Milestones of Flight: 5/14

2009 - CBO Study: Alternatives for Modernizing U.S. Fighter Forces, May 2009 pdf.

"This Congressional Budget Office (CBO) study looks at the composition of today’s fighter fleets and at how the Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) plans for modernizing fighter forces—as set forth in the Bush Administration’s 2009 Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) and other DoD documents—would affect inventories and warfighting capability over the next several decades."

The United States Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps have long maintained tactical
fighter forces that provide capabilities for air-to-air combat and air-to-ground attack. The three services are in the process of replacing the bulk of today’s fighter aircraft—most of which were purchased in the 1980s—with new F/A-18E/F, F-22, and F-35 (Joint Strike Fighter)aircraft. Although current procurement plans call for the purchase of about 2,500 aircraft over the next 25 years, the services are projecting that those purchases will not keep pace with the need to retire today’s aircraft as they reach the limit of their service life.

2009 - Air New Zealand staffers stripped for a new advertisement with nothing but body paint.

In the advertisement passengers are shown either smiling knowingly or looking shocked at the eight body-painted staff, while background music “Under my skin”, by New Zealand singer Gin Wigmore, plays.

Was this all about transparent fares?

2009 - Russia has secured an order from Vietnam for 12 Su-30MK2 fighter jets worth more than 500 million dollars (368 million euros), the Vedomosti newspaper said today, citing top aviation industry officials.

The supersonic fighter jets are to be sold without on-board weapons, and no time frame was given for the deal.

2008 - EAA Founder and Chairman Paul Poberezny received the Seymour Cray Award for Distinction in Technology .

2008 - Is the third time the charm? The managing director of Heathrow Airport has become the latest senior manager to go since the disastrous opening of Terminal 5 in March. His departure follows that of two members of British Airways' senior management team who were responsible for the airline's move to T5.

Mark Bullock was charged with "the successful opening of T5", BAA said when it promoted him to the position of managing director in November 2006. Before that he was a director at the airport operator, responsible for integrating T5 into the rest of the Heathrow operation, and he assumed overall responsibility for the airport when its chief executive Tony Douglas resigned in July last year. BAA said in a statement today that Mr Bullock had chosen to leave after structural changes introduced by new group chief executive Colin Matthews last month. Those changes gave Mr Matthews more hands-on control of operations at Heathrow.

2008 - President Hugo Chávez warned Colombia not to allow a U.S. military base on its border with Venezuela, saying he would consider such an act an "aggression." Chávez said he would not permit Colombia's U.S.-backed government to establish an American military base in La Guajira, a region spanning northeastern Colombia and northwestern Venezuela.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa — a close Chávez ally — has repeatedly said that he will not renew a 10-year lease on the base in the Pacific port of Manta when it expires next year.

Manta has an international airport, Eloy Alfaro International Airport and an important military base (also known as Manta Air Base or Eloy Alfaro Air Base). Manta possesses the largest seaport in the country.

Since 1999 Manta has been used as a military location for U.S. air forces in conjunction with Ecuador for supporting anti-narcotics military operations and for carrying out surveillance flights in a strategic warfare program against Colombian drug trafficking cartels called Plan Colombia. It also serves as a geographical look out point for the U.S. for any war craft heading north from the Middle East and Asia.

2008 - The Air Transport Association is targeting costly delays by asking Washington to relieve New York air space congestion and asking the FAA and Department of Transportation to open restricted military air space on an as-needed basis. Delays are expected to cost the industry $10 billion this year, up from $8 billion last year, mainly due to the high cost of fuel

The ATA also wants the government to release reserved home heating oil and to stop adding to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

U.S. senators voted to stop stockpiling oil in the national reserve yesterday, but they rejected a plan to increase domestic production. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., sponsored the legislation halting further additions to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which passed 97-1. Supporters say the bill will drive down energy prices by preventing the Department of Energy from continuing to pull 70,000 barrels of oil a day off the market. "Instead of hiding barrels of oil in the nearly full Strategic Petroleum Reserve, we want to put them on the market to increase supply and lower prices," Reid said.

Both Democratic presidential contenders Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., left the campaign trail to vote in favor of the measure. Presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona did not return to vote on the proposal but said he supported its passage.

A similar bill passed last night in the House, 385-25.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is filled at the rate of less than 70,000 barrels per day. When compared with the 85 million barrels of daily demand worldwide, that is less than one-tenth of 1 percent. . . .

Only one senator voted against the measure yesterday, Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., and he cited security concerns as the reason behind his decision. Yeah, right, whatever! He's retiring this year and doesn't need any more votes.

2008 - Swiss pilot Yves Rossy strapped on a jet-powered wing and leaped from a plane for the first public demonstration of the homemade device, turning figure eights and soaring high above the Alps.

