveiled.
(NPub, 2002, p.26)
1996 Aug 8, Frank A. Whittle
(89), inventor of the Jet engine, died.
(MC, 8/8/02)
1996 Fokker went
bankrupt, and the last new Fokker-50 was delivered to Ethiopian
Airlines in May, 1997. Stork, another Dutch company, bought a large
part of Fokker's assets, and continued to be a main provider of
parts and service for Fokker planes.
(AP, 2/10/04)
1997 May 5, American Airlines'
pilots ratified a contract, ending nearly three years of
negotiations.
(AP, 5/5/98)
1997 May 10, In Britain
Jennifer Murray and co-pilot Quentin Smith began a round-the-world
helicopter trip in an effort to become the first woman to pilot the
globe in a helicopter. She completed her flight on Aug 15.
(SFC, 7/23/97, p.A3)(SFC, 8/16/97, p.A11)
1997 May 17, The first flight
of NASA’s subscale remotely piloted X-36 Tailless Fighter Agility
Research Aircraft took place.
(www.dfrc.nasa.gov/gallery/Photo/X-36/index.html)
1997 Jun 28, Robert Schuller,
TV evangelist, attacked a flight attendant.
(MC, 6/28/02)
1997 Aug, Harry Stonecipher,
CEO of McDonnell Douglas, negotiated a merger with Boeing.
(WSJ, 3/7/05, p.A1)
1998 Apr 30, United and Delta
airlines formed an alliance that would control one-third of all U.S.
passenger seats.
(AP, 4/30/99)
1998 May 10, The FAA grounded
older models of the Boeing 737 after mandatory inspections of some
aircraft found extensive wear in power lines through wing fuel
tanks.
(SFC, 5/11/98)(AP, 5/10/08)
1998 Jun 30, In Malaysia the
new Kuala Lumpur Int’l. Airport (KLIA) began operations.
(SFEC, 7/5/98, p.T3)(Econ, 2/7/09, p.35)
1998 Sep 10, The Northwest
Airlines and its pilots reached an agreement to end their 13-day
strike.
(SFC, 9/11/98, p.A3)(AP, 9/10/99)
1998 Sep 10, Air Canada and its
pilots reached an agreement to end a 9-day strike. [see Sep 14]
(SFC, 9/11/98, p.A3)
1999 Mar 20, Balloonists
Bertrand Piccard of Switzerland and Brian Jones of Britain became
the first aviators to fly a hot-air balloon around the world
nonstop. They established an around the world record after floating
over Mauritania at 1:54 a.m. PST and won a $1 million prize from
Anheuser-Busch as the first aviators to fly a hot-air balloon around
the world nonstop.
(SFEC, 3/21/99, p.A21)(AP, 3/20/00)
1999 May 31, It was reported
that Mike Moshier (51), founder of Millennium Jet Inc. in Santa
Clara, Ca., had developed the SoloTrek XFV, a single passenger
flying vehicle, that could fly at 80 mph for up to 90 minutes as
high as 10,000 feet on a single tank of 87-octane gas.
(SFC, 5/31/99, p.E3)
1999 Jul 23, In Japan Yuzi
Nishizawa (b.1970) attempted to hijack flight 61 from Tokyo and
stabbed to death pilot Naoyuki Nagashima (51). The hijacker was
overcome and the plane landed safely with 516 passengers. On March
23, 2005, Nishizawa was found to be guilty, but of unsound mind and
thus only partly responsible for his actions. Presiding judge
Hisaharu Yasui handed Nishizawa a life sentence in 2005.
(SFC, 7/24/99,
p.A9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANA_Flight_61)
1999 Dec 6, SabreTech, an
aircraft maintenance company, was convicted of mishandling the
oxygen canisters blamed for the cargo hold fire that caused the 1996
ValuJet crash in the Everglades that killed 110 people. Eight of the
nine counts were later thrown out on appeal.
(AP, 12/6/04)
1999 Dec 20, Singapore Airlines
agreed to buy a 49% stake in Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic.
(www.iht.com/articles/1999/12/21/virgin.2.t.php)
1999 David Neeleman founded
JetBlue Airways, an American low-cost airline. In Dec, 2008, he
founded Azul (meaning blue), his Brazilian airline.
(Econ, 8/29/09,
p.58)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JetBlue)
1999 Jets began landing on the
main island of the archipelago of Socotra, ruled by Yemen. Some
50,000 native Socotris spoke 4 dialects of an ancient language
unintelligible to other Yemenis. It has been described as the most
alien-looking place on Earth.
(Econ, 4/24/10,
p.46)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socotra)
2000 Jul 1, Canada and Russia
began to allow regular commercial air flights over the North Pole.
(WSJ, 6/8/00, p.A19)
2000 Jul 10, DASA (minus MTU)
merged with Aerospatiale-Matra of France and Construcciones
Aeronáuticas SA (CASA) of Spain to form the European
Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS). DASA was founded as
Deutsche Aerospace AG on May 19, 1989 by the merger of
Daimler-Benz's aerospace interests (MTU, Dornier and two divisions
of AEG). In July 1989 the two AEG divisions were themselves merged
within Deutsche Aerospace to form Telefunken Systemtechnik (TST). In
December 1989 Daimler-Benz acquired Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm
(MBB) and merged it into DASA.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DASA)
2000 Aug 15, British Airways
joined Air France in grounding its Concorde supersonic jets in the
wake of the July 25th crash near Paris that claimed 113 lives.
(SFC, 8/16/00, p.A17)(AP, 8/15/01)
2000 Sep 15, The new San
Francisco Int’l. Terminal opened at a cost of $950 million. SFO
operations at Terminal 2 ceased in December as part of a $2.5
billion airport master plan.
(SFC, 9/16/00, p.A15)(SFC, 5/13/08, p.D4)
2001 Jan 10, American Airlines
(AMR) called its plan to acquire Trans World Airlines (TWA)
beneficial to consumers. TWA’s board approved plans for bankruptcy
and accept the buyout offer. TWA had used St. Louis as a hub.
(WSJ, 1/11/01, p.A3)(WSJ, 1/2/02, p.R12)(Econ,
6/28/08, p.37)
2001 Jan, In Brazil Gol
Airlines was launched by the Constantino family, which ran a fleet
of buses. Employee owned Varig had 40% of the market, but was
crumbling under competition from TAM. Varig went into bankruptcy in
2005.
(Econ, 4/28/07, p.76)
2001 Aug 10, A tourist
helicopter crashed near the Grand Canyon and 6 people were killed.
(SSFC, 8/12/01, p.A8)
2001 cAug 26, In the French
Alps a hot-air balloon caught fire after apparently hitting a high
voltage wire and 6 people were killed.
(WSJ, 8/27/01, p.A1)
2001 Sep 11, Two planes left
Boston’s Logan Airport. Both planes were hijacked and flown into the
twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. In the same
morning, another plane left Dulles International Airport in
Virginia. It was hijacked, turned around and flown into the Pentagon
building. A fourth plane from Newark Airport in New Jersey was
hijacked and steered back toward Washington, D.C. It crashed
in rural Pennsylvania after people on board tried to stop the
hijackers. Four groups of terrorists used knives, hijacked 4
airplanes, and were linked to Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda
organization. The terrorist attacks threatened to prompt a global
recession. Thousands of people were stranded and air cargo was
paralyzed as the FAA grounded all US flights.
(http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/11/chronology.attack/)
8:45 am EST: American Airlines Flight 11, a
Boeing 767 carrying 92 people, crashed into the North tower of the
World Trade Center in NYC. It was enroute from Boston to LA.
9:03 am EST: United Airlines Flight 175, a Boeing
767 carrying 65 people, crashed into the South Tower of the WTC. It
was enroute from Boston to LA.
9:38 am EST: American Airlines Flight 77, a
Boeing 757 carrying 64 people, crashed into the Pentagon in
Arlington, Va. It was enroute from Washington DC to LA.
9:40 am EST The FAA grounded all domestic flights
and ordered all airborne craft to land immediately.
9:43 am EST: American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 carrying 64
people, crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. It was
enroute from Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles, California
10:00 am EST The South Tower of the WTC
collapsed.
10:10 am United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757
carrying 45 people, crashed southeast of Pittsburgh. The plane had
left Newark for SF but was believed to be directed by hijackers to
Camp David. Passengers appeared to have overcome the hijackers. In
2002 it was reported that Congress was the target.
10:29 am EST The North Tower of the WTC
collapsed.
1:04 pm EST: President George W. Bush puts the U.S. military on
“high alert.”
5:25 pm EST: Building 7 of the WTC complex
collapsed.
8:30 pm EST: President George W. Bush, in a televised address, vowed
to find those responsible for the attacks.
In 2005 NYC said it was unable to identify the
remains of 1,161 of the 2,749 people killed in the Sep 11 attacks.
The ultimate death toll would be: 2,797 at the World Trade Center
Towers, 189 killed at the Pentagon and 44 died in Pennsylvania … a
total of 3,030.
(SFC, 9/12/01, p.A6,10,12)(WSJ, 9/12/01,
p.A1)(SFC, 11/6/01, p.A6)(WSJ, 9/12/01, p.A1,3) (WSJ, 2/24/05, p.A1)
2001 Sep 11, Rick Rescorla,
security chief at Morgan Stanley, evacuated 2,700 MS employees from
the WTC and was killed trying to save others. In 2002 James B.
Stewart authored "Heart of a Soldier," a biography of Rescorla.
(WSJ, 9/11/02, p.D10)
2001 Sep 11, World leaders
expressed outrage at terrorist attacks in NYC and the Pentagon and
pledged solidarity with the US. In the West Bank town of Nablus,
some 3,000 people celebrated the attacks and chanted "God is great."
Later the estimates of the WTC dead dropped to 4,396. In 2004 the
count was reduced to 2,749.
(SFC, 9/12/01, p.A14)(SFC, 11/3/01, p.A3)(SFC,
11/21/01, p.A2)(USAT, 10/30/03, p.7A)(WSJ, 1/26/04, p.A1)
2001 Sep 11, Peter Alderman
(25) was among those murdered by terrorists while attending a
conference at the World Trade Center. His parents later established
the Peter C. Alderman Foundation in his name to alleviate the
suffering of victims of terrorism and mass violence in post-conflict
countries by providing physicians and other indigenous caregivers
with the tools to treat mental anguish using Western medical
therapies combined with local healing traditions.
(www.petercaldermanfoundation.org/about/index.html)
2001 Oct 2, Cash-strapped
Swissair shut down flight operations and stranded thousands of
passengers around the globe.
(SFC, 10/3/01, p.D3)
2001 Oct 4, Swissair resumed
flying following a 2-day shut down propped by a $281 million Swiss
government loan. [see Jan 31, 2002]
(SFC, 10/5/01, p.B4)
2001 Dec 22, Passengers and
flight attendants subdued Richard Colvin Reid on AA Flight 63 from
Paris to Miami. He appeared to have explosive materials in his
shoes. The flight was diverted to Boston and the FBI confirmed that
his shoes were packed with explosives. Reid had trained with
Lashkar-e-Taiba. French police identified the man as Tariq Raja
(28), a Sri Lankan traveling on a British passport. The sneakers
contained pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) and triacetone
triperoxide (TATP). On Jan 30, 2003 Reid was sentenced to life in
prison. A 2nd plot involved Saajid Badat, who backed out of similar
plan on a different flight. In 2005 a British judge sentenced Badat
(25) to 13 years in prison.
(SSFC, 12/23/01, p.A1)(SFC, 12/24/01,
p.A1,6)(SFC, 1/31/03, p.A1)(SFC, 4/23/05, p.A4)(WSJ, 12/8/08, p.A6)
2001 Dec, Airbus announced the
development of a huge double-decker jet, the A-380, capable of
carrying up to 1,000 passengers.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
2001 Tony Fernandez (b.1964),
Malaysian entrepreneur, acquired AirAsia and soon re-launched it as
a low-cost domestic carrier with 2 B737 planes purchased from a
Malaysian conglomerate. Ryanair signed on with a 5% stake. By 2009
the company had 76 planes. By the end of 2004 the low cost airline
planned to have 30 planes.
