SEP30

1919 - British Aerial Transport inaugurates a short-lived domestic airline service between London and Birmingham, and a London to Amsterdam service is also flown for a short time with a BAT F.K.26.

http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/history-of-aviation-timeline/interactive-aviation-timeline/british-civil-aviation/1919.aspx

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

1923 - Birth of Raymond 'Ray' Shuey Wetmore, US Army WWII leading fighter ace.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Shuey_Wetmore - http://www.cieldegloire.com/014_wetmore_r_s.php

1926 - 1st flight of The de Havilland DH.66 Hercules, British seven-passenger, three-engined airliner.

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

1929 - Fritz von Opel flies The Opel RAK.1 (also known as the Opel RAK.3), world's 1st purpose-built rocket-powered aircraft at Rebstock airport near Frankfurt-am-Main, 1.8 kilometres (1.1 miles) at a speed of 1,260kph (100mph)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opel_RAK.1

1932 - The only RWD-7, Polish high wing single engine sports plane, flown by its designer Jerzy Drzewiecki and Antoni Kocjan, sets a height record of 6,023 m (19,755 ft).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RWD-7

1932 - 1st flight of The Blackburn B-5 Baffin, British biplane torpedo bomber, development of the Ripon.

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

1935 - 1st company to bear the name British Airways (British Airways Ltd) is formed, by the merger of Hillman Airways, Spartan Air Lines and United Airways.

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

1937 - 1st flight of The Sud-Est Lioré et Olivier LeO H-246, French large four-engined flying boat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lior%C3%A9_et_Olivier_H-246 - http://aviafrance.com/aviafrance1.php?ID=1823

1941 - Maritime Central Airways, canadian airline, is formed.

http://www.acfamily.com/CD/maritime.pdf

1942 - Death of Hans-Joachim Marseille, Gearman WWII flying ace. While returning to base, his new Bf 109G-2/trop's cockpit began to fill with smoke; blinded and half asphyxiated, he was guided back to German lines by his wingmen. When he bailed out, the left side of his chest stroke the vertical stabiliser of his fighter, either killing him instantly or rendering him unconscious to the point that he could not deploy his parachute

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Joachim_Marseille#Death - http://www.2worldwar2.com/marseille.htm

1948 - 1st flight (as a glider) of the DFS 346, German rocket-powered swept-wing prototype vehicle, completed and flown in Soviet Union as the Bereznyak 346.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DFS_346

1949 - The Berlin Airlift officially ends. In total the USA delivered 1,783,573 tons and the RAF 541,937 tons, totaling 2,326,406 tons, nearly two-thirds of which was coal, on 278,228 flights to Berlin. The RAAF (Royal Australian Air Force) delivered 7,968 tonnes of freight and 6,964 passengers during 2,062 sorties. The C-47s and C-54s together flew over 92 million miles in the process, the distance from Earth to the Sun.At the height of the Airlift, one plane reached West Berlin every thirty seconds

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Airlift#The_blockade_ends

1949 - 1st prototype of the Avro 707 (also known as Type 707), British experimental aircraft built to test the tailess thick delta wing, crashes due to loss of control at low speed near Blackbushe, kiliing Avro test pilot Samuel Eric Esler.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_707#Operational_history - http://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=88968

1949 - Birth of Michel Ange-Charles Tognini, French test pilot, officer in the French Air Force, CNES and ESA astronaut.

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

1952 - 1st powered GAM-63 RASCAL, American supersonic Air-to-surface missile, is launched from the test B-50 at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico in the USA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAM-63_RASCAL#Design

1956 - Death of Charles Richard Fairey, British aircraft manufacturer, involved with the development of many of the companies most important products including; aircraft, rotorcraft, marine craft, mechanical engineering and rocketry.

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

1957 - Austrian Airlines is formed from the merger of Air Austria and Austrian Airways

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

1964 - 1st flight of The Piper PA-31 Navajo, American six- to eight-seat twin engine aircraft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piper_PA-31_Navajo

1964 - Birth of Stephen Nathaniel Frick, USN pilot and NASA astronaut.

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

1968 - The New York City Police celebrate 20 years of helicopter use in law enforcement.

http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/history-of-aviation-timeline/interactive-aviation-timeline/world-aviation/1968.aspx

1973 - Aeroflot Flight 3932 Tupolev Tu-104 crashed shortly after takeoff from Sverdlovsk, killing all 108 passengers and crew on board. Spatial disorientation of the pilots due to incorrect indications by the main artificial horizon and the compass system, caused by a failure of the electrical supply.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroflot_Flight_3932

1973 - Pan American World Airways (Pan-Am) opens a huge new terminal at New York's John F. Kennedy airport, to accommodate it's Boeing 747 aircraft

http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/history-of-aviation-timeline/interactive-aviation-timeline/world-aviation/1973.aspx

1975 - Malév Flight 240 Tupolev Tu-154B crashed near the Lebanese shoreline killing all 60 on board. No official statement was ever made on the crash and its cause has never been publicly revealed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mal%C3%A9v_Flight_240

1975 - 1st flight of The Boeing AH-64 Apache, American four-blade, twin-engine attack helicopter with a tailwheel-type landing gear arrangement, and a tandem cockpit for a two-man crew.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AH-64_Apache

1976 - 1st person in history to successfully fly a homebuilt aircraft around the world: American Donald Taylor lands back his Home Built Thorp T-18 'Victoria 76' at Oskosh after 61 Days (20380 mi).

http://www.airventuremuseum.org/virtual/interactive/innovations/thorp/

1982 - Americans H. Ross Perot Jr. and Jay Coburn lands back in Dallas texas, with a Bell 206L-2 "Spirit of Texas", completing the 1st round-the-world helicopter flight in 29 days and 3 hours.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_206#Operational_history

1985 - 1st Italian aircraft carrier, Giuseppe Garibaldi, is commissioned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_aircraft_carrier_Giuseppe_Garibaldi_(551)

1986 - 1st flight of The Aero L-59 Super Albatros, Czech military trainer aircraft developed from the firm's earlier L-39 Albatros.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aero_L-59_Super_Albatros

1994 - Launch of STS-68, Space Shuttle Endeavour mission.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-68

1997 - Death of Nobuo Fujita, Flying Officer of the Imperial Japanese Navy who flew a Yokosuka E14Y "Glen" floatplane from the long-range submarine aircraft carrier I-25, and conducted the only wartime aircraft-dropped bombing on the continental United States,

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

2009 - Launch of Soyuz TMA-16, Russian manned flight to and from the International Space Station (ISS).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_TMA-16

2010 - Last use of The Molniya-M , Russian (previously Soviet) carrier rocket.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molniya-M

2011 – A US General Atomics MQ-1 Predator, unmanned aerial vehicle, fired AGM-114 Hellfires missiles in Yemen, killing Anwar al-Aulaqi, an al-Qaeda recruiter and motivator, and Samir Khan, the editor of the English-language online magazine Inspire published by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_MQ-1_Predator#Yemen - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Yemen#Arabian_Peninsula

2011 - Death of Lee L. Davenport, American physicist responsible for the development and deployment of Radars during WWII.

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