2003 - Air Mobility Command began the Baghdad Express, a daily C-141 resupply mission from Ramstein AB, Germany to Baghdad IAP, Iraq.

Two C-141s and two active-duty aircrews from the 305th Air Mobility Wing at McGuire AFB, New Jersey, and one aircrew from McGuire's 514th Air Mobility Wing (Reserve-Associate) were staged at Ramstein to fly the missions.

2002 - An F-15E successfully attacked five targets with Joint Direct Attack Munitions on a single sortie. The F-15 released the JDAMs from 25,000 feet while flying at Mach .80.

2002 - Twelve C-17 Globemaster IIIs from Charleston AFB, South Carolina, launched shortly after daybreak to fly the largest C-17 formation in history.

Aircrews assigned to the 437th Airlift Wing and 315th Airlift Wing flew the multi-ship formation over downtown Charleston, the Ashley River and Charleston AFB to train for their strategic brigade airdrop mission.

2000 - Werner Kurt-Otto Rosinski, Rocket engineer, died this date.

German expert in guided missiles during WW II. As of January 1947, working at Fort Bliss, Texas. Worked his entire life with the rocket team, at Fort Bliss, White Sands, and then at Huntsville. Died at Huntsville, Alabama.

1992 - EVA STS-49-4.

Endeavour crew (Thornton, and Akers) tested tools and techniques for assembly of the International Space Station.

1983 - Werner Kuers, Rocket engineer, died this date.

German expert in guided missiles during WW II. Member of the German rocket team, arrived in America under Project Paperclip on in 1945. As of January 1947, working at Fort Bliss, Texas. As of 1960, Deputy Director, Fabrication and Assembly Engineering Division, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. Died at Oaxaca, Mexico

1984 - The 375th Aeromedical Airlift Wing accepted its first C-12F Huron, a militarized version of Beechcraft Super King B200C, for operational support airlift missions.

1982 - Four Argentine Skyhawk aircraft are shot down by Sea Harriers.

After the Falklands conflict, the MOD released a very cautious total of 91 enemy aircraft destroyed or captured on the ground and eight "probable kills". Many books covering the conflict give different dates and types of aircraft. It is difficult to know for sure. Here is a link to an external site showing Fuerza Aeréa Argentina (FAA) and Commando de Aviacion Naval Argentina (CANA)losses and ejections.

1981 - Soyuz 40 docked with Salyut 6.

The ninth international crew under the INTERCOSMOS programme, comprising L. I. Popov (USSR), and D. Prunariu (Romania), was transported to the Salyut-6 orbital station to conduct scientific research and experiments.

1978 - William P. Lear, an American inventor and businessman, died this date.

Lear taught himself electrical engineering and is best known for the Lear Jet Corporation he founded, the world's first mass-producer of business jet aircraft. Beginning in 1930, over a 20 year period, he secured more than 100 patents for aircraft radios, communications and navigation equipment., which had worldwide application in commercial and military aviation. Most notable, among these inventions, was the first practical radio compass for aircraft. By the end of the decade more than half the private aircraft in the United States were using Lear equipment. In 1940, his company introduced the Learmatic Navigator, an ultra-high frequency device enabling pilots to automatically hold a course by tuning in radio broadcasts of any kind, an invention that brought him the prestigious Frank M. Hawks Memorial Award.

In the post World War II years, Lear developed a series of miniature autopilots for fighter aircraft, then added an approach coupler to the device creating fully automatic landings in low visibility conditions, a historic first. For inventing this system, Lear was awarded the Collier Trophy in 1950 by President Truman for the most outstanding aeronautical achievement of the year. The French Government honored him in 1962 for developing the autopilot for the Caravelle jetliner which made the first completely automatic blind landings while carrying passengers.

1977 - Petr Vasilyevich Dementiev, Russian government official, died this date.

Minister of Aviation Industry 1953-1977.

1973 - U.S. Supreme court approved equal rights to females in military.

1973 - From Kennedy Space Center, a two-stage Saturn V launched Skylab One, into orbit, 1, its first manned space station.

Eleven days later, U.S. astronauts Charles Conrad, Joseph Kerwin, and Paul Weitz made a rendezvous with Skylab, repairing a jammed solar panel and conducting scientific experiments during their 28-day stay aboard the space station.

The project began life as Apollo Orbital Workshop - outfitting of an S-IVB stage with docking adapter with equipment launched by several subsequent S-1B launches. Curtailment of the Apollo moon landings meant that surplus Saturn V's were available, so the pre-equipped, five times heavier, and much more capable Skylab resulted.

The first manned Skylab mission came two years after the Soviet Union launched Salynut, the world's first space station, into orbit around the earth. However, unlike the ill-fated Salynut, which was plagued with problems, the American space station was a great success, safely housing three separate three-man crews for extended periods of time and exceeding pre-mission plans for scientific study.