(Econ, 3/13/04, p.63)(Econ, 2/7/09, p.35)(Econ,
3/21/09, p.72)(http://tinyurl.com/cxf3hz)
2002 Jan 31, Crossair, a
regional carrier and successor airline to the bankrupt Swissair,
announced plans that will make it Europe's 4th largest international
airline, under the new name Swiss.
(EB, 2002, p.11)(Econ, 2/14/04, p.10)
2002 Jul 10, A unified US
Senate approved harsh new penalties for corporate fraud and
document-shredding as part of an accounting oversight bill. The
House approved, 310-113, a measure to allow pilots to carry guns in
the cockpit to defend their planes against terrorists. President
George W. Bush later signed the measure into law.
(AP, 7/10/07)
2002 Aug 11, US Airways, the
6th largest US airline, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
(SFC, 8/12/02, p.A1)
2002 Aug 13, American Airlines
said it would eliminate 7,000 and cut flights.
(AP, 8/13/03)
2002 Sep 2, Glenn Tilton was
named chairman, president and chief executive officer of United
Airlines parent UAL Corp.
(AP, 9/2/03)
2002 Dec 4, A US federal board
rejected a 1.8 billion loan guarantee for United Airlines.
(SFC, 12/5/02, p.A1)(WSJ, 12/5/02, p.A1)
2002 Dec 9, United Airlines
filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and reported losses of $20 million a
day.
(SFC, 12/9/02, p.A1)(SFC, 12/10/02, p.A1)
2002 Christopher Chant authored
"A Century of Triumph: The History of Aviation."
(WSJ, 11/1/02, p.W10)
2002 Losses for the 9 biggest
US airlines totaled 11.2 billion for the year.
(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.R8)
2003 Jan 15, Lufthansa
introduced Internet access to passengers on a flight from Germany to
Washington DC.
(SFC, 1/15/03, p.B1)
2003 Mar, Hooters Air started
flying between Atlanta and Myrtle Beach.
(Econ, 6/28/03, p.65)
2003 Mar 19, A Cuban airliner
was hijacked to Key West. 6 hijackers took control of the plane
without telling the 25 passengers and six crew members about their
asylum plans. The six were later convicted of federal hijacking
charges.
(SFC, 3/20/03, p.A15)(AP, 3/19/04)
2003 Mar 24, The National
Transportation Safety Board concluded that Boeing 737 rudder
problems caused two fatal airline crashes and nearly triggered a
third.
(AP, 3/24/04)
2003 Apr 1, Air Canada filed
for bankruptcy protection.
(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.R9)
2003 May 31, Air France planned
to ground its last 5 Concorde airplanes. The Air France Concorde,
the world's fastest and most luxurious passenger jet, flew from New
York to Paris for the last time.
(SFC, 4/11/03, p.B5)(AP, 5/30/03)(SSFC, 6/1/03,
p.A2)
2003 Jun 12, Air France turned
the oldest of its Concordes over to the Smithsonian Institution in
Washington.
(AP, 6/12/04)
2003 Aug 12, A balsa-mylar
model airplane set a long distance flight record of 1,888.3 miles as
it landed in Ireland from Newfoundland.
(WSJ, 8/13/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 29, The board of Air
France approved a deal to combine with Dutch KLM under a holding
company to form the world's #3 airline.
(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.R12)
2003 Aug, Vietnam took
possession of the 1st of 4 new Boeing 777-200 ER jetliners purchased
in part with a loan from the Export-Import Bank of the US.
(SSFC, 8/24/03, p.I6)
2003 Oct 8, Vietnam and the
United States tentatively agreed to allow the first commercial
flights between the two countries since the end of the Vietnam War.
(AP, 10/8/03)
2003 Oct 24, British Airways
retired the Concorde. 3 Concordes swooped into Heathrow Airport,
joining in a spectacular finale to the era of luxury supersonic jet
travel.
(WSJ, 10/2/03, p.A1)(AP, 10/24/03)
2003 Dec 1, Boeing Company
chairman and CEO Phil Condit resigned unexpectedly. Boeing was
involved in a series of procurement violations that also led to the
firing of CFO Michael Sears, who ended up serving time in prison for
illegal employment negotiations. In 2006 Boeing agreed to pay $615
million to end 3 years of Justice Department investigations.
(AP, 12/1/04)(WSJ, 5/15/06, p.A1)
2003 Dec, Dennis Montgomery, a
California computer programmer, reported that hidden in the crawl
bars broadcast by Al Jazeera, someone had planted information about
specific American-bound flights from Britain, France and Mexico that
were hijacking targets. CIA officials rushed the information to
Pres. Bush, who ordered those flights to be turned around or
grounded before they could enter American airspace. Montgomery had
patented computer codes that he claimed could find terrorist plots
hidden in broadcasts of Al Jazeera. His codes were later believed to
be fake. In 2011 Montgomery faced charges of trying to pass $1.8
million in bad checks at Las Vegas casinos.
(SSFC, 2/20/11, p.A8)(http://tinyurl.com/5rur55y)
2003 The Int’l. Civil Aviation
Association (ICOA) issued technical specifications for passports to
contain an integrated circuit to be activated by a radio signal to
broadcast stored data.
(Econ, 2/19/05, p.75)
2003 The cost of ultralights
fell to under $20,000.
(Econ, 8/9/03, p.66)
2003 Abu Dhabi launched its
Etihad airline by royal decree. In 2004 it made an $8 billion order
for new airplanes.
(Econ, 6/5/10, p.76)
2003 Afghanistan 1st private
airline, Kam Air, was launched.
(Econ, 8/21/04, p.35)
2003 Captain G.R. Gopinath
launched Air Deccan, India’s 1st low-cost airline.
(Econ, 3/10/07, p.59)
2004 Jan 12, It was reported
that a new US Homeland Security program planned to screen airline
passengers according to a color code based on computerized data.
(SFC, 1/13/04, p.A1)
2004 Feb 3, Singapore Airlines
began 18½ hour non-stop flights to Los Angeles.
(USAT, 2/5/04, p.1B)
2004 Jun 4, Virgin USA chose
SFO as its home base.
(SFC, 6/5/04, A1)
2004 Sep 12, US Airways filed
for bankruptcy protection.
(AP, 9/13/04)
2004 Sep 30, Officials at US
115 int’l. airports and 14 seaports began photographing and
electronically fingerprinting travelers from 27 industrialized
nations.
(SFC, 10/1/04, p.A3)
2004 Dec 24, The Comair
computer system crashed after it was overwhelmed by cancellations
and delays due to winter storms in the Ohio Valley. Comair was
forced to cancel all of its 1,100 flights the next day. US AIR
cancelled numerous flights and baggage problems rippled through its
system for days.
(SFC, 12/27/04, p.A3)
2004 Dana Bell and Norman
Polmar authored “One Hundred Years of World Military Aircraft.”
(www.historynet.com/one-hundred-years-of-world-military-aircraft-book-review.htm)
2004 Stephen Budiansky authored
"Air Power," a history of military aviation.
(WSJ, 4/12/04, p.D8)
2004 Alastair Gordon authored
“Naked Airport: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Revolutionary
Structure.”
(SSFC, 9/5/04, p.M1)
2005 Jan 18, In France Airbus
unveiled the 840-passenger A380, the world's biggest passenger jet,
in a glitzy ceremony in which the leaders of France, Britain,
Germany and Spain hailed Europe's victory over the US as the new
king of the commercial skies.
(AP, 1/18/05)
2005 Jan 20, Delta Airlines
reported a record $5.2 billion loss for 2004.
(SFC, 1/21/05, p.C1)
2005 Feb 15, The Falcon 7X, a
business jet designed and built by the French aviation company
Dassault, was displayed for the first time. It was the first plane
to be digitally modeled in 3-dimensions and required no prototype.
(Econ, 6/18/05, p.78)(http://tinyurl.com/lxlgt2)
2005 Mar 11, Canada’s Jetsgo
announced in the dead of night that it was going out of business and
grounding all flights immediately as thousands of passengers
prepared to jet away for March break, one of the busiest travel
periods of the year.
(AP, 3/11/05)
2005 Mar 17, Italian airline
Alitalia SpA said that the latest strike by flight attendants could
plunge the struggling carrier into bankruptcy.
(AP, 3/17/05)
2005 May 20, US Airways and
America West merged in a $1.5 billion deal.
(SFC, 5/20/05, p.C1)
2005 Jun 13, The Paris Air Show
opened. The Russian Lavochkin Association demonstrated a new escape
pod for people trapped in tall, burning buildings.
(Econ, 6/11/05, p.60)(Econ, 6/25/05, p.81)
2005 Jun 19, A new, domestic
French low-cost airline, Air Turquoise, took to the skies, opening
budget routes from the northeast city of Reims to Bordeaux,
Marseille and Nice.
(AP, 6/19/05)
2005 Jul 21, Airbus said it has
received an order for 20 of its twin-aisle A330 passenger jets from
Air China, in a deal worth about 3.2 billion euros ($3.9 billion) at
list prices.
(AP, 7/21/05)
2005 Oct 10, Japan's space
agency conducted a test flight of a supersonic jet prototype in the
Australian Outback.
(AP, 10/10/05)
2005 Nov 19, President Bush
arrived in Beijing for talks with Chinese leaders following the APEC
meeting in South Korea. A US official said China will buy 70 Boeing
737 airliners as President Bush arrived on a visit expected to
include discussion of Beijing's surging trade surplus with the US.
(AP, 11/19/05)(AP, 11/19/06)
2005 Nov 29, CINTRA sold
Mexicana airlines and its subsidiary, Click Mexicana, to the Mexican
hotel chain Grupo Posadas for USD$165.5 million.
(Econ, 8/14/10,
p.53)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexicana_de_Aviaci%C3%B3n)
2005 In India Vijay Mallya,
chairman of Bangalore based United Breweries, launched Kingfisher
Airlines, named after UB’s best-selling beer.
(Econ, 7/16/05, p.64)
2006 Feb 9, Sir Freddie Laker
(83), pioneer of low-cost airline travel, died in Florida.
(WSJ, 2/11/06, p.A1)
2006 Feb 11, Adventurer Steve
Fossett completed the longest nonstop flight in aviation history,
flying 26,389 miles in about 76 hours, but he had to land early in
southern England because of mechanical problems.
(AP, 2/11/06)
2006 Mar 27, Malaysia’s
government said it will end subsidies to flag carrier Malaysia
Airlines and let it operate only 19 domestic routes, in competition
with budget carrier AirAsia, under a major restructuring that will
shed thousands of jobs.
(AP, 3/27/06)
2006 Apr 10, Mexican soldiers
seized 128 suitcases packed with 5.6 metric tons of cocaine worth
more than $100 million from a commercial plane arriving from
Venezuela. Smugglers had purchased the DC-9 plane with laundered
funds transferred through US banks Wachovia Corp. and Bank of
America. In 2010 court papers said a gang under Walid Makled
operated the DC-9 and flew the cocaine from Simon Bolivar
International to Campeche, Mexico. Makled was arrested Aug 19, 2010
in Colombia in the border city of Cucuta. In Nov 2010 Colombia
denied an extradition request for Makled by the US, saying that the
suspect will be sent back to face charges in his home country.
(AP, 4/12/06)(SFC, 6/30/10, p.D1)(AP, 11/17/10)
2006 Jul, In Spain employees of
the airline Iberia blocked Barcelona runways over a new baggage
check arrangement. In 2011 Spain’s Supreme Court confirmed 2-year
prison sentences for 23 employees whose actions affected some 600
flights leaving 100,000 passengers stranded.
(SFC, 1/29/11, p.A2)
2006 Oct 3, A Turkish Airlines
plane carrying 113 people from Albania to Istanbul landed in Italy
where a Turkish man surrendered and released all the passengers
unharmed. The Turkish army deserter who hijacked the airliner sought
asylum because he feared persecution in his Muslim homeland after
his conversion to Christianity and wanted Pope Benedict XVI's
protection.
