FEB05

1744 - Birth of John Jeffries, Boston physician, scientist, and military surgeon with the British Army in Nova Scotia and New York during the American Revolution. He is best known for accompanying Jean-Pierre Blanchard on his 1785 balloon flight across the English Channel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Jeffries

1840 - Birth of Hiram Stevens Maxim, British American-born inventor of the 1st portable, fully automatic machine gun and early aircraft designer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiram_Stevens_Maxim

1861 - Birth of August von Parseval, German airship designer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_von_Parseval

1880 - Birth of Gabriel Voisin, aviation's earliest pioneers and creator of Europe's 1st manned, engine-powered, heavier-than-air aircraft capable of a sustained circular (1 km) controlled flight, including take-off and landing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Voisin

1881 - Birth of Austin Leonard Walsh, New Zealand pioneer aviator and aircraft designer, founder with his brother Vivian Claude Walsh of the New Zealand Flying School.

http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/3w3/walsh-austin-leonard

1889 - Birth of Konstantin Alekseevic Kalinin, Russian engineer, pilot and aircraft designer.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin_Alexejewitsch_Kalinin

1891 - Birth of Carl "Charly" Degelow, German WWI fighter ace who also served in WWII, last person to win the military Pour le Merite (Blue Max).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Degelow - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/degelow.php

1892 - Birth of Marcel Anatole Hugues, French WWI fighter ace, WWII pilot and commanding officer.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Hugues - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/france/hugues.php

1893 - Birth of Carrick Stewart Paul, New Zealand WWI flying ace.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrick_Paul - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/nzealand/paul.php

1894 - Birth of Alfred Alexander "Ack-Ack" Leitch, Canadian WWI flying ace

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Alexander_Leitch - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/canada/leitch.php

1897 - Birth of Paul Joannes Sauvage, French WWI youngest flying ace.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Sauvage_(aviator) - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/france/sauvage.php

1908 - Birth of Loris Pivetti, Italian WWII pilot.

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loris_Pivetti

1911 - 1st flight in New-Zealand is made by Vivian Claude Walsh in a Howard Wright biplane christened 'Manurewa' built with his brother Leo Austin Walsh. at Papakura near Auckland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivian_Walsh_(aviator) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Wright_1910_Biplane#Operational_history

1913 – Greek military aviators, Michael Moutoussis and Aristeidis Moraitinis perform the 1st naval air mission in history, with a Farman MF.7 hydroplane.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristeidis_Moraitinis_(aviator) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Moutoussis

1915 - French Aviator Adolphe Celestin Pégoud scored 1 Taube and 2 Aviatik-C on that day.

http://theaerodrome.com/aces/france/pegoud.php

1916 - Birth of Gino P. Santi, American Air Force engineer who developed the modern pilot ejection system.

http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/523218/Gino-P-Santi - http://www.locategrave.org/l/4845697/Gino-P-Santi-OH

1918 - 2nd Lt Stephen Thompson claims the 1st aerial victory for the US Air Service.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_W._Thompson

1918 - Death of Leonard Monteagle Barlow, British WWI flying ace, while test flying a Sopwith Dolphin which broke up in mid air.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Monteagle_Barlow - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/barlow2.php

1918 - Death of Harold Day, Welsh WWI flying ace, killed in action in his Sopwith Camel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Day_(aviator) - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/wales/day1.php

1919 - Birth of Ion Dobran, Romanian WWII flying ace anr airliner pilot

http://www.worldwar2.ro/arr/?article=695 - http://cieldegloire.com/012_dobran_i.php

1919 - The airline Deutsche Luft Reederei flies its 1st service, which is freight only, between Berlin and Weimar.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Luft-Reederei

1919 - Birth of George Preddy, American WWII fighter ace, top P-51 Mustang ace of WWII and 6th on the list of all-time highest scoring American aces.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Preddy - http://cieldegloire.com/014_preddy_g_e.php

1919 - Birth of Cornelia Clark Fort, aviator in the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS), 1st female pilot in American history to die on active duty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelia_Fort

1920 - 1st flight of the De Marçay T-2, French twin seat biplane light touring aircraft prototype.

http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=7955

1920 - The Royal Air Force College is established at Cranwell, Lincolnshire.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_College_Cranwell

1922 - 1st flight of the Arnoux Simplex, French experimental 2 seat tailless aircraft.

http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=10021

1925 - Clyde V. Cessna, Walter Beech and Lloyd Stearman founded Travel Air Manufacturing Company Ltd.

http://www.aviastar.org/manufacturers/0535.html

1926 - 1st prototype Dewoitine D 12 French Fighter is written off in an accident at Cazaux.

http://www.aviastar.org/air/france/dewoitine_d-12.php

1927 - Birth of Jacob Louis Veldhuyzen van Zanten, Dutch aircraft captain and flight instructor, Captain of the ill-fated KLM Royal Dutch Airlines Boeing 747 which was involved in the Tenerife airport disaster.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Veldhuyzen_van_Zanten

1929 - Frank Hawks and Oscar Grubb land their Lockheed Air Express in New York after a record flight of 18 hours 20 minutes from Burbank, California.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Hawks

1929 - 1st flight of The Fairey Firefly IIM, British fighter, single-seat, single-engine biplane of all-metal construction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Firefly_II

