JUL26

1879 - Birth of Henry Cope Evans, British WWI flying ace.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Evans_(RFC_officer) - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/england/evans2.php

1889 - Birth of Godwin Brumowski, most successful fighter ace of the Austro-Hungarian Air Force during WWI.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin_Brumowski - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/austrhun/brumowski.php

1890 - Birth of Paul Thayer Laccaci, Amrican WWI fighter ace

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Iaccaci - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/usa/iaccaci2.php

1891 - Birth of Alford Joseph Williams, USMC and USAAC pioneering aviator, record setter and test pilot.

http://majoralwilliams.weebly.com/

1897 - Birth of Humphrey de Verd Leigh, British WWI pilot, WWII senior officer who developped the Leigh Light (abbreviated L/L) WWII era anti-submarine device used in the Second Battle of the Atlantic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphrey_de_Verd_Leigh - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leigh_light

1897 - Birth of D'Urban Victor Armstrong, South african WWI flying ace

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D'Urban_Armstrong - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/safrica/armstrong1.php

1904 - Birth of Edwin Albert Link, American pioneer in aviation, underwater archaeology, and ocean engineering, most remembered for inventing the flight simulator, commercialized in 1929, called the "Blue Box" or "Link Trainer".

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

1910 - Capt. G. W. P. Dawes becomes the 1st British Army officer to be awarded an aviator's certificate in England, when he qualifies for certificate no.17 on a Humber Monoplane at Wolverhampton, England.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Aviation/Historical_anniversaries/July_in_aviation/July_26

1911 - French Lieutenant de Vaisseau Jean Louis Conneau (pseudonym André Beaumont) wins the Daily Mail Circuit of Britain Race in a Blériot XI monoplane.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Louis_Conneau - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daily_Mail_Circuit_of_Britain_Air_Race

1912 - Lieutenant John Rodgers and Ensign Charles Maddox, in a Wright B1 Flyer, send the 1st wireless message from an airplane to a ship, the torpedo boat USS Stringham, stationed in Annapolis, Maryland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Stringham_(TB-19)

1916 - Francesco Brach Papa sets a World altitude record of 6000m with a Savoia-Pomilio SP.2.

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

1917 - Death of Phillip Bernard "Bruce" Prothero, Scottish WWI flying ace, Killed in action.

http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/scotland/prothero.php

1917 - Death of Otto Brauneck, German WWI flying ace, shot down in his Albatros D.V by a Sopwith Camel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Brauneck - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/brauneck.php

1918 - Death of Major Edward Corringham "Mick" Mannock, British WWI flying ace. As he wanted to check his last victory at low altitude, he was caught in a massive volley of ground-fire. His flaming aircraft crashed behind ennemy lines.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Mannock#Final_Sortie - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/mannock.php

1925 - 1st flight of the Kalinin K-1, Soviet high wing monoplane 4 seat single engine aircraft.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalinin_K-1

1926 - Death of Reginald Carey Brenton Brading, British WWI flying ace, Killed in a flying accident in the Vicinity of Baghdad, Iraq.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reginald_Brading - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/brading.php

1929 - French Joanny Burtin sets a new world altitude record of 26,531 feet for airplanes with a 1-ton load. Burtin's flight also proves that at high altitudes, fuel consumption drops considerably and wind resistance is reduced, making high-altitude flying more economical and profitable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Aviation/Historical_anniversaries/July_in_aviation/July_26 - http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanny_Burtin

1935 - Death of Käthe Paulus, German Baloonist and parachute pioneer.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A4the_Paulus

1937 - Famous pilot, Jacqueline Cochran, sets a new speed record for women by flying over 203 mph with a Beechcraft Model D17W Staggerwing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Aviation/Historical_anniversaries/July_in_aviation/July_26

1938 - Death of Dmitry Pavlovich Grigorovich, Russian/Soviet aircraft designer

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

1938 - 1st flight of the Potez 662, French low wing, 4 engine transport monoplane prototype aircraft, higher powered and faster development of the Potez 661.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potez_662 - http://aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=877

1941 - Soviet Union makes the 1st operational use of parasite fighters with modified Polikarpov I-16s carried into action by Tupolev TB-3s (Zveno-SPB aircrafts). The fighters disconnected 40 km (22 NM, 25 mi) from the target and returned to the home airfield under their own power

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zveno_project#Operational_history

1944 - Birth of Rimantas Antanas Stankevicius, Lithuanian cosmonaut who test flew Soviet space shuttle Buran and its test vehicles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rimantas_Stankevi%C4%8Dius

1944 - 1st jet aircraft combat, Alfred Schreiber flying Messerschmitt a Me 262 A-1a intercepted and attacked a Mosquito PR XVI, a photo-reconnaissance aircraft from No. 540 Squadron RAF.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Schreiber - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_262#Operational_history

http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/history-of-aviation-timeline/interactive-aviation-timeline/world-aviation/1944.aspx

1946 – Aloha Airlines (Trans-Pacific Airlines at that time) begins service from Honolulu International Airport with a single World War II-surplus Douglas C-47 (DC-3) on a flight from Honolulu to Maui and Hilo.