(AP, 10/4/06)(AP, 10/3/07)
2006 Oct 29, Libya took
delivery of a Boeing jetliner for the first time in 30 years after
the privately owned Buraq Air airline bought six of the US-made
aircraft.
(AFP, 10/28/06)
2006 Nov 15, US Airways Group
Inc. made an $8 billion cash and stock bid for Delta Air Lines Inc.,
a deal that would create one of the world's largest carriers. The
move came despite Delta's repeated statements it isn't interested in
a merger.
(AP, 11/15/06)
2006 Boeing developed its Large
Cargo Freighter, a converted 747, to handle large cargo for its new
787 Dreamliner. The makeover was performed in Taiwan.
(WSJ, 1/8/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 15, JetBlue Airways
Corp. tried to calm a maelstrom of criticism, after passengers were
left waiting on planes at a NY airport for as long as 11 hours
during a snow and ice storm.
(AP, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 15, A fast-thinking
pilot with passengers in cahoots fooled hijacker Mohamed Abderraman,
a 32-year-old Mauritanian, by braking hard upon landing in Gran
Canaria, then accelerating to knock the man down. When he fell,
flight attendants threw boiling water in his face, and about 10
people pounced on him.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 28, European airliner
maker Airbus told unions that it would dispose of six factories and
switch some work from France to Germany under a plan costing some
10,000 jobs.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, Indonesia said it
is planning to ban local carriers from operating jetliners more than
10 years old as part of a safety campaign following a string of
crashes and accidents.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Mar 1, India’s government
approved a proposal to merge 4 state-owned air-carriers in order to
make them more competitive.
(Econ, 3/10/07, p.59)
2007 Mar 16, JetBlue canceled
215 flights because of a winter storm on the East Coast. The storm
was blamed for as many as a dozen deaths and forced more than 3,600
flight cancellations.
(AP, 3/16/07)(WSJ, 3/19/07, p.A1)
2007 Mar 30, Authorities
arrested a man armed with a knife who hijacked a Sudan Airways plane
while flying from Libya to Sudan.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Apr 15, Airlines canceled
over 400 flights in the NYC area as a hard-blowing nor'easter
gathered strength along the East Coast. The storm out of the Great
Plains was already blamed for 5 deaths.
(AP, 4/15/07)(SFC, 4/16/07, p.A4)
2007 Apr 30, Delta Air Lines
emerged from bankruptcy after 19 months in Chapter 11.
(Econ, 5/5/07, p.84)
2007 Jun 2, Four Muslim men
were arrested and in connection to a plan to set off explosives in a
jet fuel line that feeds John F. Kennedy International Airport and
runs through residential neighborhoods. Two men allegedly involved
in a plot to attack New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport
were in custody in Trinidad and Tobago and the police commissioner
said authorities were scouring the Caribbean country for a third
suspect still at large. In 2011 Kareem Ibrahim (65) of Trinidad was
found guilty of convincing plotters to seek aid from Iran.
(AP, 6/2/07)(AP, 6/3/07)(AP, 6/2/08)(SFC,
5/27/11, p.A6)
2007 Jun 9, Boeing and Aeroflot
signed a deal for the Russian carrier to acquire 22 Dreamliner jets
from the American plane maker.
(AP, 6/9/07)
2007 Jun 18, In France Airbus
racked up a series of big orders at the opening of the Paris Air
Show. Airbus announced that it had booked firm orders or letters of
intent to order for 339 aircraft, a record figure, for a value of
45.7 billion dollars (34.1 billion euros) at catalogue prices.
(AP, 6/18/07)(AFP, 6/19/07)
2007 Jun 19, International
Lease Finance Corp., the world's largest airline leasing company,
ordered 63 Boeing jets with a total list price of $8.8 billion.
(AP, 6/19/07)
2007 Jul 9, The EU's top
justice official said EU citizens will be protected by the US
Privacy Act under an anti-terror deal with Washington on the sharing
of trans-Atlantic air passenger data.
(AP, 7/10/07)
2007 Jul 7, In Oregon Kent
Couch (47) in his lawn chair with some snacks and a parachute rose
to the sky under 105 large helium balloons. Nearly 9 hours later the
gas station owner came back to earth in a farmer's field near Union,
193 miles from home. In September he had got off the ground for six
hours.
(AP, 7/10/07)
2007 Aug 1, A financial
watchdog said British Airways has been fined a record 121.5 million
pounds (180 million euros, $246 million) after admitting collusion
with Virgin Atlantic over fuel surcharges on tickets. British
Airways and Korean Air (for collusion with Lufthansa) agreed to pay
$300 million each in fines and plead guilty to federal charges that
they colluded with other airlines to set ticket prices.
(AFP, 8/1/07)(SFC, 8/2/07, p.C2)(Econ, 8/4/07,
p.48)
2007 Aug 8, Virgin America,
part of Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, made its inaugural flight
from JFK to San Francisco. For the first nine months of 2008 Virgin
announced a $174.5 million loss on $259 million in revenue.
(SFC, 1/3/11, p.D2)
2007 Aug 27, Opera Romana
Pellegrinaggi, a Vatican-backed charter airline service, made its
inaugural flight, aiming to carry pilgrims to such Catholic shrines
as Lourdes, Fatima, Santiago de Compostela and the Holy Land.
(AP, 8/27/07)
2007 Aug 28, Paul MacCready
(b.1925), designer of the Gossamer Albatross, died in California.
His bicycle powered plane crossed the English Channel in 1979. He
founded AeroVironment in 1971 to monitor air pollution.
(www.sas.org/maccready.htm)(Econ, 9/8/07, p.88)
2007 Sep 2, Temasek,
Singapore’s state-owned investment company, said it would take a
8.3% stake in China Eastern Airlines and Singapore Airlines
announced a 15.7% stake.
(Econ, 9/29/07,
p.68)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Eastern_Airlines)
2007 Sep 4, Steve Fosset (63),
tycoon turned record seeker, disappeared in Nevada after flying from
the Flying M Ranch, owned by billionaire Baron Hilton. In 2002
Fosset became the 1st person to fly around the world in a balloon.
(SFC, 9/5/07, p.A8)(SFC, 9/15/07, p.A1)
2007 Sep 8, It was reported
that China has 126 airports, 57 of which can handle private planes.
This was compared to 500 airports in the US that can handle big
commercial airliners, and some 10,000 that handle smaller planes.
(Econ, 9/8/07, p.69)
2007 Sep 26, Russia unveiled
its regional 95-seat Superjet-100, a government-backed effort to
re-energize the country's ailing aviation industry and get into a
market now dominated by Bombardier and Embraer.
(AP, 9/26/07)
2007 Sep 28, Traveler Carol
Anne Gotbaum of New York died in a holding cell at Sky Harbor
International Airport in Phoenix; authorities say Gotbaum
accidentally asphyxiated herself after being chained to a bench.
(AP, 9/28/08)
2007 Oct 3, Tony Ryan (b.1936),
Irish-born aviation entrepreneur and co-founder of Ryanair (1985),
died.
(WSJ, 10/6/07,
p.A17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryanair)
2007 Oct 15,
Airbus finally delivered its first A380 superjumbo jet.
Singapore Airlines took delivery of the double-decker jet, the
world's largest passenger plane, almost two years late.
(AP, 10/15/07)
2007 Oct 25, An Airbus 380, the
world's largest jetliner, made aviation history, completing its
first commercial flight from Singapore to Sydney with 455
passengers, some of them ensconced in luxury suites and double beds.
(AP, 10/25/07)
2007 Oct 27, Queues of
frustrated, angry passengers built up at main French airports as Air
France cancelled scores of flights on the third day of a strike by
cabin staff.
(AP, 10/27/07)
2007 Nov 12, Airbus said it was
building a custom, 380 VIP double-decker jet for Saudi Prince
Alwaleed bin Talal with a price tag of over $320 million.
(AP, 11/12/07)
2007 Nov 27, Cessna said it
will turn over complete production of its new Cessna 162 SkyCatcher
to a Chinese partner. The base price of the plane will be $109,500.
(WSJ, 11/28/07, p.A14)
2007 Dec 13, Lufthansa AG said
it is paying $300 million for a 19% stake in JetBlue Airways.
(SFC, 12/14/07, p.D3)
2007 Dec 21, China's first
fully homegrown commercial aircraft, the 70-seat ARJ21, rolled off
the production line, marking a potential milestone for the country's
aviation program. Its first test flight was set for 2008.
(AP,
12/21/07)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACAC_ARJ21)
2007 Kathleen M. Barry authored
“Femininity in Flight: A History of Flight Attendants.”
(Econ, 5/5/07, p.105)
2008 Feb 8, In New Zealand a
knife-wielding woman (33), originally from Somalia, tried to hijack
a regional domestic flight, stabbing both pilots and threatening to
blow up the twin-propeller plane before she was subdued.
(AP, 2/8/08)
2008 Feb 14, Boeing and India's
Tata Industries announced an agreement to set up a joint venture
company to handle an initial 500 million dollars of defense-related
aerospace component work in India.
(AFP, 2/14/08)
2008 Feb 24, The first flight
by a commercial airline to be partly powered by biofuels took off
from London on a short trip to Amsterdam billed as heralding a new
eco-friendlier era of airline travel.
(AFP, 2/24/08)
2008 Mar 15, Alitalia, Italy’s
state-owned national airline, accepted a takeover offer worth $217
made by air France-KLM, a French-Dutch airline group. The Italian
government accepted the offer on March 17.
(Econ, 3/22/08, p.73)
2008 Mar 25, Air travel between
Georgia and Russia resumed, more than 17 months after Moscow
suspended flights because of tension between the ex-Soviet
neighbors.
(AP, 3/25/08)
2008 Mar 28, British Airways
Plc cancelled a fifth of flights from its new $8.6 billion terminal
at London's Heathrow airport as chaos from its shambolic opening
spilled into a second day.
(AP, 3/28/08)
2008 Mar 29, British Airways
said that it was canceling more flights to and from London Heathrow
airport's new Terminal 5 for a third day running because of
logistical problems.
{Britain, Aviation}
(AFP, 3/29/08)
2008 Mar 31, Hawaii’s Aloha
Airlines ended passenger service after today due to competition and
rising fuel prices.
(SFC, 3/31/08, p.A1)
2008 Apr 1, In France the
stockmarket watchdog Autorite des Marches Financiers (AMF) filed a
formal complaint against the European Aeronautic Defense and Space
Company, the parent company of Airbus, and more than a dozen current
and former executives. It confirmed evidence of massive insider
trading in shares of EADS in late 2005 and early 2006 in the
knowledge that the A380 airbus program was in deep trouble.
(Econ, 6/21/08, p.80)(http://tinyurl.com/3kd8vh)
2008 Apr 3, ATA Airlines
discontinued all flights and filed for bankruptcy.
(AP, 4/3/08)
2008 Apr 3, Alitalia edged
closer to bankruptcy protection after Air France-KLM abruptly broke
off talks to buy the struggling national airline and Alitalia's
chairman of seven months resigned in frustration.
(AP, 4/3/08)
2008 Apr 5, Skybus Airlines, a
low-cost carrier based in Columbus, Ohio, shut down and filed for
bankruptcy protection, becoming the latest of the nation's airlines
to fall because of rising fuel costs and a slowing economy.
(AP, 4/5/08)(SFC, 4/8/08, p.D3)
2008 Apr 7, The EU opened the
way for air travelers to use mobile phones to talk, text or send
e-mails on planes throughout Europe's airspace.
(AP, 4/7/08)
2008 Apr 9, Oasis Hong Kong
Airlines cancelled all flights and went into liquidation as a result
of high fuel costs.
(SFC, 4/10/08, p.C4)
2008 Apr 10, American Airlines
canceled more than 900 flights to fix faulty wiring in hundreds of
jets, marking the third straight day of mass groundings as company
executives offered profuse apologies and travel vouchers to calm
angry customers.