This was the largest payload launched into space. Originally the spent third stage of a Saturn 5 moon rocket, the cylinder space station was 118 feet tall, weighed 77 tons, and carried the most varied assortment of experimental equipment ever assembled in a single spacecraft to that date. The crews of Skylab spent more than 700 hours observing the sun and brought home more than 175,000 solar pictures. They also provided important information about the biological effects of living in space for prolonged periods of time.

Five years after the last Skylab mission, the space station's orbit began to deteriorate faster than expected, owing to unexpectedly high sunspot activity.

Following the final manned phase of the Skylab mission, ground controllers performed some engineering tests of certain Skylab systems--tests that ground personnel were reluctant to do while men were aboard. Results from these tests helped to determine causes of failures during the mission and to obtain data on long term degradation of space systems.

Upon completion of the engineering tests, Skylab was positioned into a stable attitude and systems were shut down. It was expected that Skylab would remain in orbit eight to ten years. It was to have been visited by an early shuttle mission, reboosted into a higher orbit, and used by space shuttle crews. But delays in the first flight of the shuttle made this impossible.

On July 11, 1979, Skylab disintegrated when it re-entered the earth's atmosphere after a worldwide scare over its pending crash. The debris stretched from the south-east Indian Ocean into Western Australia. No one was injured.

1970 - The Secretary of Defense ordered a halt to defoliation operations flown by the 12th Special Operations Squadron and its UC-123K aircraft at Bien Hoa AB, South Vietnam. This order ended the application of Agent Orange on Vietnam's jungles.

1969 - The U.S. Air Force Southern Command personnel began a massive campaign to combat an encephalitis epidemic in Ecuador.

Two C-141s flew 50 tons of pesticide there, then two UC-123s sprayed the country's coastal marshes. The operation, called Operation Combat Mosquito, involved the U.S. Air Force, State Department and Public Health officials and successfully eradicated 95 percent of the area's mosquitoes.

1968 - WW I Royal Flying Corps Ace (7 victories) Alan Jerrard died at Weston Super Marean, an English seaside resort town, in North Somerset.

On his second patrol over the lines, he was seriously injured when his SPAD VII crashed on August 5, 1917. After recovering from a broken nose and fractured jaw, Jerrard was assigned to 66 Squadron in Italy on February 22, 1918. For his actions on March 30, 1918, he was credited with three victories for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross. On that day, Peter Carpenter and Harold Eycott-Martin accompanied Jerrard on his last patrol of the war. After engaging several Albatros scouts and attacking the Austro-Hungarian aerodrome at Mansue, Jerrard's Sopwith Camel was shot down by Benno Fiala von Fernbrugg (his 14th confirmed victory) of Flik 51J. Jerrard was captured but managed to escape several months later. When the war ended, Jerrard remained in the Royal Air Force and retired as a Flight Lieutenant in 1933.

1964 - James McNeal Vegas Kelly, American pilot astronaut, NASA Group 16--1996, is born in Burlington, Indiana.

1963 - The first U.S. patent on a solar airplane vehicle was issued to Elmer G. Johnson of Fairborn, Ohio (No. 3,089,670).

1957 - William George Gregory, American pilot astronaut, NASA Group 13--1990, is born in Lockport, New York.

1952 - Donald Ray McMonagle, American pilot astronaut, NASA Group 12--1987, is born in Flint, Michigan.

1963 - The U.S. Air Forces X-21A, a twin-jet laminar flow control aircraft, flew successfully for the first time with its slit wing mechanism in operation

1945 - The U.S. 20th Air Force conducts a fire bombing raid Nagoya.

About 2,500 tons of incendiary bombs are dropped by 472 B-29 Superfortress bombers. Some 20 Japanese fighters are shot down.

1943 - U.S. and Great Britain chiefs of staff, meeting in Washington, D.C., approve and plot out Operation Pointblank, a joint bombing offensive to be mounted from British airbases.

Operation Pointblank's aim was grandiose and comprehensive: "The progressive destruction and dislocation of the German military and economic system, and the undermining of the morale of the German people." It was also intended to set up "final combined operations on the continent." In other words, it was intended to set the stage for one fatal blow that would bring Germany to its knees. The immediate targets of Operation Pointblank were to be submarine construction yards and bases, aircraft factories, ball bearing factories, rubber and tire factories, oil production and storage plants, and military transport-vehicle factories and stores. Ironically, the very day planning for Pointblank began in Washington, the Germans shot down 74 British four-engine bombers as the Brits struck a munitions factory near Pilsen. Joseph Goebbels, writing in his diary, recorded that the biggest setback about the British raid on the factory was that the drafting room was destroyed.

1940 - First flight of the DB-240long-range bomber (prototype of the Er-2), crew led by N.P. Shebanov.

