OCT25
1884 - Birth of Bentfield Charles Hucks, British aviation pioneer, 1st Briton to perform a loop in an aircraft, also credited with the Hucks starter (auxiliary power unit, almost always a motortruck, that provides initial power to start up piston aircraft engines).
1888 - Birth of Richard Evelyn Byrd, Jr., USN naval officer who specialized in feats of exploration. He was a pioneering American aviator, polar explorer, and organizer of polar logistics.
1889 - Birth of Olans Charles William Johnsen, British WWI flying ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olans_Johnsen - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/england/johnsen.php
1890 - Birth of Floyd Bennett, American aviator.
1893 - Birth of Jacques Louis Ehrlich, French WWI flying ace who was one of the leading balloon busters of the war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Ehrlich - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/france/ehrlich.php
1896 - Birth of Maurice Bellonte, French raid aviator.
1897 - Birth of Andrew MacGregor, Scottish WWI flying ace and senior commander in the Royal Air Force during WWII.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_MacGregor - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/scotland/macgregor1.php
1898 - Birth of Walter Bertram Wood, British WWI flying ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Bertram_Wood - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/england/wood3.php
1908 - Birth of Karl Hermann Gotthard Handrick, German Olympic athlete, gold medal in the modern pentathlon at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, and German flying ace during the Spanish Civil War and WWII.
1911 - 1st flight of the Nakajima Kaishiki No.1, Early Japanese biplane.
1914 - Birth of Akio Matsuba, Japanese 2nd Sino-Japanese War and WWII fighter ace
1916 - Death of Maxime Albert Lenoir, French WWI flying ace, killed in action in his SPAD VII.
1917 - Death of Giovanni Sabelli, Italian 1st Balkan War pilot and WWI flying ace, killed in action during the Battle of Caporetto.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Sabelli - http://theaerodrome.com/aces/italy/sabelli.php
1920 - Birth of Amet-khan Sultan, WWII Soviet fighter ace and test pilot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amet-khan_Sultan - http://www.testpilot.ru/memo/70/ametkhan_e.htm
1926 - 1st flight of the SPAD S-56/4, French single engine light airliner, major evolution of the Family with an increased passenger capacity.
http://aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=5898
1929 - 1st flight of the Fairey Fox IIM, British light bomber and fighter biplane, Reengined evolution of the Fox I with a metal structure.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Fox#Variants
1930 - TWA offers one of the 1st all-plane scheduled service from coast to coast: the Lindbergh Route. The route took 36 hours and initially called for overnights in Kansas City.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA#1930s
1935 - Birth of Russell Louis "Rusty" Schweickart (aka Schweikart), USAF pilot and NASA astronaut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Schweickart
1937 - Hanna Reitsch sets a world record for helicopter, flying the Focke-Wulf Fw 61 108,9 km (67 miles) from Stendal to Berlin.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focke-Wulf_Fw_61#Eine_neue_Firma
1938 - Australian National Airways Douglas DC-2 'Kyeema' came across a heavy cloud layer, making landmark navigation difficult. Disoriented, they crashed into the western slopes of Mount Dandenong, also known as Mount Corhanwarrabul, killing all 18 on board
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1938_Kyeema_crash
1938 - The sole Saro A.33, British four-engined flying-boat prototype with a parasol monospar wing built by Saunders-Roe Limited, is written off after structural failure sustained during high speed taxi trials.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saro_A.33
1939 - 1st flight of the Breguet Bre 693, French light twin-engine ground-attack aircraft, re-engined version of the Bre 691.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breguet_Br.693 - http://aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=16
1939 - 1st flight of The Handley Page Halifax HP57, British four-engined heavy bomber.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handley_Page_Halifax
1941 - Death of Franz Xaver von Werra, German WWII fighter ace who was shot down over England and captured. He is generally regarded as the only Axis prisoner of war to succeed in escaping from a Canadian prisoner of war camp and returning to Germany. His aircraft disappeared over the North Sea near Vlissingen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_von_Werra
1942 - Death of Keisaku Yoshimura, Japanese WWII flying ace, killed in action.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_aces_from_Japan
1942 - Death of Toyoo Moriura, Japanese WWII flying ace, killed in action over Guadalcanal.