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

1949 - Birth of William McMichael Shepherd, USN pilot and NASA astronaut who served as commander of Expedition 1, the 1st crew on the International Space Station.

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

1951 - Birth of William Surles McArthur, Jr., US Army Colonel, Test pilot and NASA astronaut

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S._McArthur

1954 - Soviet Air Force Lavochkin La-7s attack two US Navy A-1 Skyraiders searching for survivors from the Air Cathay flight. The Skyraiders respond and shoot down the La-7s

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-1_Skyraider#Communist_China

1957 - 1st flight of The Breguet 1001 Taon, French prototype Single-seat jet strike fighter aircraft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breguet_Taon - http://aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=986

1958 - Malcolm David Ross, With Lieutenant Commander M. L. Lewis (USN), lifted in the Strato-Lab High III gondola to set a new unofficial record for stratospheric flight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Ross_%28balloonist%29#Balloon_Flights

1958 - Launch of Explorer 4, US Satellite for studying the Van Allen radiation belts and the effects of nuclear explosions upon these belts (and the Earth's magnetosphere in general).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explorer_4

1958 - Death of Iven Carl "Kinch" Kincheloe, Jr., American test pilot, recipient of the Silver Star and Distinguished Flying Cross, Korean War fighter ace, killed in the crash of an F-104A.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iven_C._Kincheloe - http://cieldegloire.com/014_kincheloe_i_c.php

1959 - William Henry Rankin becomes the only known person to survive a fall from the top of a cumulonimbus thunderstorm cloud. Flying an F-8 jet fighter over a cumulonimbus cloud when the engine failed, forcing him to eject and parachute into the cloud which caused his descent to last 40 minutes, longest recorded parachute descent in history.

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

1963 - Syncom 2, the world's 1st geosynchronous satellite, is launched from Cape Canaveral on a Delta B booster.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncom_2#Syncom_2

1964 - Birth of Igor Valentinovitch Tkachenko, Russian military pilot and Russian Knights aerobatic team group leader.

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

1964 - Death of Joseph 'Joe' B. Duckworth, USAF pilot and commercial pilot, regarded as the "father" of modern instrument flight, noted for being the 1st person to fly through the eye of a hurricane

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Duckworth_(aviator)

1971 - 1st flight of the Jacquet-Pottier JP-20-90 'Impala', French light monoplane racer prototype

http://aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=10150

1971 - Launch of Apollo 15, American manned mission to the moon. 1st mission where the Lunar Roving Vehicle was used.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_15

1973 - 1st flight of The Sikorsky S-69, American experimental compound co-axial helicopter developed as the demonstrator of the Advancing Blade Concept (ABC).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_S-69

1975 - Soyuz 18, Soviet manned mission to Salyut 4 space station, is back on earth

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_18

1993 - Asiana Air Flight 733 Boeing 737-5L9 slams into a ridge of Ungeo Mountain after two missed bad-weather approaches to Mokpo Airport in South Korea, killing 68 of the 116 people on board.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiana_Airlines_Flight_733

1998 - 1st flight of The Scaled Composites Model 281 Proteus, American tandem-wing high-endurance aircraft designed by Burt Rutan to investigate the use of aircraft as high altitude telecommunications relays

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

2001 - Death of Rex Theodor Barber, American WWII fighter pilot, best known as a member of the top secret mission to intercept the aircraft carrying Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

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

2003 - The 13th FAI World Rally Flying Championship begings in Rustenburg in South Africa 51 crews from 14 countries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_FAI_World_Rally_Flying_Championship

2005 - Launch of STS-114, Space shuttle 'Discovery' mission to deliver supplies to the ISS, 1st "Return to Flight" Space Shuttle mission following the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-114

2006 - The 15th FAI World Rally Flying Championship begins in Troyes in France with 65 crews.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15th_FAI_World_Rally_Flying_Championship

2006 - The 17th FAI World Precision Flying Championship in Troyes in France is won by Polish Krzysztof Wieczorek with a 3Xtrim 3X55 Trener.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17th_FAI_World_Precision_Flying_Championship

2007 - 1st flight of The Embraer Phenom 100 , brazilian very light executive jet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embraer_Phenom_100

2010 - The Sikorsky Aircraft Corp.’s X2 Technology, American experimental compound helicopter with coaxial rotors unofficially broke the speed record for rotorcraft, achieving a maximum speed of 225 knots in a one-hour test flight

http://www.sikorsky.com/About+Sikorsky/News/Press+Details?pressvcmid=a4a2962fa4f0a210VgnVCM1000004f62529fRCRD

2011 - Royal Moroccan Air Force Lockheed C-130 Hercules crashed due to bad weather into Sayyert Mountain approximately 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from Guelmin, Morocco, Killing all 80 on board.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Royal_Moroccan_Air_Force_Lockheed_C-130_Hercules_crash