MARCH25

1778 - Birth of Sophie Blanchard, Born Marie Madeleine-Sophie Armant, French aeronaut and wife of ballooning pioneer Jean-Pierre Blanchard, 1st woman to work as a professional balloonist.

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

1802 - Birth of Jules-François Dupuis-Delcourt, French Aeronaut, author and Physician.

http://patrimoine51.blog50.com/archive/2006/12/17/jules-francois-dupuis-delcourt-aeronaute-physicien.html

1858 - William Dean & C. H. Brown made the 1st ascent at night in Australia in a balloon.

http://www.aarg.com.au/Aviation-EarlyAustralian.htm

1893 - Birth of Girolamo "Gino" Allegri, Italian WWI pilot who participated at The Flight over Vienna, an epic action performed by Italian poet and nationalist patriot Gabriele D'Annunzio over 1,200 km in a roundtrip from the squadron's military airfield near San Pelagio at Due Carrare near Padua to Vienna to drop some thousands of propaganda leaflets.

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

1893 - Birth of Romolo Ticconi, Italian WWI flying ace

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romolo_Ticconi - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/italy/ticconi.php

1895 - Birth of Herbert Frank Stacey Drewittt, New Zealand WWI flying ace.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Drewitt - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/nzealand/drewitt.php

1897 - Birth of Theodor Rumpel, German WWI flying ace

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

1899 - Birth of Gordon Metcalfe Duncan, Scottish WWI flying ace

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Duncan_(aviator) - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/scotland/duncan1.php

1902 - Birth of Frederic A. Brossy, American aviator, instructor and record setter.

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

1910 - 1st aeroplane flight over a Canadian city, New Westminster, BC, was part of a 26 mile trip made by Charles Keeney Hamilton on a Curtiss pusher biplane from Minoru Park near Vancouver.

http://canadianaviationhistory.pbworks.com/w/page/13801121/On-this-day-in-Canadian-Aviation-History-March - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_K._Hamilton

1917 - One of the greatest fighter pilots of WWI, Canada-born Lt. Col. William Avery 'Billy' Bishop, scores his 1st combat victory over an Albatros D II single-seat fighter while flying a Nieuport XVII.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Bishop - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/canada/bishop.php - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/canada/bishop-c.php

1918 - Death of Frederick Carr "Army" Armstrong, Canadian WWI flying ace, killed in action in his Sopwith Camel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_C._Armstrong - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/canada/armstrong2.php

1918 - US Navy pilot Ensign John F. McNamara, flying out of RNAS Portland, made the 1st attack on an enemy submarine by a U.S. Naval Aviator.

http://www.germanmilitaryhistory.com/blog/51597-the-war-against-the-u-boat-wwi/ - http://www.usni.org/magazines/navalhistory/2011-03/flight-line

1921 - Birth of Dr Hans Guido Mutke, fighter pilot for the German Luftwaffe during WWII. It is claimed that Mutke made the very 1st flight breaking the sound barrier in 1945, in a Me 262, though this claim is subject of controversy.

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

1924 - Royal Air Force officers McLaren, Plenderleith, and Andrews set off in an attempted round-the-world flight in a Vickers Vulture II. Their attempt will ultimately fail in Siberia in early August.

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

1928 - Birth of James "Jim" Arthur Lovell, Jr., former NASA astronaut and a retired captain in the United States Navy, most famous as the commander of the Apollo 13 mission, which suffered a critical failure en route to the Moon but was brought back safely to Earth by the efforts of the crew and mission control. Lovell was also the command module pilot of Apollo 8, the first Apollo mission to enter lunar orbit.

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

1930 - 1st flight of The Bernard HV-120, French single-engined racing floatplane prototype built for the Schneider trophy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_H.V.120 - http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=2142

1931 - 1st flight of The Hawker Fury , British biplane fighter aircraft .

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

1932 - Dobrolyot is expanded into a USSR-wide service under the name of Grazhdansky Vozdushny Flot (Civil Air Fleet) and christened as 'Aeroflot'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroflot#Early_history_of_Soviet_civil_aviation

1933 - Death of Desmond Percival Fitzgerald Uniacke, British WWI flying ace (observer/gunner)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Uniacke - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/england/uniacke.php

1938 - Death of Kosuke Kawahara, Japanese 2nd Sino-Japanese War flying ace, killed in action in his Kawasaki Type 95 (Ki-10) near Kwei-teh airfield, probably shot down by a Polikarpov I-15.

http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/japan_kawahara.htm - http://www.cieldegloire.com/010_kawahara_k.php

1942 - 1st jet-powered flight flight of the prototype Messerschmitt Me 262V1 with Fritz Wendel at controls, but the experimental BMW 003 gas turbine engines both failed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Wendel#Emergencies

1944 - 76 airforce POWs escaped from Stalag Luft 3 in Sagan. 50 later captured and executed.

