Milestones of Flight: 6/14

2007 - Today, the House Committee on Science and Technology’s Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics approved legislation aimed at bolstering federal aviation research and development.

The Science and Technology Committee maintains jurisdiction over the R&D portions of the larger FAA Reauthorization legislation before the U.S. Congress this year. The Act was last reauthorized in 2003.

2007 - Today, employees of state-run airline, Indian, called off a three-day strike that had stranded thousands of passengers as scores of flights were cancelled or delayed.

2007 - Pentagon officials are bracing for a fight with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) over her desire to allow lawmakers’ adult children to tag along on taxpayer-funded travel for free.

2007 - British low-cost airline easyJet has unveiled its vision of a shorthaul aircraft that it hopes will generate 50 percent less CO2 than its current planes and can be delivered by 2015.

The narrow-bodied plane would have two open rotor engines above a wide tail fin, with a lightweight body constructed of carbon composites.

Easyjet said 25 percent of CO2 emissions would be cut by using open rotor engines, which must be placed above the tail due to their size, while 15 percent would be cut by using the lighter airframe and 10 percent by air traffic control improvements.

2007 - Schiebel CAMCOPTER S-100 UAV System has received a Permit to Fly under the new amended European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) Regulation.

The Permit to Fly is issued for those aircraft not holding a type-certificate yet but still are able to perform flights safely under the EASA-approved flight conditions.

The Schiebel CAMCOPTER S-100 is one of the first Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and the first helicopter UAV that received an EASA Permit to Fly .

2003 - First flight of the Embraer 175, the second member of a family of four new-generation commercial jets specifically designed for markets optimized with 70- to 110-seat equipment.

The aircraft, serial number 0014, took off from the company's São José dos Campos facility at 11:50 AM, accompanied by its sibling EMBRAER 170 S/N 007, for a 120 minute flight in which it performed a range of systems validation tests. The complete aircraft family is composed of the EMBRAER 170, EMBRAER 175, EMBRAER 190 and EMBRAER 195.

2003 - Rudi Hoelker, Rocket engineer, died this date.

Member of the German rocket team, went to America after WW II. As of 1960, Deputy Director, Aeroballistics Division, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.

2002 - WASP Irene Englund was interred on Flag Day and the USAF honor guard conducted the ceremony. She was provided "standard honors." Standard honors are provided to enlisted personnel while "full honors" are provided to officers.

An article in the Washington Post brought to America's attention the plight of the daughter of deceased WASP Irene Englund, who was told her mother was not entitled to receive military honors or a U.S. flag when her remains were schedule to be inurned next to those of her husband, also a WW II veteran, at Arlington National Cemetery. Julie Englund, the daughter of the WASP in question, wrote a letter to the editor of the Post protesting the situation. After reading her letter, Reginald Brown, then assistant secretary of the Army, whose job was to oversee Arlington National Cemetery, reporedly asked for a review of the rules. It was shocking to discover that almost twenty-five years after the Defense Department imnplemented the WASP legislation granting them veterans' status, the U.S. Army presumed that the law did not apply to them. On June 1, 2002, the Army announced that they had reconsidered.

2001 - Coalition aircraft are targeted by Iraqi missile guidance radar systems from sites north of Mosul while conducting routine enforcement of the northern no-fly zone.

Iraqi gunners later attack aircraft with anti-aircraft artillery fire. Coalition aircraft respond to the Iraqi attacks by dropping ordnance on elements of the Iraqi integrated air defense system. The same day, aircraft enforcing the southern no-fly zone attack a radar site.

2001 - President Bush ordered a stop to the Navy bombing exercises on Puerto Rico’s Vieques Island.

Cleanup was estimated to cost hundreds of millions and take decades. Bombing practice was set to stop by May, 2003.

1993 - The 437th Airlift Wing at Charleston AFB, South Carolina, received its first operational Boeing (formerly McDonnell Douglas) C-17A Globemaster III.