1944 - 1st major warship to sink as the result of a kamikaze attack is USS St. Lo (CVE–63), Casablanca-class escort carrier of the US Navy, during the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_St._Lo_(CVE-63)
1944 - Death of Yoshiro Hashiguchi, Japanese WWII flying ace, killed in action.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_aces_from_Japan#H
1944 - Japanese aircraft carrier Zuikaku, hit by 7 torpedoes and 9 bombs, and the battleship Musashi, are sunk in the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aircraft_carrier_Zuikaku
1944 - Death of Hohei Kobayashi, Japanese WWII flying ace, drowned at sea in the sinking of Destroyer Hatsuzuki which had just rescued him during the Battle off Cape Engaño.
1944 - Death of Yoshinori Noguchi, Japanese WWII flying ace, Ramming his plane into a ship.
http://www.cieldegloire.fr/010_noguchi_y.php
1944 – 1st kamikaze mission is carried out, with aircraft of the 201st Kokutai sinking the carrier USS St Lo in the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze#Leyte_Gulf:_the_first_attacks - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_St_Lo_(CVE-63)#Kamikaze
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukio_Seki
1951 - Japan Airlines flies its 1st post-war flights, using Northwest Airlines Martin 2-0-2 aircraft, flown by Northwest crews.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines#History
1952 - 1st domestically-built jet aircraft to fly in Yugoslavia is the Ikarus 451M.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikarus_451
1955 - 1st flight of The Saab 35 Draken, Swedish fighter jet aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_35_Draken
1958 - 1st free vertical flight of The Short SC.1, British 1st fixed-wing vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft designed to study the problems with VTOL flight and the transition to and from forward flight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_SC.1#Testing
1960 - Death of Henry George "Harry" Ferguson, Irish engineer and inventor who is noted for his role in the development of the modern agricultural tractor, for becoming the 1st Irishman to build and fly his own aeroplane, and for developing the 1st four-wheel drive Formula One car, the Ferguson P99. Today his name lives on in the name of the Massey Ferguson company.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Ferguson
1968 - Launch of Soyuz 2, Soviet uncrewed spacecraft which intended to be the target of an docking maneuver by the manned Soyuz 3 spacecraft. Although the two craft approached closely, the docking did not take place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_2
1968 - Northeast Airlines Flight 946 Fairchild Hiller FH-227 crashed on Moose Mountain while descending on approach, Killing 32 of 42. The pilots misjudged their altitude position during approach and there were no navigational aids in the aircraft or near the airport.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Airlines_Flight_946
1973 - Tom Sage of the United Kingdom Cameron Balloon company establishes a hot air balloon flight duration record of 5 hours 45 minutes.
1975 - Venera 10 Lander, USSR unmanned space mission to Venus, lands on Venus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera_10#Lander
1984 - Death of James Joseph Wellwood, Australian WWI flying ace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Wellwood - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/australi/wellwood.php
1985 - Emirates, largest airline in the Middle East based at Dubai, begins operations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emirates_(airline)
1991 - 1st flight of The Airbus A340-300, French long-range four-engine wide-body commercial passenger jet airliner.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A340 - http://www.aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=6535
1994 - Death of Kara Spears Hultgreen, USN pilot, 1st female naval carrier-based fighter pilot. Her F-14 Tomcat crashed into the sea on final approach to USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kara_Hultgreen
1994 - 1st flight of The Bell 430, American twin-engine light-medium helicopter, stretched and more powerful development of the Bell 230.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_430
1999 - A chartered Learjet 35 crashed into a field near Aberdeen, South Dakota after an uncontrolled descent killing all 6 on board including golf star Payne Stewart. Early in the flight the aircraft, which was cruising at altitude on autopilot, gradually lost cabin pressure. As a result, all on board were incapacitated due to hypoxia (lack of oxygen). The aircraft failed to make the westward turn toward Dallas over north Florida, and continued flying over the southern and midwestern United States for almost 4 hours and 1,500 miles (2,400 km), until it ran out of fuel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_South_Dakota_Learjet_crash
2000 - Russian Air Force Ilyushin Il-18D struck Mtirala mountain Due to bad weather on approach to Batumi-Chorokh Airport, Georgia, killing all 83 on board.
http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20001025-0
2001 - 1st flight of the Dassault 'Falcon' 2000EX, Re-engined variant of the French Business jet.
http://aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=10015
2007 - 1st commercial flight with passenger of the Airbus A-380 is made by Singapore Airlines. Passengers bought seats in a charity online auction.