(AP, 4/10/08)
2008 Apr 14, Delta Air Lines
and Northwest Airlines announced an agreement to a $17.7 billion
merger creating the world’s largest carrier.
(SFC, 4/15/08, p.A1)
2008 Apr 22,
Alitalia flew into the unknown after Air France-KLM withdrew
its takeover offer, leaving Italy's long-struggling flagship airline
with little choice but to contemplate bankruptcy or receivership.
The outgoing center-left government allowed a loan of €300 million
to Alitalia.
(AP, 4/22/08)(Econ, 4/26/08, p.68)
2008 Apr 26, Eos Airlines, a
Business-class carrier launched in 2005, filed for bankruptcy. It
ceased operations the next day.
(SFC, 4/28/08, p.A4)
2008 May 11, China PM Wen
Jiabao launched Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (CACC), in
an effort to challenge the duopoly of Airbus and Boeing.
(Econ, 5/17/08, p.82)
2008 May 14, A Swiss pilot
strapped on a jet-powered wing and leaped from a plane for the first
public demonstration of the homemade device, turning figure eights
and soaring high above the Alps.
(AP, 5/15/08)
2008 May 21, American Airlines
said it will remove 75 of 954 aircraft in its fleet and start
charging some domestic passengers $15 to check a suitcase due to
rising fuel costs. Oil futures closed at a record $133.17.
(SFC, 5/22/08, p.C1)(WSJ, 5/22/08, p.A1)
2008 May 31, President Manuel
Zelaya said that Honduras would create a civilian airport for
commercial jets on a US military airfield, diverting traffic from
Tegucigalpa's notoriously dangerous airport following a deadly
crash.
(AP, 6/1/08)
2008 Jun 3, UAL Corp's United
Airlines announced plans to slash jobs and flights, following a
similar move by AMR Corp's American Airlines last month.
(Reuters, 6/5/08)
2008 Jun 5, Continental
Airlines Inc said it would cut 3,000 jobs, or about 6.5 percent of
its work force, and retire 67 older planes as it scales down in the
face of soaring fuel prices.
(Reuters, 6/5/08)
2008 Jun 13, In London,
administrators said a takeover deal to rescue small business-class
airline Silverjet has collapsed. The airline employed 370 pilots and
cabin crew and 50 administrative staff in Luton, where it operated
flights to New York and Dubai.
(AFP, 6/13/08)(http://tinyurl.com/56mjgg)
2008 Jun 18, The US Government
Accountability Office (GAO) upheld Boeing’s protest of a refueling
tanker contract and recommended a new competition.
(SFC, 6/19/08, p.A8)
2008 Jun 21, A Sudanese
official said Sudan is grounding its national carrier Sudan Airways
from June 23 for at least a month for breaking civil aviation rules,
mainly over administration. On June 23 the Civil Aviation Authority
agreed to a one month reprieve.
(AP, 6/21/08)(AFP, 6/24/08)
2008 Jun 26, Four international
airlines (Air France-KLM, Cathay Pacific Airways, Martinair Holland
and SAS Cargo Group) agreed to pay $504 million in fines to the US
Justice Dept. to settle charges they conspired to fleece consumers
by driving up cargo shipping prices.
(AP, 6/26/08)
2008 Jul 14, At Britain’s
Farnborough International Airshow Etihad Airways, the national
carrier of the United Arab Emirates, said it had agreed to buy 45
Boeing passenger jets worth 9.4 billion dollars (5.9 billion euros).
(AFP, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 26, Brazil's Embraer
(EMBR3.SA), the world's third-biggest commercial jet maker, said it
would invest 148 million euros in two new plants in Portugal -- its
first industrial units in Europe that will make wings and tailpieces
for exports.
(AP, 7/26/08)
2008 Aug 20, International and
domestic flights were disrupted across India as thousands of airport
employees went on strike to protest plans to privatize airports.
(AP, 8/20/08)
2008 Jul 28, The
propeller-driven "Zephyr" aircraft, owned by QinetiQ Group PLC,
began a flight over the Arizona desert and continued for an
unofficial record of 83 hours and 37 minutes, more than doubling the
official world record set by Northrop Grumman's "Global Hawk" in
2001. The 66 pound- (30 kilogram-) plane was launched by hand and
flown by autopilot and via satellite.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 26, Sudanese hijackers
commandeered the Boeing 737 jetliner, which was carrying 95
passengers and crew, soon after it took off from the southern Darfur
town of Nyala, not far from a refugee camp that the Sudanese
military attacked a day earlier.
(AP, 8/27/08)
2008 Aug 27, Two hijackers, who
commandeered a jetliner from Sudan's Darfur region and diverted it
to a remote desert airstrip in southern Libya, surrendered after a
22-hour standoff.
(AP, 8/27/08)
2008 Sep 19, Alitalia cancelled
flights and regulators said they might soon ground the troubled
flag-carrier as it hurtles toward bankruptcy after the failure of
another rescue plan.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 26, Yves Rossy of
Switzerland leapt from a plane and into the record books, crossing
the English channel in 13 minutes on a homemade jet-propelled wing.
(AP, 9/26/08)
2008 Oct 15, Turkish media say
a hijacker attempted to commandeer a Turkish Airlines plane over
Belarus but he was overpowered by passengers.
(AP, 10/15/08)
2008 Oct 21, EU lawmakers
joined US civil liberty campaigners in criticizing a new scanner
that allows airport security to see through passengers' clothes,
calling it a virtual strip search that should only be used as a last
resort.
(AP, 10/21/08)
2008 Oct 30, In Germany the
last flight lifted off from Berlin's Tempelhof Airport, bringing an
end to an era of aviation that spanned World War II, the Cold War
and the rebirth of the German capital.
(AP, 10/30/08)
2008 Oct 31, Airship Ventures
began operating zeppelin flights from Moffett field in Mountain
View, Ca. Passenger tickets were set at $495 per person for one hour
and $950 for 2 hours.
(SFC, 10/28/08, p.A1)
2008 Nov 7, European planemaker
Airbus said that Spanish tourism company Grupo Marsans has signed a
firm order for 61 aircraft worth almost $9 billion at list prices.
(AP, 11/7/08)
2008 Nov 14, Nearly half of Air
France's flights were grounded by a pilots' strike expected to last
through the weekend.
(AP, 11/14/08)
2008 Nov 25, In Thailand
Bangkok's main international airport halted all flight operations
after anti-government protesters stormed the departures area.
(AFP, 11/25/08)
2008 Nov 25, Indochina
Airlines, Vietnam’s first privately owned airline, began operations.
(www.india-server.com/news/vietnam-launches-indochina-airlines-4811.html)
2008 Nov 27, Thailand's
government prepared to crack down on protesters occupying the
capital's two airports, but called on the public not to panic as
rumors of a coup swept through the city.
(AP, 11/27/08)
2008 Dec 3, In Thailand the
first commercial flight in a week arrived in Bangkok as
anti-government protesters ended their siege of the country's two
main airports, declaring victory after PM Somchai Wongsawat was
ousted by a court ruling.
(AP, 12/3/08)
2008 Dec 6, Okay Airways,
China's first private airline, began a planned one-month suspension
of passenger service 10 days early after skittish airports insisted
on cash to refuel its planes. The airline suffered from financial
and management woes.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2008 Dec 9, The European Union
and Canada reached a deal to open their aviation markets to each
other by removing restrictions on direct flights and foreign
ownership in airlines.
(AP, 12/9/08)
2008 Dec, Russia’s Finance
Leasing Co. (FLC), a subsidiary of United Aircraft Corp., defaulted
on $250 million of bonds, the first default by a state-owned company
on foreign debt since the country’s 1998 financial meltdown.
(WSJ, 3/23/09, p.A1)
2009 Jan 5, Boeing signed a
$2.1 billion deal with India for eight P-81 maritime patrol
aircraft.
(WSJ, 1/6/09, p.B4)
2009 Jan 9, Lithuania’s FlyLAL
airline, privatized in 2005, announced that SCH Swiss Capital
Holdings, a Switzerland-based firm, has purchased it for $1 million
and debt of about 1 million euros. On Jan 17 FlyLAL airline said it
has suspended its operations after a buyout deal by Swiss investment
firm SCH Swiss Capital Holdings failed.
(AP, 1/9/09)(AP, 1/17/09)
2009 Jan 12, Alitalia's board
accepted Air France-KLM's offer to buy 25 percent of the company and
become its international partner.
(AP, 1/12/09)
2009 Jan 13, Nancy Bird-Walton
(93), Australian aviation pioneer, died from natural causes. She was
the first woman in Australia to operate a commercial aircraft. Sir
Charles Kingsford-Smith, the first man to fly across the
mid-Pacific, taught Watson how to fly in 1933, when she was just 17
years old. Two years later, she obtained a commercial pilot's
license and began taking paying passengers for joyrides around the
country.
(AP, 1/13/09)
2009 Jan 15, A US Airways
Airbus A320 jetliner, piloted by Chesley B. Sullenberger and bound
for Charlotte, NC, landed in the Hudson River after both engines
failed shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia and an encounter with a
flock of geese. All 155 people aboard Flight 1549 survived.
(AP, 1/16/09)(WSJ, 1/16/09, p.A3)
2009 Jan 15, The British
government announced its support for a controversial third runway at
London's chronically overcrowded Heathrow Airport, despite angry
opposition from green groups and locals.
(AP, 1/15/09)
2009 Feb 2, Guyana banned
nighttime flights because of a strike by air traffic controllers.
The strike began the night of Jan 30 over union demands for salary
increases of 5 percent. The government says it cannot grant the pay
hikes because it needs to upgrade airport safety equipment.
(AP, 2/2/09)
2009 Feb 18, Iran’s Deputy
Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said in published remarks that Iran
has built an unmanned surveillance aircraft with a range of more
than 600 miles, enough to reach Israel. Iran announced two years ago
that it had built an unmanned aircraft, but Vahidi's comments were
the first by a top official revealing its range.
(AP, 2/18/09)
2009 Feb 8, Sigurdur Helgason
(b.1921), former Icelandic airline CEO (1974-1984), died on the
Caribbean private island of Mustique. He pioneered cheap flights
that carried legions of backpackers between Europe and the United
States in the 1960s and '70s.
(AP, 2/21/09)
2009 Feb 24, The United Arab
Emirates' official news agency said US firms Boeing Co. and Lockheed
Martin Corp. have been awarded almost $3 billion in contracts to
supply transport aircraft for the country's military.
(AP, 2/24/09)
2009 Feb 27, A court ordered
the Japanese government to pay 5.6 billion yen ($57.7 million) to
compensate people whose lives are disrupted by the noise of
warplanes at a US air base on the southern island of Okinawa. The
Fukuoka High Court ruling doubled the 2.8 million yen compensation
awarded in 2005 to the people living around Kadena Air Base, and
upheld the appeals of 5,540 residents.
(AP, 2/27/09)
2009 Mar 26, In Brazil
engine pieces from a US plane fell from the sky, hitting 22 houses
and a car but sparing passengers and residents on the ground. Arrow
Cargo's station manager in Manaus, Rai Marinho, said the company
will pay local residents for damages to their property.
(AP, 3/26/09)
2009 Apr 20, In Jamaica police
and soldiers stormed an aircraft and captured a hijacking suspect,
identified as Stephen Fray (20). The gunman had forced his way
though airport security and hijacked a Canadian jet near Montego
Bay, holding six crew members hostage for eight hours.
(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 29, In Cuba a
statement published in state newspapers said that effective
midnight, flights from Cuba to Mexico would be grounded due to swine
flu. After that, airlines can fly presumably empty planes to the
island and pickup Mexico travels. This amended a blanket 48-hour ban
on flights between Mexico and Cuba announced a day earlier.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 May 6, Canada and the EU
signed an "open skies" pact under which airlines from the two
trading partners will be able to fly freely between any airport in
the 27-country EU and any in Canada.
