Join In! This date in history

[brett 2,314]

That fella Johnson was a one man wrecking crew, the other side was lucky if they didn't cross his path in the air.

[brett 2,314]

I just looked at a picture of that Blériot 125 Transporter , that is one odd looking plane. I bet it was quite a thrill landing as a passenger...I want the front seat!!!!!

[hurricanemk1c 195]

Missed this yesterday - Yuri Gagarin was born in 1934

[hurricanemk1c 195]

And in 1956, Peter Twist became the first man to exceed 1000mph in level flight

[hurricanemk1c 195]

One from the very early years here:

 

SS-1, the first of the Sea Scout (SS) Class non-rigid airships, makes its first flight at RNAS Kingsnorth. Propulsion was provided by the fuselage of a BE.2c aircraft, minus its wings and tail unit.
 

 

http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=10151356592407901&set=a.92215587900.86484.90901647900&type=1&theater

[hurricanemk1c 195]

And in 1943, one of the most famous squadrons in the RAF was formed - 617 Squadron

[hurricanemk1c 195]

Lt. Cdr Eric Brown lands the first Sea Mosquito on a carrier (HMS Indefatigable) in 1944

[hurricanemk1c 195]

March 29, 1942

The production of Spitfire aircraft reaches an all-time peak, producing 134 aircraft in just one day

[allardjd 1,853]

Good stuff, Kieran - keep 'em coming.  I had no idea that Spit production rate ever got that high.

 

John

[hurricanemk1c 195]

A bit of US history here:

 

March 30, 1945
 

Messerschmitt test pilot Hans Fay defects with an Me 262A-1 to American forces at Frankfurt/Rhein-Main. The first Me 262 to be examined by American intelligence, it is shipped from Rouen, France to the US by on the Liberty Ship Manawska Victory. Delivered to Wright Field in Ohio, Russell E. Schleeh, chief pilot for the Army Air Forces Flight Test Division, is the first American pilot to take the Me 262 into the air. A series of tests compared the Me 262 with the Lockheed P-80. The Messerschmitt was nearly equal and in some aspects superior in performance to US jet.

[hurricanemk1c 195]

The worst night in Bomber Command's history is about to start in 1944. From the MoD website:

 

30/31 March 1944

This would normally have been the moon stand-down period for the Main Force, but a raid to the distant target of Nuremberg was planned on the basis of an early forecast that there would be protective high cloud on the outward route, when the moon would be up, but that the target area would be clear for ground-marked bombing. A Meteorological Flight Mosquito carried out a reconnaissance and reported that the protective cloud was unlikely to be present and that there could be cloud over the target, but the raid was not cancelled.

795 aircraft were dispatched - 572 Lancasters, 214 Halifaxes and 9 Mosquitos. The German controller ignored all the diversions and assembled his fighters at 2 radio beacons which happened to be astride the route to Nuremberg. The first fighters appeared just before the bombers reached the Belgian border and a fierce battle in the moonlight lasted for the next hour. 82 bombers were lost on the outward route and near the target. The action was much reduced on the return flight, when most of the German fighters had to land, but 95 bombers were lost in all - 64 Lancasters and 31 Halifaxes, 11.9 per cent of the force dispatched. It was the biggest Bomber Command loss of the war.

Most of the returning crews reported that they had bombed Nuremberg but subsequent research showed that approximately 120 aircraft had bombed Schweinfurt, 50 miles north-west of Nuremberg. This mistake was a result of badly forecast winds causing navigational difficulties. 2 Pathfinder aircraft dropped markers at Schweinfurt. Much of the bombing in the Schweinfurt area fell outside the town and only 2 people were killed in that area. The main raid at Nuremberg was a failure. The city was covered by thick cloud and a fierce cross-wind which developed on the final approach to the target caused many of the Pathfinder aircraft to mark too far to the east. A 10-mile-long creepback also developed into the countryside north of Nuremberg. Both Pathfinders and Main Force aircraft were under heavy fighter attack throughout the raid. Little damage was caused in Nuremberg.

49 Halifaxes minelaying in the Heligoland area, 13 Mosquitos to night-fighter airfields, 34 Mosquitos on diversions to Aachen, Cologne and Kassel, 5 RCM sorties, 19 Serrate patrols. No aircraft lost.

3 Oboe Mosquitos to Oberhausen (where 23 Germans waiting to go into a public shelter were killed by a bomb) and 1 Mosquito to Dortmund, 6 Stirlings minelaying off Texel and Le Havre. 17 aircraft on Resistance operations, 8 OTU sorties. 1 Halifax shot down dropping Resistance agents over Belgium.

Total effort for the night: 950 sorties, 96 aircraft (10.1 per cent) lost.