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

1944 – 1st time a British twin-engined aircraft lands on an aircraft carrier: Chief Naval Test Pilot Eric Melrose "Winkle" Brown lands a navalized de Havilland Mosquito VI on the British carrier HMS Implacable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Brown_(pilot)#Wartime_service

1950 – A Mandated Air Lines Lockheed 414-08 Hudson IVA crashes into a house while trying to make an emergency landing back at Law-Nadzab Airport in Papua New Guinea. After experiencing a failure of engine #1, and then had to execute a go-around because of traffic on the runway, and subsequently hit telephone wires.

http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19500325-1

1950 – A Devlet Hava Yollari Douglas DC-3 (TC-BAL) catches fire while on approach to Ankara, Turkey. The crew became incapacitated and the aircraft fell short of the runway

http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19500325-0

1954 - The last Sud-Est SE 535 Mistral (Specific french built of the De Havilland Vampire for french Air Force) was delivered.

http://www.aviastar.org/air/france/sud-est_mistral.php

1954 - Aeronaves de México Douglas C-53-DO (DC-3) Struck the Friars Peak while waiting for a permission to land, killingh all 18.

http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19540325-0

1955 - 1st flight of The Vought F-8 Crusader (originally F8U), american single-engine carrier-based air superiority jet aircraft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vought_F-8_Crusader

1955 - Lockheed test pilot J. Ray Goudey flew the 2nd Lockheed XF-104 prototype at a top speed of Mach 1.79 (1,324 mph, 2,130 km.hr) at 60,000 feet (18,000 m).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_XF-104#Testing_and_evaluation

1956 - Last Martin XB-51, American "tri-jet" ground attack aircraft prototype, crashed during takeoff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_XB-51

1958 - 1st flight of the Wassmer WA-21 'Javelot' II, French single seat glider.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassmer_Javelot#Design_and_development - http://www.wassmer-passion.org/historique_wassmer.pdf

1958 - 1st flight of the 1st Canadian-built supersonic aircraft, the Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow, delta-winged interceptor aircraft , at Malton.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Canada_CF-105_Arrow

1958 - A Braniff Airlines DC-7c crashed shortly after takoff from Miami while attempting to return after an engine caught fire.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_DC-7#Accidents_and_incidents

1959 - 1st flight of The Sikorsky S-60 helicopter, a prototype "flying crane", derived from the S-56. Proving to be underpowered, the development of the S-60 led to the larger, turbine-engined Sikorsky CH-54 Tarhe military transport helicopter, and its civil S-64 Skycrane variant, which were already on the drawing board by the time the sole example of the S-60 crashed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_S-60

1960 - The 1st NASA flight in the X-15 hypersonic research program gets under way when test pilot Joseph A. Walker makes the 1st of his flights in this aircraft.

http://www.astronautix.com/thisday/march25.htm

1961 - Launch of Korabl-Sputnik 5, or Vostok-3KA No.2, also known as Sputnik 10 in the West, Soviet spacecraft part of the Vostok programme. It was the last test flight of the Vostok spacecraft desgin, prior the first manned flight, Vostok 1. It carried the mannequin Ivan Ivanovich, a dog named Zvezdochka , television cameras and scientific apparatus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korabl-Sputnik_5

1961 - Launch of Explorer 10 (also known as Explorer X or P14); American Earth-orbital satellite to investigated Earth's magnetic fields and nearby plasma. 1st satellite to measure the "shock wave" generated by a solar flare.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explorer_10

1963 - Death of Edgar Oxenham Amm, South African WWI flying ace who also served in WWII.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_O._Amm - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/safrica/amm.php

1965 - Death of Dr. Wolfgang Benjamin Klemperer , German prominent aviation and aerospace scientist and engineer, who ranks among the pioneers of early aviation.

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

1970 - 1st flight of the Robin DR-330, french 4 seat low wing tourer monoplane.

http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=10149

1970 - Death of Geoffrey Hilton "Beery" Bowman, British WWI fighter ace

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Hilton_Bowman - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/bowman2.php

1971 - 1st flight of The Ilyushin Il-76 (NATO reporting name: Candid), multi-purpose 4-engined strategic airlifter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilyushin_Il-76

1976 - 1st flight of the Robin DR-300/140, french 4 seat low wing tourer monoplane prototype.

http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=5704

1978 – A Burma Airways Fokker F-27 Friendship (XY-ADK) crashes into a paddy field immediately after takeoff from Okaraba, Burma

http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19780325-1

1979 - QANTAS retires its last Boeing 707 and becomes the world's first airline with a fleet of exclusively Boeing 747s

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Aviation/Historical_anniversaries/March_in_aviation

1979 – The 1st fully functional space shuttle orbiter, Columbia, is delivered to the John F. Kennedy Space Center to be prepared for its 1st launch.

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

1980 - Soyuz T-1, unmanned Soviet space flight, test flight of a new Soyuz craft which docked with the orbiting Salyut 6 space station, is back on earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_T-1

1992 – Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev returns to Earth with Soyuz TM-13after a 10-month stay aboard the Mir space station.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Krikalev - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_TM-13

1993 - Barbara Harmer became the 1st qualified female Concorde pilot.

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

2001 - Death of Ernest Brian Trubshaw, notable test pilot, 1st British pilot to fly Concorde.

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

2004 - Air Holland, airline based in the Netherlands ceased operations.

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

2006 - A revolutionary scramjet jet engine Hyshot III designed to fly at seven times the speed of sound is successfully tested at Woomera, South Australia.

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

2008 – Saudi Arabian Airlines Flight 810, a Boeing 747-300 (TF-ARS) on wet-lease from Air Atlanta Icelandic catches fire on landing at Dhaka-Zia International Airport in Bangladesh.

http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20080325-0

2010 - A Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II conducted the 1st flight of an aircraft with all engines powered by a biofuel blend. The flight, performed at Eglin Air Force Base, used a 1:1 blend of JP-8 and Camelina-based fuel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-10_Thunderbolt_II#Afghanistan_and_Iraq_wars

2012 - Air Cote d'Ivoire is formed from the defunct Air Ivoire and the partnership of Air-France/KLM

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_C%C3%B4te_d'Ivoire