(Reuters, 5/6/09)
2009 Jun 26, In Switzerland
Solar Impulse, a project run by aviators Bertrand Piccard and Andre
Borschberg, unveiled a prototype solar powered airplane, the HB-SIA.
(AP, 6/26/09)(Econ, 6/13/09, p.83)
2009 Aug 8, Continental Express
Flight 2816, en route with 47 passengers to Minneapolis from
Houston, was stranded overnight at Rochester, Minn., after being
forced to land due to storms. On Nov 24 the Dept. of Transportation
levied $175,000 in fines against Continental, ExpressJet and Mesaba
Airlines for keeping the plane on the tarmac.
(SFC, 11/25/09, p.A6)
2009 Aug 22, The EU published a
list of nearly 4,000 airlines that it says should reduce their
impact on the environment from 2012 or face being banned from
European airports.
(AP, 8/22/09)
2009 Sep 3, In the US Virgin
Islands two ticket agent contractors who worked for Delta Airlines
and an airport employee were arrested after being indicted by a
federal grand jury on charges of conspiracy to smuggle illegal
immigrants into the US.
(AP, 9/5/09)
2009 Sep 9, In Mexico a
Bolivian-born man, clutching a Bible and claiming a divine mission,
hijacked a plane with more than 100 people aboard after takeoff from
Cancun. The incident ended quickly and without bloodshed when police
arrested Jose Flores (44) in Mexico City. Police in Morelia said
that they had seized eight counterfeit police and rescue vehicles
including an intensive care ambulance with official-looking logos
and paint jobs. The vehicles belonged to gang members who planned to
use them to conduct illegal activities. In 2011 Josmar Flores was
sentenced to seven years, seven months and 15 days in prison.
(Reuters, 9/10/09)(AP, 9/10/09)(AP, 5/19/11)
2009 Sep 15, In Puerto Rico
several employees of American Airlines were among a group of at
least 20 people arrested on suspicion of aiding a smuggling ring
that shipped drugs from Puerto Rico's main airport to the US
mainland.
(AP, 9/15/09)
2009 Oct 21, Security guards
thwarted an attempted hijacking on an EgyptAir flight from Istanbul
to Cairo by overpowering a Sudanese man who threatened crew members
with a plastic knife. The man told flight attendants he wanted to
"liberate Jerusalem."
(AP, 10/21/09)
2009 Oct 21, Northwest Airlines
Flight 188 overflew its Minneapolis destination by 150 miles.
Air traffic controllers and pilots tried for more than an hour night
to contact pilot Richard Cole (54) of Salem, Oregon, and the
flight's captain, Timothy B. Cheney (53), of Gig Harbor, Wash.,
using radio, cell phone and data messages. The pilots said they had
been having a heated discussion about airline policy. On Oct 27 the
FAA revoked the licenses of the two pilots saying they had been out
of radio contact for 91 minutes.
(AP, 10/24/09)(SFC, 10/28/09, p.A6)
2009 Nov 6, British Airways
revealed a quadrupling of net losses in its first half, and axed an
extra 1,200 jobs in an "essential" cost-reduction program.
(AP, 11/6/09)
2009 Nov 12, British Airways
PLC and Spanish airline Iberia SA confirmed they are holding
separate board meetings about a long-awaited merger, responding to
feverish speculation that has sent the companies' shares soaring.
(AP, 11/12/09)
2009 Nov 13, A Somali man was
arrested by African Union peacekeeping troops before a Daallo
Airlines flight took off from Mogadishu. It was scheduled to travel
from Mogadishu to the northern Somali city of Hargeisa, then to
Djibouti and Dubai. The man was carrying powdered chemicals, liquid
and a syringe that could have caused an explosion. The case bore
chilling similarities to a later Dec 25 terrorist plot to blow up a
Detroit-bound airliner.
(AP, 12/30/09)
2009 Nov 19, US air travelers
scrambled to revise their travel plans after an FAA computer glitch
caused widespread cancellations and delays for the second time in 15
months.
(AP, 11/19/09)
2009 Nov 23, UOP LLC, a
Honeywell company, announced today that its renewable jet fuel
process technology was used to convert second-generation, renewable
feedstocks to green jet fuel for a biofuel demonstration flight by
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines.
(http://tinyurl.com/yb877n3)(SFC, 11/24/09, p.A2)
2009 Nov 25, Yves Rossy, a
Swiss adventurer, landed in the Atlantic after trying to soar from
Morocco to Spain on jet-powered wings.
(SFC, 11/27/09, p.A2)
2009 Nov 28, French Transport
Minister Dominique Bussereau said Russia has given the green light
for Air France's A380 superjumbo to overfly Siberia, opening the way
for a projected Paris-Tokyo service. The accord was approved by PM
Vladimir Putin at the end of a two-day visit to France which saw a
number of business deals concluded. Putin's trip also secured a deal
for French investment in a key pipeline project and the struggling
Avtovaz car maker, as well as a promise that France will consider
selling Moscow a huge amphibious assault ship.
(AFP, 11/28/09)
2009 Nov 2, In Mali the burned
debris of a Boeing cargo plane was discovered on Nov. 2 in the Gao
region. It was assumed to have landed on a clandestine landing strip
and either failed to take off again or was destroyed on purpose.
Ample traces of cocaine were found on board.
(AP, 12/3/09)
2009 Dec 11, German officials
said Berlin's new airport will be named after Willy Brandt
(1913-1992), the former West German leader who championed East-West
relations and won the Nobel Peace Prize (1971).
(AP, 12/11/09)
2009 Dec 11, In Spain the A400M
military transport plane, that has been causing Airbus and European
defense ministers budgetary and logistical headaches, finally took
to the skies for its maiden flight.
(AP, 12/11/09)
2009 Dec 12, In Thailand 5
foreigners were detained and their foreign-registered aircraft
impounded after it landed in the Thai capital with tons of war
weaponry on board that originated in North Korea. The aircraft, an
Ilyushin 76 transport from Kazakhstan, was allegedly traveling from
North Korea to Sri Lanka when it asked to land in Bangkok to refuel.
According to a flight plan seen by arms trafficking researchers, the
aircraft was chartered by Hong Kong-based Union Top Management Ltd.
to fly oil industry spare parts from Pyongyang to Tehran, Iran, with
several other stops, including Bangkok, Colombo in Sri Lanka,
Azerbaijan and Ukraine.
(AP, 12/12/09)(AP, 12/23/09)
2009 Dec 15, Boeing’s new 787
jetliner made its inaugural flight from Everett’s Paine Field,
beginning an extensive testing program to obtain FAA certification.
(SFC, 12/15/09, p.A12)
2009 Dec 15, British Airways
sought a court injunction to prevent a 12-day strike by cabin crew
that would cause havoc for one million travelers over the Christmas
and New Year's holidays.
(AP, 12/15/09)
2009 Dec 21, The Obama
administration took aim at tarmac horror stories, ordering airlines
to let passengers stuck in stranded airplanes to disembark after
three hours.
(AP, 12/21/09)
2009 Dec 22, Budget airline
EasyJet cancelled about 180 flights due both to the "significant
snowfall" and airport closures across Britain, in a fresh blow to
passengers hoping to travel for the Christmas holidays.
(AFP, 12/22/09)
2009 Dec 22, American Airlines
Flight 331 carrying 154 people skidded across a Jamaican runway in
heavy rain, bouncing across the tarmac and injuring more than 40
people before it stopped just short of the Caribbean Sea.
(AP, 12/23/09)(SFC, 12/24/09, p.A2)
2009 Dec 25, An attempted
bombing took place as Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam
prepared to land in Detroit just before noon. Law enforcement
officials identified the suspect as Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (23),
a Nigerian man, who claimed to be acting on orders from al-Qaida to
blow up the airliner with a bomb sewed into his underwear.
Abdulmutallab later told US investigators he had received training
and instructions from al-Qaida operatives in Yemen. On Oct 12, 2011,
Abdulmutallab pleaded guilty to all federal counts against him.
(AP, 12/26/09)(AFP, 12/29/09)(AP, 1/2/10)(SFC,
10/13/11, p.A8)
2009 Dec 30, The Netherlands
announced it will immediately begin using full body scanners for
flights heading to the United States, issuing a report that called
the failed Christmas Day airline bombing a "professional" terror
attack.
(AP, 12/30/09)
2009 Dec 30, A Nigerian
official says the nation will purchase 3-D, full body scanners after
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab passed through Nigeria's biggest airport
before trying to bring down a US-bound flight on Christmas Day.
(AP, 12/30/09)
2010 Jan 19, Japan Airlines
filed for one of the country's largest bankruptcies ever, entering a
restructuring that will shrink Asia's top carrier and its presence
around the world.
(AP, 1/19/10)
2010 Feb 8, Boeing Co.’s
250-foot 747-8 freighter, the biggest plane it has ever built,
successfully completed its first flight from Paine Field, in
Everett, Wash.
(SFC, 2/9/10, p.A4)
2010 Feb 15, British Airways
said it would use low-carbon fuel to power part of its fleet from
2014 once Europe's first sustainable jet-fuel plant was built by US
biofuels specialist Solena Group. A plant to be built in London will
convert 500,000 tons of waste into 16 million gallons of green jet
fuel annually.
(AFP, 2/15/10)
2010 Feb 19, Two Muslim women
were stopped from boarding a flight at Manchester airport from
Britain to Pakistan for refusing to go through new body scanners,
citing religious and medical reasons.
(AFP, 3/4/10)
2010 Feb 22, German airline
Lufthansa went to court in a bid to halt a strike by some 4,000
pilots that disrupted more than one third of its flights. Later in
the day Lufthansa pilots agreed to suspend for two weeks a strike
that grounded about 900 flights, just as rival British Airways'
cabin crew voted to join the fray to protest harsh cost cuts.
(AP, 2/22/10)(Reuters, 2/22/10)
2010 Feb 25, Rajib Karim, a
British Airways computer specialist, was arrested at his BA desk in
Newcastle. On Feb 28, 2011, he was convicted after a trial at
Woolwich crown Court in London of plotting with US-born extremist
cleric Anwar al-Awlaki to blow up an airplane. He pleaded guilty to
helping produce a terrorist group's video, fundraising and
volunteering for terror abroad, but insisted he never planned an
attack in Britain.
(www.globaljihad.net/view_news.asp?id=1400)(AP,
2/28/11)
2010 Feb 26, In France a strike
by air traffic controllers disrupted flight for a 4th day and some
Air France pilots walked off the job to protest cost cutting
measures.
(SFC, 2/27/10, p.A2)
2010 Mar 19, In London
last-ditch talks aimed at preventing a strike by some 12,000 British
Airways (BA) cabin crew collapsed, leaving thousands of passengers
facing chaos within hours.
(AFP, 3/19/10)
2010 Mar 20, British Airways
canceled more than 1,000 flights after its cabin crew launched a
three-day strike, wreaking havoc on the plans of tens of thousands
of passengers just before the busy spring holiday season. .
(AP, 3/20/10)
2010 Mar 21, British Airways
cabin crews walked off the job for a second day, upsetting travel
plans for scores of customers, but the airline said its contingency
plans were working well and more planes were taking off than
expected.
(AP, 3/21/10)
2010 Mar 22, British Airways
cabin crew held a 3rd day of strike action, prolonging travel misery
for thousands. A business group warned the action threatens
Britain's global reputation.
(AP, 3/22/10)
2010 Mar 27, British Airways
cabin crew launched a four-day strike, the second wave of action in
a week as part of a bitter, long-running dispute over pay and
conditions.
(AFP, 3/27/10)
2010 Mar 28, British Airways
cabin crew entered the second day of a four-day strike, bringing
further travel disruption with no end in sight for a dispute that
has become increasingly political.
(AFP, 3/28/10)
2010 Apr 7, In Switzerland the
Solar Impulse aircraft, a pioneering Swiss bid to fly around the
world on solar energy, successfully completed its first test flight.
(AFP, 4/7/10)
2010 Apr 10, French explorer
Jean-Louis Etienne (63) made the first Arctic crossing by balloon,
landing in the tundra of eastern Siberia five days after taking off
in Norway.