1929 - Death of Ehrenfried Günther Freiherr von Hünefeld, German Aviation pioneer and initiator of the 1st trans-atlantic flight in East-West direction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehrenfried_G%C3%BCnther_Freiherr_von_H%C3%BCnefeld

1931 - Death of Air Commodore Charles Rumney Samson, British naval aviation pioneer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Rumney_Samson#Naval_aviation

1932 – 1st air-to-air clash of the Shanghai Incident takes place, between 5 Japanese aircraft from the aircraft carrier Hosho and 9 Nationalist Chinese fighters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aircraft_carrier_H%C5%8Dsh%C5%8D#Shanghai

1933 - Death of James Herman Banning, American aviation pioneer, America's 1st black aviator to fly coast-to-coast, killed in a plane crash during an air show near San Diego.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Banning

1938 - SSSR-V6 OSOAVIAKhIM, Soviet semi-rigid airship, collided with the high ground near Kandalaksha, 280 km south of Murmansk. Of the 19 people on board, 13 perished.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSSR-V6_OSOAVIAKhIM

1939 - Alex Henshaw Takes off his Percival Mew Gull from Gravesend near London to Cape Town in South Africa for a record breaking flight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Henshaw#Early_life

1941 - The Focke-Achgelis Fa 223 V-1 Drache, German Helicopter, is lost in an accident following engine failure (right rotor pylon broke off in flight) at an altitude too low for an auto-rotative landing. Test pilot Carl Bode successfully parachutes from the stricken helicopter (quite possibly the 1st helicopter parachute attempt ever), but passenger Dr. Ing. Heinz Baer is killed in the crash.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focke-Achgelis_Fa_223#First_flight

1944 - After nearly 7 months in the jungle of New Britain island, Papua New Guinea, Fred Hargesheimer, along with other downed airmen, is rescued by the USS Gato.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hargesheimer#World_War_II - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Gato_(SS-212)

1947 - Birth of Mary Louise Cleave, American engineer and NASA astronaut

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_L._Cleave

1948 - 1st flight of The Youngman-Baynes High Lift, British single-engine, low-wing monoplane experimental aircraft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youngman-Baynes_High_Lift

1949 - An Eastern Air Lines Lockheed Constellation lands at LaGuardia, New York, at the end of a flight of 6 hours 18 minutes from Los Angeles, a coast-to-coast record for transport aircraft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Aviation/Historical_anniversaries/February_in_aviation/February_5

1954 - 1st flight of the CAB GY-30 Supercab, French 2-seat low wing monoplane with a manually retractable undercarriage light aircraft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAB_Supercab - http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=9758

1958 - During a practice exercise a B-47 bomber carrying a Mark 15 hydrogen bomb collided in midair with an F-86 fighter plane. To prevent a detonation in the event of a crash and to save the aircrew, the bomb was jettisoned. Following several unsuccessful searches, the bomb was presumed lost somewhere in Wassaw Sound off the shores of Tybee Island.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tybee_Bomb

1960 - 1st flight of The PZL TS-11 Iskra (Polish for Spark) , Polish jet trainer aircraft

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PZL_TS-11_Iskra

1962 - A Sikorsky HSS-2 Sea King of the US Navy sets a world helicopter speed record of 210.6 mph, in the course of a flight between Milford and New Haven, Connecticut.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_SH-3_Sea_King#Design_and_development

1966 - 1st flight of the CEA DR-220 2+2, French conventional landing gear single-engined light touring or training cabin monoplane.

http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=1637 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_DR.200#Variants

1967 - Launch of Lunar Orbiter 3, NASA spacecraft designed to photograph areas of the lunar surface for confirmation of safe landing sites for the Surveyor and Apollo missions. It was also equipped to collect selenodetic, radiation intensity, and micrometeoroid impact data.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Orbiter_3

1971 - Apollo 14 lands on the moon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_14

1972 - NASA and de Havilland Canada extensively modify a C-8 Buffalo for STOL experiments

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Aviation/Historical_anniversaries/February_in_aviation/February_5

1973 - 1st flight of the Airbus A300B1, European short- to medium-range widebody jet airliner, evolution of the A-300B.

http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=9826

1974 - Mariner 10, NASA spacecraft passes Venus, sending the 1st pictures.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariner_10#Venus_flyby

1982 - Laker Airway, wholly private, British independent airline operates its last flight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laker_Airways

1983 - Death of Harry George Armstrong, American Aviatior, pioneer in the field of aviation medicine, known as "the father of space medicine". The "Armstrong Limit", the altitude above which water boils at the temperature of the human body, is named after him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_George_Armstrong

1987 - Launch of ASTRO-C (Ginga - Japanese for 'galaxy'), Japanese X-ray astronomy satellite.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginga_(satellite)

1987 - Launch of Soyuz TM-2, spacecraft used to launch a long duration crew to the Soviet space station Mir, 1st manned spaceflight of the Soyuz-TM spacecraft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_TM-2

2003 - Aero-India show is held at Bangalore with 176 companies from 22 countries participating

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aero-India_show

2009 - Death of Franz Villinger, german aircraft designer who built one of the 1st Human powered aircraft.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Villinger

2012 - Global Aviation Holdings, the largest commercial provider of charter lift to the U.S. military, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Aviation_Holdings#Bankruptcies