1991 - Following the volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo, the U.S. Air Force conducted the largest U.S. airlift evacuation since the Vietnam War.

Through June 28, the U.S. Air Force evacuated military members and their dependents from Clark AB and Subic Bay Naval Station in the Philippines to the U.S. Civil aircraft, C-5s, C-130s, and C-141s carried more than 18,000 people to safety.

1985 - TWA Flight 847 from Athens to Rome is hijacked by Shiite Hezbollah terrorists.

The terrorists immediately demand to know the identity of "those with Jewish-sounding names." Two of the Lebanese terrorists armed with grenades, axes, and a 9-mm. pistol then forced the plane to land at the Beirut Airport in Lebanon.

Once on the ground, the hijackers called for passengers with Israeli passports, but there were none. Nor were there any diplomats on board. They then focused their attention on the several U.S. Navy construction divers aboard the plane. Soon after landing, the terrorists killed Steelworker 2nd Class Robert D. Stethem of Underwater Construction Team 1, and dumped his body on the runway. He later received a Bronze Star for his heroism. TWA employee Uli Dickerson¹ was largely successful in protecting the few Jewish passengers aboard by refusing to identify them. Most of the passengers were released in the early hours of what turned out to be a 17-day ordeal, but five men were singled out and separated from the rest of the hostages.

On June 30, after careful negotiations, the hostages were released unharmed.

1981 - U.S. Air Forces in Europe sent six F-15s from the 36th Tactical Fighter Wing and one from the 32nd Tactical Fighter Wing to Nellis AFB, Nevada, to participate in a Red Flag exercise.

This participation was a first for the command.

1979 - Carter and Brezhnev sign SALT II agreement.

1972 - Hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers face flight delays and cancellations after pilots threatened to strike over hijack fears.

The International Federation of Air Line Pilots Associations (IFALPA) has called a 24-hour stoppage and accused governments of failing to take action to halt air piracy.

1967 - Mariner 5 launched.

Interplanetary probe of Venus established 72-1/2 - 87-1/2 percent carbon dioxide content of atmosphere on October 19, 1967 flyby of planet at an altitude of 3,990 kilometres. With more sensitive instruments than its predecessor Mariner 2, Mariner 5 was able to shed new light on the hot, cloud-covered planet and on conditions in interplanetary space.

1963 - A Republic of China Air Force RB-69A was shot down near Nanchang People's Republic of China, killing the crew of fourteen.

The aircraft was shot down by a PLAAF MiG-17PF.

1963 - Vostok 5 launched. Lieutenant Colonel Valery Bykovsky orbits Earth 81 times, 2,046,000 miles.

Vostok 5 was originally planned to go for a record eight days. The launch was delayed repeatedly due to high solar activity and technical problems. Finally the spacecraft ended up in a lower than planned orbit. Combined with increased atmospheric activity due to solar levels, Vostok 5 quickly decayed temperatures in the service module reached very high levels.

Bykovsky also experienced an unspecified problem with his waste management system (a spill?) which made conditions in the cabin "very uncomfortable." He was finally ordered to return after only five days in space.

Joint flight with Vostok 6. Two days after the launch of Vostok 5 Lt. Valentina V. Tereshkova, the first spacewoman, followed in Vostok 6. On its first orbit, Vostok 6 came within about five km of Vostok 5, the closest distance achieved during the flight, and established radio contact. This was another first ordered by Premier Khrushchev himself: the first woman in space. Twenty-six-year-old Valentina Tereshkova was exactly the kind of woman Khrushchev approved of: an ordinary textile worker with no class advantages, whose father had worked on the land before he died fighting the Germans. Both cosmonauts landed safely on June 19. The space spectacular featured television coverage of Bykovsky that was viewed in the West as well as in Russia.

1954 - Over 12 million Americans "die" in a mock nuclear attack, as the United States goes through its first nationwide civil defense drill.