(AP, 4/10/10)
2010 Apr 15, British airport
operator BAA Ltd. said all flights at London's Heathrow Airport have
been suspended for the rest of the day, causing travel chaos as ash
clouds from Iceland's spewing volcano halted air traffic across
Europe.
(AP, 4/15/10)
2010 Apr 16, Volcanic ash
blanketed parts of rural Iceland and left a widening arc of grounded
aircraft across Europe, as thousands of planes stayed on the tarmac
to avoid the hazardous cloud. Travel chaos engulfed major European
cities and the UN warned of possible health risks from falling ash.
(AP, 4/16/10)
2010 Apr 17, A lingering
volcanic ash plume forced extended no-fly restrictions over much of
Europe, as Icelandic scientists warned that volcanic activity had
increased and showed no sign of abating, a portent of more travel
chaos to come. Nearly 17,000 flights to and from Europe were
cancelled out of about 22,000 on a normal day.
(AP, 4/17/10)(Econ, 4/24/10, p.63)
2010 Apr 19, The chief of
British Airways said test flights have proven that the blanket
restrictions EU governments have imposed on flights because of
volcanic ash are unnecessary. The airline industry said it has lost
at least $1 billion due to five days of closed airports. A senior
Western diplomat says several NATO F-16 fighters suffered engine
damage after flying through the volcanic ash cloud covering large
parts of Europe.
(AP, 4/19/10)
2010 Apr 20, Airplanes
gradually took to the skies after five days of being grounded by a
volcanic ash cloud that has devastated European travel. Only limited
flights were allowed to resume at some European airports and UK
authorities said London airports would remained closed for at least
another day due to new danger from the invisible ash cloud.
(AP, 4/20/10)
2010 Apr 22, European airports
sent thousands of planes into the sky after a week of unprecedented
disruptions, with airlines piling on more flights and bigger planes
to try to get as many people home as possible.
(AP, 4/22/10)
2010 Apr 25, Kifah Hassan,
chief executive of Iraqi Airways, had his passport seized and the
plane he arrived on was impounded at Gatwick Airport in a
long-running legal dispute with Kuwait Airways. The dispute dated
back to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, when,
according to the oil-rich emirate, 10 of its planes and aircraft
parts were plundered after its airport was seized.
(AFP, 4/30/10)
2010 May 2, United Airlines
said it has agreed to buy Continental in a $3 billion-plus deal that
would create the world's largest carrier with a commanding position
in several top US cities.
(AP, 5/3/10)(SFC, 5/3/10, p.D1)
2010 May 4, Iceland's volcanic
ash renewed its threat to European air space, forcing Ireland to
shut services temporarily for the first time in 12 days. Ireland and
Britain lifted flight restrictions after temporarily closing
airspace due to the return of ash.
(AP, 5/4/10)(AFP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 5, Britain and Ireland
grounded flights again after a fresh cloud of ash swept in from the
Icelandic volcano which sparked unprecedented air travel chaos in
Europe last month.
(AFP, 5/5/10)
2010 May 7, It was reported
that JetBlue has formed a partnership with South African Airways
that will allow travelers to fly on both airlines with a single
ticket. Starting May 12 JetBlue customers will be able to travel to
40 international cities served by South African Airways.
(AP, 5/7/10)
2010 May 8, Hundreds of flights
between Europe and North America were either delayed or canceled due
to the spreading cloud of volcanic ash stretching across much of the
northern Atlantic. Spain shut 19 northern airports including
Barcelona because of the cloud of ash.
(AP, 5/8/10)(Reuters, 5/8/10)
2010 May 9, A plume of volcanic
ash snaked its way through southern France, Switzerland, Italy and
Germany, shutting down airports and disrupting flights across
Europe.
(AP, 5/9/10)
2010 May 11, Volcanic ash from
Iceland wound its way down to North Africa and curled over to
Turkey, forcing authorities to shut down Casablanca airport in
Morocco as well as airports in Spain and airspace over Turkey.
(AP, 5/11/10)
2010 May 11, Mohamed Ibrahim,
an Egyptian-American university botany professor teaching in the
United States, was arrested at Cairo airport after arriving on a
direct flight from New York carrying two pistols, 250 bullets, two
swords and 11 knives in his luggage.
(Reuters, 5/12/10)
2010 May 16, Aviation officials
closed airports in northern England, Scotland and Northern Ireland
due to a drifting, dense cloud of volcanic ash from Iceland.
(AP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 24, British Airways
cabin crew started a five-day strike, throwing travel plans for
thousands of passengers into disarray after last-ditch efforts to
avert the action collapsed.
(AP, 5/24/10)
2010 May 26, Iraq's government
dissolved state-owned Iraqi Airways over a decades-old financial
dispute dating back to Saddam Hussein's invasion of his oil-rich
neighbor Kuwait. A lawyer for Kuwait Airways called the Iraqi
government's strategy a "cynical tactic" and said it will not end
the dispute because Kuwait will still hold the government
accountable for the debt.
(AP, 5/26/10)
2010 May 27, Authorities closed
Guatemala's international airport after the nearby Pacaya volcano
showered as much as 3 inches (8 centimeters) of ash over parts of
the city. A television reporter was killed by a shower of burning
rocks when he got too close to the volcano, about 15 miles (25 km)
south of Guatemala City.
(AP, 5/28/10)(AP, 5/29/10)
2010 May 28, Jonathan Trappe
(36) of Raleigh, North Carolina, crossed the English Channel carried
by a bundle of helium balloons, ending a quiet and serene flight by
touching down in a French cabbage patch.
(AP, 5/28/10)
2010 May 30, British Airways
cabin crew started a fresh five-day strike with little sign of a
breakthrough in the long-running dispute between their union and the
airline.
(AFP, 5/30/10)
2010 Jun 14, An Iranian airport
official said 71 Iranian women "improperly" dressed were prevented
from boarding flights in recent months, as a police crackdown on the
behavior of young people intensified.
(AFP, 6/14/10)
2010 Jul 6, The EU banned most
of Iran Air's jets from flying to Europe because of safety concerns,
emphasizing that the move was not related to UN sanctions against
Iran over its nuclear program.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 8, In Switzerland an
experimental solar-powered plane completed its first 24-hour test
flight successfully, proving that the aircraft can collect enough
energy from the sun during the day to stay aloft all night.
(AP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 14, British Airways
and Iberia won the EU's regulatory approval to merge and to team up
with American Airlines to share more of their lucrative
trans-Atlantic routes.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 14, An Air India plane
carrying more than 200 passengers from New York became the first
commercial flight to land at New Delhi's new Terminal 3, part of a
$2.7-billion airport upgrade.
(AFP, 7/14/10)(Econ, 7/10/10, p.72)
2010 Jul 18, In England plane
manufacturers, airlines, government ministers and military top brass
gathered for the Farnborough International Airshow amid hopes that
the two-year downturn in the aviation and defense industry is
nearing a bottom.
(AP, 7/18/10)
2010 Jul 19, In England Boeing
Co. and Airbus announced new orders worth almost $13 billion at the
start of the Farnborough International Airshow, raising hopes that
the aviation industry is on the way back up after a dire two-year
slump.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 19, David Warren
(b.1925), an Australian scientist who invented the "black box"
flight data recorder, died. He designed and constructed a black box
prototype in 1956, but it took several years before officials
understood just how valuable the device could be and began
installing them in commercial airlines worldwide. In 2002, Warren
was awarded the Order of Australia, among the nation's highest
civilian honors, for his work.
(AP, 7/20/10)
2010 Aug 2, Compania Mexicana
de Aviacion filed for bankruptcy.
(Econ, 8/14/10, p.53)
2010 Aug 21, A consortium of
Mexican investors said they have acquired 95 percent of Mexicana de
Aviacion airline, which earlier this month filed for bankruptcy
protection. The Tenedora K group was formed "to capitalize" and
"save" Nuevo Grupo Aeronautico, the holding company that controls
Mexicana de Aviacion and two domestic airlines, Mexicana Click and
Mexicana Link.
(AFP, 8/22/10)
2010 Aug 23, Officials said the
United States has granted Nigerian airlines permission for direct US
flights.
(AFP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 23, Saudi low-cost
private airline Sama, launched in 2007 to serve Gulf and other Arab
states, said it is to suspend services from Aug 24 due to financial
problems.
(AP, 8/23/10)
2010 Sep 3, Britain and France
announced they are talking about sharing the cost of military
aircraft programs, but rejected reports that they plan to merge
their aircraft carrier fleets.
(AFP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 13, Staff at Israel's
Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv went on strike,
grounding all flights and leaving arriving passengers without their
luggage.
(AP, 9/13/10)
2010 Sep 14, Zimbabwe's state
airline said it has fired 40 striking pilots for failing to meet a
deadline to return to their posts. The pilots said the indebted
airline has not paid out operational allowances for nearly 20
months. They earned up to $2,500 a month, about one third of the
international pay scale for airline pilots.
(AP, 9/14/10)
2010 Sep 15, The new X2
helicopter, developed by Sikorsky, flew at 290mph during a test
flight in Florida, setting a new helicopter speed record.
(Econ, 9/11/10,
p.98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_X2)
2010 Oct 3, Egyptian and
Iranian airlines agreed to resume direct flights between the two
countries for the first time since 1979.
(SFC, 10/4/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 6, American Airlines,
British Airways and Iberia launched their transatlantic joint
business, unveiling new routes and detailing benefits for customers
that include a shared frequent flyers program.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 10, Virgin Galactic’s
space tourism rocket, SpaceShip Two, achieved its first solo glide
flight. Manned by 2 pilots it flew for 11 minutes before landing in
Mojave, Ca.
(SFC, 10/11/10, p.A5)(Econ, 10/16/10, p.100)
2010 Oct 19, Iran said some
Western companies were refusing to refuel its planes in Europe and
warned it would "confront" such measures, which it deemed illegal
under international law.
(AFP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 21, In central Mexico
Canadian industrial giant Bombardier and Mexican President Felipe
Calderon opened a new 250-million-dollar plant where it will produce
components for the Learjet 85 business aircraft.
(AFP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 29, Authorities on
three continents thwarted the attacks when they seized explosives on
cargo planes in the United Arab Emirates and England. The plot sent
tremors throughout the US, where after a frenzied day searching
planes and parcel trucks for other explosives, officials temporarily
banned all new cargo from Yemen. The next day police in Dubai said
that the bomb discovered there contained the powerful explosive PETN
and bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida. One of the two powerful bombs
mailed from Yemen to Chicago-area synagogues traveled on two
passenger planes within the Middle East.
(AP, 10/30/10)(AP, 10/31/10)
2010 Oct 31, A French airliner
landed at Baghdad International Airport, becoming one of the first
passenger planes to fly into the Iraqi capital direct from western
Europe since the Gulf War and opening a potential new route to
stronger international business ties.
(AP, 10/31/10)
2010 Nov 4, A Qantas A380 with
more than 450 people on board made a dramatic forced landing in
Singapore, trailing smoke from a blackened engine after the Airbus
superjumbo's first mid-air emergency. In response Qantas Airways and
Singapore Airlines suspended flights of the Airbus A380 superjumbos.
(AFP, 11/4/10)(Reuters, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 6, Airlines cancelled
at least 36 flights to and from Jakarta, affecting international
carriers from Europe to Asia, because of ash from the Mount Merapi
volcano.
(AFP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 8, Qantas extended the
grounding of its Airbus A380 superjumbos for at least three more
days after finding oil leaks in some engines, heightening safety
fears after two mid-air blow-outs last week.
(AFP, 11/8/10)
2010 Nov 8, Video posted on the
CBS News website showed an object flying through the evening sky
over southern California that left a large contrail, or vapor trail.
