SEP17

1916 - Birth of Oswald Garrison "Mike" Villard Jr., American engineer, pioneer in radio and radar, Father of the 'over-the-horizon radar'.

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2004/january28/villardobit-128.html

1917 - 1st flight of The Junkers D.I (factory designation J 9), German fighter aircraft produced as a private venture, significant for becoming the 1st all-metal fighter to enter service.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_D.I

1918 - Birth of Tameyoshi Kuroki, 2d Sino-Japanese War and WWII japanese Fighter ace

http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/japan_kuroki.htm - http://www.cieldegloire.fr/010_kuroki_t.php

1918 - Death of Richard Frank Hill, British WWI flying ace

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hill_(aviator) - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/hill2.php

1929 - Death of Jean Charles Augustin Dubois de Gennes, French WWI flying ace

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Dubois_de_Gennes - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/france/dubois2.php

1929 - 1st flight of the Adcox Student Prince, American two-seat open-cockpit sports biplane

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

1930 - Birth of Edgar Dean Mitchell,American pilot, engineer, and astronaut.

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

1930 - Birth of Thomas Patten Stafford, USAF pilot and NASA astronaut.

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

1935 - 1st flight of The Junkers Ju 87 'Stuka', German 2 seats ground-attack aircraft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Ju_87

1939 - British aircraft carrier HMS Courageous is sunk by German U-boat U-29 off the coast of Ireland. The loss of Courageous results in the Royal Navy withdrawing aircraft carriers from antisubmarine operations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Courageous_(50)#Second_World_War_and_sinking

1941 - 1st operational sortie by a de Havilland DH.98 Mosquito is made by a PR Mk I unarmed for a Photo-reconnaissance mission during during which it evaded 3 Messerschmitt Bf 109s at 23,000 feet (7,000 m).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Mosquito#Variants

1943 - Birth of Samuel Thornton Durrance, American scientist and NASA astronaut.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_T._Durrance

1944 – The U.S. Navy submarine USS Barb (SS-220) torpedoes and sinks the Japanese aircraft carrier Unyo in the South China Sea. There are over 761 survivors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aircraft_carrier_Uny%C5%8D

1944 - Operation Market Garden begins, Allied military operation, fought in the Netherlands and Germany in WWII. It was the largest airborne operation up to that time

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

1947 - A restored Blackburn Type D, sometimes known as the 'Single Seat Monoplane', single-engine mid-wing monoplane from 1912, takes off again. It is Britain's oldest active aircraft.

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

1947 – The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) are separated from the United States Army and become an independent armed service, the United States Air Force.

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

1952 - Death of Alan Bott, British WWI Flying ace and journalist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Bott_(aviator) - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/bott.php

1952 - Bell pilot Elton J. Smith set a world distance record of 1,217 mi (1,959 km), by flying nonstop a Bell-47 from Hurst, Texas to Buffalo, New York

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_47#Records

1956 - CIA pilot Howard Carey is killed when his Lockheed U-2 mysteriously disintegrated in mid-air near Kaiserlauten, W. Germany, perhaps caused by the jet wash from 4 Canadian F-86 fighter aircrafts nearby.

http://www.blackbirds.net/u2/u2-timeline/u2tl50.html - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_Memorial_Wall#People_honored_on_the_Memorial_Wall

1959 - 1st flight (powered) of the North American X-15, American rocket-powered aircraft/spaceplane.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_X-15

1961 - Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 706 Lockheed L-188 Electra crashed on take-off from Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, killing all 37. Investigators with the Civil Aeronautics Board determined that the cable physically connecting the first officer's control wheel to the aileron boost unit had disconnected.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Orient_Airlines_Flight_706

1961 - Birth of Pamela Anne Melroy, USAF test pilot and NASA astronaut

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

1962 - 1st flight of the 2nd prototype of The Mil Mi-8, Russian medium twin-turbine transport helicopter that can also act as a gunship.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mil_Mi-8

1965 - Pan Am Flight 292 Boeing 707-121B 'Clipper Constitution' flew into Chances Peak on the island of Montserrat, killing all 30, as the crew made a navigational error and descended below the safe minimum altitude while unsure of their position.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_292

1977 - Death of Lawrence Kingsley Callahan, American WWI flying ace.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Callahan - http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/usa/callahan.php

1984 - 1st flight of The Avtek 400, American prototype turboprop-powered business aircraft designed by Al Mooney, a low-wing monoplane with two pusher engines mounted above the wings, and a large canard mounted atop the forward fuselage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avtek_400

1985 - Launch of Soyuz T-14, Soviet space mission to Salyut 7.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_T-14

1997 - 1st flight of The Antonov An-140, Russian turboprop regional airliner.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-140

2001 - A Russian Armed Forces Mil Mi-8 is hit by a surface-to-air missile fired by a special Chechen group over Grozny killing all 13 (including 10 russians high ranking officers).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Grozny_Mi-8_crash

2006 - A Nigerian Dornier 228-212 Air Force transport plane, carrying 15 senior army officers and 3 crew members crashed into a hillside near a remote village in Benue State, leaving only 3 surviving passengers and 2 crew members that sustained serious injuries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornier_Do_228#Accidents

2010 - 1st flight of the BAE Systems Demon, British UAV designed as part of its "FLAVIIR" project. It has a novel aerodynamic control system which uses engine exhaust and bleed air to provide the aerodynamic forces usually provided by flaps, ailerons and elevators. It has been called the world's 1st "flapless" plane.

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

2010 - Death of Robert C. Truax, US Navy and Aerojet rocket engineer, founder of Truax Engineering. He was a proponent of low-cost rocket engine and vehicle designs.

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