Though American officials were satisfied with the results of the drill, the event stood as a stark reminder that the world was now living under a nuclear shadow.

1953 - First flight Blackburn Beverley.

The Blackburn Beverly entered RAF service in 1956. Even by modern standards the Beverly is huge and with its ability to lift massive loads and deliver them safely into remote airstrips the Beverly greatly enhanced the capability of the RAF's transport command. The Beverly continued to provide yoeman service until 1967 when the Amiable Elephant was replaced by the Lockheed Hercules.

Today only one Beverly airframe remains intact and can be seen at the Museum of Army Flying at (appropriately) Beverly in East Yorkshire, G.B.

1951 - A single Polikarpov PO-2 biplane dropped bombs on Suwon Airfield and another PO-2 bombed a motor pool at Inchon.

These attacks marked the beginning of enemy night harassing missions that soon became known as "Bedcheck Charley."

1949 - Russian test pilot A.A. Sinitsyn is born.

1945 - First flight Avro Tudor I--Intended for post-war commercial use, the Avro Tudor was the first British transport aircraft with a pressurised cabin.

Early Tudors had a short, rounded, fin and rudder; this was discovered to provide insufficient directional stability, and so in later aircraft a taller, straight-edged, fin/rudder combination of greater overall area was fitted.

The Tudor was a commercial adaptation of the Lancaster IV bomber, which was later renamed Lincoln. The Tudor later was used as the basis for the Avro Ashton experimental jet aircraft.

1944 - The first raid by American B-29 Superfortress bombers is carried out. A total of 48 planes (of which 4 are lost) make an ineffective strike on the Yawata iron and steel works during the night from bases in China.

1943 - Helicopter buses were proposed by Greyhound for large-scale public travel in an application filed with the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB).

Industrial designer Raymond Loewy and inventor Igor Sikorsky created the concept for a streamlined 14-seat air bus. A scale model was shown at hearings before the CAB, but none were built. Overly-optimistic plans were to provide landing ports by adapting Greyhound bus terminals. The proposed venture was publicized in a New York Times article on September 9, 1945. However, Greyhound Skyways began with a pair of four-place S-51 Sikorsky Helicopters, painted in blue-and-white with a greyhound logo. Within just a few years, it closed after facing the reality of being non-economic.

1934 - Transfer of the V.A. Chizhevskiy Bureau of Special Designs (BOK) to the Smolensk aircraft factory.

1929 - In efforts to encourage passenger traffic for their expanding international air routes, British Imperial Airways makes the first 30-minute “tea” flight over London, costing £2 2s, reduced in 1931 to £1 10s.

1923 - The New Zealand Permanent Air Force is established.

1922 - Bomber pilot V.M. Bezbokov is born in Russia.

1921 - Fighter pilot V.F. Abramov is born in Russia.

1919 - The first direct non-stop crossing of the Atlantic by airplane is made by a British two-man team.

Capt. John Alcock and Lt. Arthur Whitten-Brown fly a Vickers Vimy bomber from St. Johns, Newfoundland to Clifden, Ireland. They fly some 1,950 miles in 16 hours, 27 minutes.

In spite of their crash landing in an Irish peat bog, their flight inspired public nterest in aviation and led to many other flights.

1917 - First flightNieuport 28.

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1914 - First flight of the D.P. Grigrorovich M-1 flying boat.

1912 - Cpl. Vernon Burge became the U.S. Army's first enlisted pilot.

1911 - A machine gun is installed on an airplane in Russia for the first time, on a Farman-7 by B.S. Maslennikov.

1897 - Royal Flying Corps ace (8 victories) 2nd. Lt. John Anthony Jack McCudden is born in Chatham, Kent, England, U.K.

1886 - Imperial German Air Service ace (21 victories) Offizierstellvertreter Friedrich Altemeier is born in Niederbecksen, Germany.

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