A news helicopter owned by KCBS, a CBS affiliate in Los Angeles,
shot the video. Pentagon officials were stumped by the event.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 9, The United Arab
Emirates said it will force Canadians to get a visa to travel to the
Persian Gulf federation as of Jan 2, as ties soured between the
once-close countries. Emirati officials have ratcheted up the
pressure on Ottawa after failing to secure additional landing rights
for their growing government-backed airlines.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 14, Delvonte Tisdale
(16) apparently fell from the sky after stowing away in an
airplane’s wheel well at the Charlotte-Douglas International Airport
in Charlotte, NC. His mutilated body was found in a Boston suburb.
(SFC, 12/11/10, p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/2dmblgm)
2010 Nov 17, In Namibia a
suspected explosive device was found on a conveyor belt with luggage
on a Germany-bound flight. On Nov 22 a court said that Nehemia
Shafuda, chief inspector of the Namibian police aviation security,
faces charges for smuggling a suspected explosive device, using the
device in an airport and giving false information that interfered
with airport operations.
(AP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 22, India gave the
green light for the construction of a second international airport
in the commercial capital Mumbai, a two billion dollar project that
was ten years in the making.
(AFP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 27, Australia's Qantas
Airways resumed flights of its Airbus A380 superjumbos, after a
mid-flight engine failure grounded all six of the planes earlier
this month.
(Reuters, 11/27/10)
2010 Dec 2, Heavy snow caused
travel chaos across much of northern Europe, keeping London's
Gatwick airport closed for a second day and disrupting road and rail
travel in France, Germany and Switzerland. Freezing temperatures and
often blinding snowfall killed 12 people, 10 in Poland and 2 in
Germany. Poland had already reported 8 dead due to the cold. Some of
the worst floods in a century devastated parts of the Balkans.
Authorities declared a state of emergency in Bosnia, Serbia and
Montenegro.
(Reuters, 12/2/10)(AP, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 3, Negotiators for the
US and Brazil initialed a text in Rio de Janeiro for a new air
transport agreement. Once formally approved, the pact will establish
an Open Skies air transportation relationship between the two
countries that will expand services and could bring down prices.
(AFP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 4, Spain placed
striking air traffic controllers under military authority and
threatened them with jail terms in an unprecedented emergency order
to get planes back in the skies and clear chaotic airports clogged
with irate travelers.
(AP, 12/4/10)
2010 Dec 6, Saudi Arabia's Rani
Investment Group said it would break ground on a 100-million-dollar
(75-million-euro) resort on a Mozambique island next year, aiming to
cash in on foreign tourists.
(AFP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 8, In France heavy
snowfall forced the closure of Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport and
shut down the Paris bus system.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 10, It was reported
that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is missing key
information on who owns one-third of the 357,000 private and
commercial aircraft in the US, a gap the agency fears could be
exploited by terrorists and drug traffickers.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 20, Snow and frigid
temperatures caused disruption across northern Europe for a third
day, stranding travelers, snarling traffic and shutting schools, and
the bad weather is likely to run through Christmas.
(Reuters, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 24, Heavy snow
stranded thousands of Christmas travelers in Europe, with Belgium's
main airport closed for landing and icy roads in Sweden choked with
traffic.
(AP, 12/24/10)
2010 Dec 26, In Russia icy rain
shut down Moscow's largest airport for nearly 15 hours, coated roads
with ice and left more than 300,000 people and 14 hospitals without
electricity.
(AP, 12/26/10)
2010 Dec 27, Hundreds of
passengers were stuck at airports up and down the US East Coast as a
blizzard menaced travelers trying to get home after the holidays.
(AP, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 27, Alfred Kahn (93),
US airline deregulator, died. In 1977 he took over the Civil
aeronautics Board for Pres. Carter. His academic efforts included
the 2-volume work: “The Economics of Regulation: Principles and
Institutions” (1988).
(Econ, 1/22/11, p.101)
2010 Dec 29, Spain's government
formally launched the privatization of air traffic control in 13
airports, just weeks after clamping down on a wildcat strike by
controllers.
(AFP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 29, The UAE embassy in
Ottawa said on its website that Canadians would be charged $250 for
a 30-day single entry visa while a six-month multiple entry visa
would cost $1000, with a maximum stay of 14 days during each visit.
Tensions have risen between the two countries since Canada denied
expanded landing rights for UAE airlines flying to Canada. That
triggered a UAE government decision to end access to a military base
used by the Canadian military to support troops in Afghanistan.
(Reuters, 12/29/10)
2011 Jan 2, Russia's transport
oversight agency ordered the country's airlines to stop using
Tu-154B planes until the cause of a passenger jet fire and explosion
that killed three people is determined.
(AP, 1/2/11)
2011 Jan 11, China's
radar-eluding stealth fighter, the J-20, made its first-known test
flight, marking dramatic progress in the country's efforts to
develop cutting-edge military technologies.
(AP, 1/11/11)(Econ, 1/15/11, p.43)
2011 Jan 19, President Barack
Obama announced a deal to step up cooperation with China on nuclear
security. The United States and China reached agreement on export
deals worth $45 billion. The agreements included a $19 billion deal
with Boeing in which China will purchase 200 Boeing aircraft. The
deals were announced at the formal start of a four-day state visit
to the US by Chinese President Hu Jintao. President Barack Obama
issued a finely tuned call for greater respect for human rights in
his speech to welcome his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao.
(AP, 1/19/11)(Reuters, 1/19/11)
2011 Jan 24, Former Minnesota
Gov. Jesse Ventura sued the Department of Homeland Security and the
Transportation Security Administration, alleging full-body scans and
pat-downs at airport checkpoints violate his right to be free from
unreasonable searches and seizures.
(AP, 1/24/11)
2011 Jan 24, In Russia 37
people were killed and 180 injured in a suicide bombing at Moscow's
Domodedovo airport. An autopsy later showed "a huge amount of highly
potent narcotic and psychotropic substances in parts of the suicide
bomber's body." On Feb 6 unnamed officials in the North Caucasus
region said they believed Magomed Yevloyev (20) of Ingushetia, was
the suicide bomber. On Feb 9 Itar-TASS reported that Yevloyev’s
brother Akhmed (16) and sister Fatima (22) have been arrested. Also
detained was Akhmed Aushev, a resident of the same village,
Ali-Yurt, Ingushetia. On March 29 Russian investigators charged Doku
Umarov, a Chechen warlord, and another militant with organizing the
airport bombing. Media reports said that Umarov might be among 17
militants killed in a security raid in the province of Ingushetia
west of Chechnya on March 28.
(Reuters, 1/24/11)(Reuters, 1/25/11)(AP,
1/29/11)(AP, 2/3/11)(Reuters, 2/6/11)(Reuters, 2/9/11)(AP, 3/29/11)
2011 Jan 26, The European
Union's top competition regulator blocked the merger between Greek
airlines Olympic Air and Aegean Airlines SA, saying a combined
carrier could monopolize Greek air travel.
(AP, 1/26/11)
2011 Jan 28, Mexican soldiers
seized nearly 200 pounds (90 kg) of drugs from the cargo area of an
Aeromexico commercial plane scheduled to fly to the northern border
city of Tijuana.
(AP, 1/29/11)
2011 Jan 31, The EU said that
the World Trade Organization found US aid to Boeing violated
international rules, confirming a preliminary ruling in the
long-running subsidy battle between the Chicago-based plane maker
and European rival Airbus.
(AP, 1/31/11)
2011 Feb 1, China Harbor
Engineering Company, a subsidiary of state-owned China
Communications Construction Company, signed a 1.2-billion-dollar
contract to build Khartoum's new international airport.
(AFP, 2/15/11)
2011 Feb 4, The US X-47B jet,
which looks like a smaller version of the B-2 stealth bomber, stayed
in the air for 29 minutes and climbed to 5,000 feet in a test flight
at Edwards Air Force Base, Ca. The robotic, bat-winged bomber was
designed to take off from an aircraft carrier. Northrop was building
the navy bomber under a $636 million contract awarded in 2007.
(AFP, 2/6/11)
2011 Feb 8, In Pakistan strike
action forced ailing state carrier Pakistan International Airlines
(PIA) to cancel flights to Britain and Turkey, affecting some 1,500
passengers.
(AFP, 2/8/11)
2011 Feb 9, In Pakistan strike
action forced Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) to ground or
delay all flights, affecting thousands of passengers and heaping
further woes on the troubled state carrier.
(AFP, 2/9/11)
2011 Feb 10, A new Thai airline
reported the hiring of transsexual ladyboys as flight attendants,
aiming at a unique identity to set itself apart from competitors as
it sets out for the skies. PC Air, a charter airline set to start
operations on Asian routes in April, has thus far chosen 4 ladyboys,
along with 19 female and 7 male flight attendants.
(Reuters, 2/10/11)
2011 Feb 11, Pakistani police
baton charged Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) employees,
detaining 20 of them, following violent protests as all of the
carrier's flights remained grounded for a second day.
(AFP, 2/11/11)
2011 Feb 20, Iran finally
withdrew its entire fleet of Soviet era Tupolev aircraft after a
series of fatal accidents involving the planes.
(AP, 2/20/11)
2011 Feb 24, In New Jersey
Transportation Security Administration officer Al Raimi (29) of
Woodbridge pleaded guilty in Newark federal court to theft by a
government officer. Federal prosecutors say Raimi stole between
$10,000 and $30,000 cash over nearly a year from travelers passing
through his checkpoint. He gave a cut of the cash to his supervisor,
Michael Arato, who pleaded guilty to related charges this month. 2
TSA agents at a NYC airport were arrested earlier this month on
charges of stealing $40,000 from passengers' luggage.
(AP, 2/24/11)
2011 Mar 8, The US government
gave permission to eight more airports to offer direct charter
flights to and from Cuba in the latest small opening in the
49-year-long trade embargo against the communist island.
(AP, 3/9/11)
2011 Mar 25, In India Pradeep
Kumar, a government aviation official, and 3 other people were
arrested in a widening investigation of corruption in awarding
flying licenses to airline pilots.
(AP, 3/26/11)
2011 Mar 31, It was reported
that the World Trade Organization has ruled that some US government
aid to aircraft maker Boeing Co. is illegal. The WTO's report
detailed findings first issued in private to the EU and US in
January.
(AP, 3/31/11)
2011 Apr 1, Southwest Airlines
Flight 812 lost cabin pressure following a fuselage rupture just
after takeoff from Phoenix. The Boeing 737-300 landed safely in Yuma
with no injuries. Inspectors later found small cracks in 3 more
Southwest planes. Some 300 flights were cancelled over the next 2
days as Southwest examined 79 similar planes.
(SFC, 4/4/11, p.A6)
2011 Apr 6, Virgin America
Flight VX2001 became the first to land at San Francisco’s newly
remodeled Terminal 2. The 1954 structure had just undergone a $383
million upgrade.
(SFC, 4/7/11, p.A1)
2011 Apr 11, Australia fined
Japan Airlines (JAL) Aus$5.5 million (US$5.8 million) after the
carrier admitted its role in a long-running cargo cartel case
involving 15 airlines. The Australian Competition and Consumer
Commission (ACCC) said JAL admitted to "making and giving effect to
illegal price-fixing understandings with other international
airlines" on fuel, insurance and security surcharges.
(AFP, 4/11/11)
2011 Apr 13, Iran’s first
vice-president was quoted as saying in the governmental newspaper
that Iran has stopped refueling "western passenger planes" since
Europe-bound Iranian commercial planes were refused fuelling there.
(AFP, 4/13/11)
2011 Apr 14, Mozambique
announced that it is building a $102 million (€70 million) airport
in the northern city Nacala in an effort to expand infrastructure to
attract tourists and investment.
(AFP, 4/14/11)
2011 Apr 17, The US government
said air traffic controllers would have more time to rest between
shifts under new work rules announced today, while Transportation
Secretary Ray LaHood made clear he won't tolerate sleeping on duty
despite studies and expert recommendations that suggest scheduled
shut-eye can help combat fatigue.
(AP, 4/17/11)
2011 Apr 18, Two airline
employees came to the aid of a woman that was being raped at Denver
Int’l. Airport. Noel Bertrand (26) was later charged with sexual
assault.