1939 - Mars Nurgaliyevich Fatkullin, Russian scientist cosmonaut, Academy of Sciences Group 1--1967, is born in Traroye Shaimurzino Droshanovs, Russia.

1937 - G.F. Baydukov and crew set a world speed record over a closed circuit of 2,000 kilometers with a cargo of 5 tonnes of 280.246 kph in a DB-A aircraft.

1931 - Denys Finch Hatton (45) and a servant were killed when their plane stalled and then crashed in a fiery explosion. Hatton, a professional hunter, was the lover of Karen Blixen, Isak Dinesen, author of Out of Africa. Robert Redford played the role of Hatton in the 1986 Academy Award-winning film by the same name.

1929 - GosNIIAS (State Scientific Research Institute of Aviation Construction) director E.A. Fedosov is born.

1926 - The Curtiss Marine Trophy Race, held off Haines Point over the Potomac, was won by Lieutenant T. P. Jeter, USN, in a Curtiss F6C-1 Hawk with a speed of 130.94 m.p.h.

1923 - The U. S. Army accepted the first PW-8 prototype. It evolved into the Curtiss Hawk series of bi-plane pursuit aircraft. The "W" designated water-cooled engine.

1918 - WW I German Imperial Air Service Ace (8 victories) Unteroffizier Paul Hüttenrauch is wounded in action when his Fokker D.VII is shot down by a Sopwith Camel.

1917 - Royal Flying Corps Ace (6 victories) Capt. William George Sellar Growler Curphey was killed in combat while attacking a German balloon. His pusher D.H.2 biplane was shot down near Cagnicourt, France by an Albatros flown by Franz Walz of Jasta 2.

1915 - The U.S. Navy contracts with the Connecticut Aircraft Company for its first airship.

1914 - First flight of a float-equipped variant of the I.I. Sikorskiy Il'ya Muromets aircraft.

1909. - Samuel Cody makes the first powered airplane flight of more than one mile in Britain.

He flies the British Army Aeroplane No.1 from Laffans Planin to Danger Hill in Hampshire at average height of 30 feet.

1908 - The first passenger flies in an airplane.

Wilbur Wright takes Charles W. Furnas of Dayton, Ohio on a 28 3/5 seconds flight that covers 600 meters at Kill Devil Hills, NC.

1897 - Aircraft designer Roberto Lyudvigovich Bartini is born in Italy.

Italian Communist Party Member Bartini was "the shining star" of designers who immigrated when Stalin asked for designers to relocate to the Soviet Union.

1897 - WW I German Imperial Air Service Ace (6 victories) Lt. Hans Imelmann is born in Hannover, Germany.

Having scored six victories during the last three months of 1916, Imelmann was the first German ace to be shot down in 1917. In an encounter with a B.E.2c, Immelman's Albatros went down in flames after an accurate burst of machine gun fire struck his fuel tank.

1897 - WW I United States Air Service Ace (7 victories) Capt. John Owen Donaldson is born in Fort Yates, North Dakota, U.S.A.

Captured on September 1, 1918, Donaldson was shot down by Theodor Quandt of Jasta 36. The following day, while being held in a temporary prison camp in the village of Conde, he and a fellow prisoner escaped. Attempting to steal a two-seater from its hangar at a German aerodrome, they were discovered by a guard. In the struggle that followed, Donaldson received a bayonet wound in the back before the two men overpowered the German soldier and fled into the countryside. On September 9, 1918, the unlucky duo was recaptured while attempting to swim a stream between the Allied and German lines. Three days later, Donaldson, together with his former companion and three other prisoners, escaped again and made his way to safety in the Netherlands. After the war, he won the U.S. Army's transcontinental air race in October 1919. Resigning his commission in 1920, he later became president of Newark Air Service in New Jersey and continued to participate in air races. He was killed in a crash while performing stunts near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1893 - WW 1 Royal Naval Air Service Ace (9 victories) Capt. Harold Spencer Kerby is born Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

1893 - WW I French Air Service Ace (9 victories) Adjudant Gustave Douchy is born in Bondy France.

1893 - WW I Royal Flying Corps Ace (47 victories) Capt. George Edward Henry McIrish McElroy is born in Donnybrook, Ireland.

He was Ireland's highest scoring ace

1893 - WW I Royal Naval Air Service Ace (9 victories) Maj. Ernest William Norton is born in Montgomery, Powys, Wales.

1888 - WW I German Imperial Air Service Ace (22 victories) Leutnant Hans Martin Pippart is born Mannheim, Baden, Germany.

As an experienced pilot and aircraft manufacturer, Pippart volunteered for the German Air Force when the war began. An instructor before transferring to the Eastern Front, he achieved his first victories flying a Roland D.II against Russian aircraft and balloons during the summer of 1917. On 11 August 1918, after attacking an enemy balloon, Pippart was forced to jump from his damaged Fokker. He was killed when his parachute failed to open.