Pilot Officer Cyril Barton, a Halifax pilot of No 578 Squadron, was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross for carrying on to the target in the Nuremberg operation after his bomber was badly damaged in a fighter attack and 3 members of his crew baled out through a communication misunderstanding. Although the navigator and wireless operator were among the men who had parachuted, Barton decided to attempt the return flight to England in spite of the fact that only 3 engines were running. An unexpected wind took the Halifax steadily up the North Sea and it was short of fuel when the English coast was reached near Sunderland. Barton had to make a hurried forced landing when his engines failed through lack of fuel and he died in the crash, but his 3 remaining crew members were only slightly hurt. Pilot Officer Barton's Victoria Cross was the only one awarded during the Battle of Berlin, which had now officially ended.

[hurricanemk1c 195]

Two little bits of info today:

 

The RAF was formed today in 1918

 

The A6M 'Zero' first flew in 1939

[hurricanemk1c 195]

The four-engine commercial aircraft SE 2010 Armagnac takes off for the first time on April 2nd 1949. With its take-off weight of 73 tones it is the largest land plane to be built in France to date and can carry 84 passengers over a distance of 4,800 km. The first studies for this aircraft date back of the year 1942.

[brett 2,314]

Not a great history but still a nice looking aircraft.

[hurricanemk1c 195]

Boeing's best-selling airliner, the 737, first flew today in 1967

[hurricanemk1c 195]

10th April 1963 - EWR Süd VJ 101 C completes its first hover flight at the ILA exhibition. This experimental vertical takeoff and landing jet fighter introduces fly-by-wire technology and was the first airplane of its kind to reach supersonic speed.

 

 

 

[hurricanemk1c 195]

And also, but in 1959, the first flight of the T-38 Talon, as the YT-38

[hurricanemk1c 195]

A lot today for some reason!

 

1934
The prototype of the Fairey Swordfish flew for the first time. Obsolescent on the outbreak of war in 1939, this iconic Fleet Air Arm biplane would remain in service through WW2 until June 1945. It still flies today with the Royal Navy Historic Flight.

 

1970

The end of the harrowing mission of Apollo XIII

 

1964

Geraldine “Jerrie” Mock of Newark, Ohio, landed her Cessna 180, named “Spirit of Columbus”, at Port Columbus, becoming the first woman to fly solo around the world!

 

1915

Joe Foss was bornn

 

[brett 2,314]

That is quite a trip in a C180

[hurricanemk1c 195]

Today in 1943:

 

First two 'type 464' Lancasters, adapted to be capable of dropping the bouncing bomb, arrive but at the third Reculver trial of the bomb, it sinks. Still no working bomb, no way to judge height at low-level and no rangefinder.

25 days to go to the raid

 

[hurricanemk1c 195]

Not strictly aviation, but:

 

 

On 4 May, German officers came to the Tactical Headquarters of Montgomery's 21st Army Group on Lüneburg Heath and signed a surrender document for all German forces in North-West Germany, Denmark and Holland, to be effective from the following day. Various local surrenders took place elsewhere. On 7 May General Eisenhower, with representatives from Britain, Russia and France, accepted the unconditional surrender of all German forces on all fronts, to be effective from 0001 hours on 9 May. But the fighting was effectively already over. Allied troops, fully supported by Bomber Command, had liberated the whole of Western Europe in just eleven months of hard fighting. The British Army lost nearly 40,000 men during this campaign. Bomber Command had lost 2,128 aircraft during the same period, with approximately 10,000 airmen being killed. Many of the bomber squadrons were now earmarked for Tiger Force, to continue the war against Japan, but the dropping of two atom bombs three months later brought the surrender of Japan and the end of the Second World War before Tiger Force left England

 

[hurricanemk1c 195]

Air Marshal Alexander Efimov was born today in 1923

 

The P-47 'Thunderbolt' or 'Jug' first flew today in 1941

 

Today in 1937, at 7:25 p.m. local time, the German passenger airship LZ 129 Hindenburg caught fire and was destroyed during its attempt to dock with its mooring... mast at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station, which is located adjacent to the borough of Lakehurst, New Jersey.

[brett 2,314]

 Today in 1937, at 7:25 p.m. local time, the German passenger airship LZ 129 Hindenburg caught fire and was destroyed during its attempt to dock with its mooring... mast at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station, which is located adjacent to the borough of Lakehurst, New Jersey.

 

 

Accident or sabotage?

[allardjd 1,853]

Brett, they've been asking that for about 75 years and nobody knows the answer yet. You can find claims both ways but nobody's been able to definitively prove anything.

My opinion is, if nobody has spilled the beans in all that time, it was probably just something accidental.

Conspiracies involving more than about three people tend to become known over time, but then those which would disprove that haven't become known, so it's kind of a circular logic scenario.

John

[brett 2,314]

I saw a special on it recently and I tend to sway toward the static electricity theory. It makes the most sense in the long run but like you say it is just one of those things we will never really know for sure.