(www.truecrimereport.com/2011/04/ex-marine_noel_alexander_alleg.php)
2011 May 6, Nearly 800 Air
India pilots demanding more pay ended their 10-day-old strike, which
cost the state-run airline around 12 million rupees ($2.7 million) a
day.
(AP, 5/6/11)
2011 May 13, Pioneering Swiss
solar-powered aircraft Solar Impulse landed in Brussels after a
12-hour flight from Switzerland, the futuristic aircraft's first
international sortie.
(AP, 5/13/11)
2011 May 22, Iceland closed its
main international airport and canceled all domestic flights as the
Grimsvotn volcano sent a plume of ash, smoke and steam 12 miles (20
km) high.
(AP, 5/22/11)
2011 May 24, About 250 flights
to northern Britain were canceled over concerns about the ash cloud
spewing from an Icelandic volcano, but British and Irish officials
dismissed fears of a mass shutdown of airspace.
(Reuters, 5/24/11)
2011 May 27, Air India was
forced to cancel some flights after oil companies refused to give
the cash-strapped state-run carrier fuel because of a failure to pay
bills.
(AFP, 5/27/11)
2011 Jun 11, Chile’s
Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcano continued to sporadically spew a cloud
of ash, disrupting airline travel from Brazil and Argentina to as
far away as Australia and New Zealand.
(AP, 6/11/11)
2011 Jun 14, In Chile The cloud
of ash spewing from an erupting volcano grounded more flights in
countries from Uruguay to Australia and threatened to delay next
month's start of the Copa America football tournament in Argentina.
(AP, 6/14/11)
2011 Jun 16, In SF Deshon
Marman (20), a college football player, was arrested and thrown off
a US Airways jet in a dispute over his sagging pants. Marmon was in
the city attending the funeral of his best friend, David Henderson,
who was fatally wounded last month.
(SFC, 6/18/11, p.C4)
2011 Jun 16, Indian budget
airline GoAir said it had placed a $7.2-billion order for 72 new
Airbus aircraft as local carriers continue an aircraft shopping
spree to meet booming demand on the subcontinent.
(AFP, 6/16/11)
2011 Jun 18, A five-hour
computer outage virtually shut down United Airlines Friday night and
early Saturday, a stark reminder of how dependent airlines have
become on technology.
(AP, 6/18/11)
2011 Jun 21, In Australia
Hundreds of flights were grounded in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and
Canberra as the Chilean ash cloud returned to Australia with a
vengeance.
(AFP, 6/21/11)
2011 Jun 22, In France European
plane maker Airbus won a slew of orders for its A320 medium-haul
workhorse, including a record deal for 180 from Indian budget
carrier IndiGo at a rainy Paris Air Show.
(AFP, 6/22/11)
2011 Jun 23, The US blacklisted
a major Iranian port operator and the country's national airline,
Iran Air, to increase pressure on Tehran to curtail its alleged
nuclear weapons program.
(Reuters, 6/23/11)
2011 Jul 2, Australian aviation
regulators grounded budget carrier Tiger Airways Australia, a
subsidiary of Singapore's Tiger Airways, because it posed a "serious
and imminent risk to air safety", throwing the travel plans of
thousands of people into chaos.
(AFP, 7/2/11)
2011 Jul 7, Ash from a Chilean
volcano grounded flights across much of South America again,
disrupting travel for thousands of people just as the continent's
premier football tournament got going in Argentina.
(AP, 7/7/11)
2011 Jul 11, Air Algerie cabin
crew went on strike. They wanted a 106-percent pay rise and left
thousands of angry travelers stranded in Paris, Marseille and Nice
airports.
(AFP, 7/13/11)
2011 Jul 12, In Germany a plane
being used by Thailand's Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn was been
impounded as part of a long-running battle over payments for a
building project in Thailand. The Thai government allegedly owed the
now-bankrupt German construction firm Walter Bau AG builder 30
million euros because of a contract agreed to more than 20 years ago
to build and operate a toll highway to Bangkok's Don Muang airport.
On July 20 a German court ordered the release of the impounded jet
upon receipt of a hefty bank guarantee. On July 21 Thailand's
foreign minister ruled out paying a multi-million dollar bank
guarantee to secure the release of the prince's jet.
(AP, 7/13/11)(AFP, 7/20/11)(AFP, 7/21/11)
2011 Jul 13, In Colorado a hail
storm took almost a third of the Frontier Airlines Airbus fleet out
of service forcing the airline to cancel numerous flights over the
next week.
(SSFC, 7/17/11, p.A7)
2011 Jul 14, In France
thousands of angry travelers were still stranded in airports and in
Algiers as a strike by Air Algerie cabin crew, who want a 106% pay
rise, went into its 4th day. Air Algerie staff ended their four-day
strike after mediation by the office of PM Ahmed Ouyahia.
(AFP, 7/14/11)
2011 Jul 19, Britain's
competition watchdog reiterated its ruling for Spanish-owned
airports operator BAA to sell two more airports including London
Stansted followed by Edinburgh or Glasgow Airport.
(AFP, 7/19/11)
2011 Aug 2, The US Senate
recessed and left without resolving a partisan standoff over a bill
to end the partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration.
This left the FAA unable to collect taxes on airline ticket sales
and already cost the government over $200 million.
(SFC, 8/3/11, p.A2)
2011 Aug 4, US Congressional
leaders struck a deal to resolve a partisan dispute and end a
partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that
has halted airport projects and threatened thousands of jobs.
Congress adjourned earlier this week for its August recess but
Democratic aides said the Senate will finalize the deal on Aug 4 by
approving a version of the spending measure already passed by the
U.S. House of Representatives.
(Reuters, 8/4/11)
2011 Aug 9, In Malaysia budget
carrier AirAsia and state-owned Malaysia Airlines formed an alliance
through a share swap deal to end their long rivalry and boost
business.
(AP, 8/9/11)
2011 Aug 10, Australian
aviation authorities lifted a 6-week flying ban on the local unit of
Tiger Airways after the budget carrier agreed to new conditions
including extra training for pilots.
(AFP, 8/10/11)
2011 Aug 18, Spanish
authorities arrested Aeromexico co-pilot Ruben Garcia Garcia for
attempting to smuggle 93 pounds of cocaine into the European
country.
(AP, 8/23/11)
2011 Aug 27, National carrier
Egyptair resumed direct flights to Iraq after a break of 21 years.
(AFP, 8/27/11)
2011 Aug 27, The Canadian Union
of Public Employees, which represents 6,800 Air Canada flight
attendants, said Air Canada flight attendants have rejected a
tentative contract that union bargainers negotiated with the
country's largest air carrier. The union has scheduled a strike vote
for next month.
(Reuters, 8/27/11)
2011 Sep 27, In Australia
thousands of international air travelers faced delays as Customs and
Border Protection officers walked off the job at airports across the
country after workers rejected a 9 percent pay rise over three
years.
(AP, 9/27/11)
2011 Sep 28, ANA, a Japanese
airline, flew the first commercial Dreamliner into Tokyo. Its first
passenger flight was made on Oct 26 from Tokyo to Hong Kong.
(Econ, 10/1/11, p.42)(SFC, 10/27/11, p.A16)
2011 Oct 4, It was reported
that NASA has awarded a Pennsylvania company, Pipistrel-USA.com of
State College, a $1.35 million prize for developing an
ultra-efficient electric airplane. Wired Magazine reported that the
winning airplane "was developed and built in Slovenia as a
technology demonstrator for the airplane maker."
(http://tinyurl.com/3nk4ndh)
2011 Oct 13, Air traffic
between Senegal and Mauritania resumed after a three-month pause,
ending a row over onward flights.
(AFP, 10/13/11)
2011 Oct 24, In Portugal an
overnight storm tore part of the roof off Faro airport in the
southern Algarve region, injuring five people and disrupting
flights.
(AP, 10/24/11)
2011 Oct 29, Australian flag
carrier Qantas grounded its entire fleet indefinitely in a bitter
industrial dispute. Months of strikes by baggage handlers, engineers
and pilots have been costing Qantas Aus$15 million (£9.9
million) per week, with the total financial impact so far hitting
Aus$68 million.
(AFP, 10/29/11)
2011 Oct 29, Phoenix-based US
Airways flight attendant Nick Aaronson (33) was found dead in a
Mexico City hotel room while on a layover. Authorities were
investigating the death as a homicide.
(AP, 10/30/11)
2011 Oct 31, An Australian
court ended the strikes and employee lockout that had abruptly
grounded Qantas Airways and stranded tens of thousands of passengers
worldwide. The government referred the dispute to Fair Work
Australia, which ordered both sides into 21 days of talks.
(AP, 10/31/11)(Econ, 11/5/11, p.75)
2011 Nov 1, Senegal shut its
airspace to all planes coming or going to Guinea after a Senegal
Airlines flight was blocked in Conakry due to a spat over payments.
(AFP, 11/1/11)
2011 Nov 4, British Airways
owner IAG said it has agreed to buy Lufthansa's UK unit bmi in a bid
to squeeze more growth from its capacity constrained Heathrow hub
and expand services to emerging markets in Asia and Latin America.
(Reuters, 11/4/11)
2011 Nov 13, Emirates Airlines
launched the Dubai Airshow with a record $18-billion order for 50
Boeing 777s, giving the US company a flying start on its European
rival Airbus at the prestigious event.
(AFP, 11/13/11)
2011 Nov 14, Kuwait-based
leasing company ALAFCO signed an agreement with Airbus to buy 50
A320neo aircraft, valued at $4.6 billion at list price, the two
sides announced at Dubai Airshow.
(AFP, 11/14/11)
2011 Nov 15, Nigerian airport
officials fined British Airways $135 million and Virgin Atlantic
$100 million amid a dispute over ticket prices. The airlines were
given 14 days to respond and were ordered to compensate passengers.
(AFP, 11/17/11)
2011 Nov 18, Indonesia’s Lion
Air said it is planning to buy 230 planes from Boeing Co. The list
price of $21.7 billion will be paid over 12 years though bank
financing.
(AP, 11/18/11)
2011 Nov 29, AMR Corp., the
parent of American Airlines, filed for bankruptcy and replaced CEO
Gerard Arpey. The company still had some 8 billion in cash to keep
operating.
(SFC, 11/30/11, p.D5)
2011 Dec 4, Pilots at Lebanese
national carrier Middle East Airlines (MEA) ended a five-day strike
in protest at the dismissal of a cancer-stricken colleague which
grounded dozens of flights at Beirut airport.
(AFP, 12/4/11)
2011 Dec 6, Antigua-based LIAT
airline said all of its pilots have called in sick, likely
disrupting all flights. The pilots were protesting the firing of a
captain for undisclosed reasons.
(AP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 15, Air Zimbabwe
chairman Jonathan Kadzura said the government has raised $1.5
million (1.2 million euros) to pay off the national airline's debt
and have an impounded airplane released in London.
(AFP, 12/15/11)
2011 Dec 16, Zimbabwe state
media said the national airline has suspended flights to South
Africa over a debt of $500,000, fearing creditors might impound more
of its planes.
(AFP, 12/16/11)
2011 Dec 18, Spanish airline
Iberia cancelled a third of its flights because of a strike by
pilots fearing job losses when company planes are diverted for a
planned new budget carrier.
(SFC, 12/18/11, p.A2)
2011 Dec 19, The Air Berlin
group, Germany's 2nd-largest airline, said United Arab Emirates
airline, Etihad, is to pay 72.9 million euros ($95 million) to
become its biggest shareholder.
(AP, 12/19/11)
2012 Jan 1, As of today the EU
began billing all the world’s airlines for the carbon emissions into
and out of the EU.
(Econ, 1/7/12, p.58)
2012 Jan 16, A hacker network
that claims to be based in Saudi Arabia paralyzed the websites of
Israel's stock exchange and national airline. El Al Israel Airlines
took down its website after hacker OxOmar, who has been linked to
the Saudi group, warned that both sites would be targeted by allied
pro-Palestinian hackers.
(AP, 1/16/12)
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End of file