Milestones of Flight: 8/12

2008 - Is the U.S. bombing its way to disaster in Afghanistan?

The low number of ground troops stationed in Afghanistan, combined with an increase in insurgent attacks, has resulted in a dramatic increase in the use of air power. But the resulting increase in civilian casualties is undermining battlefield success.

A new report from the Institute of Peace suggests that the massive increase in the amount of munitions being fired or dropped in Afghanistan has fueled popular anger -- and the Taliban resurgence. The report is called: Killing Friends, Making Enemies: The Impact and Avoidance of Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan.

2008 - Online game: Could you land in the right place?

2007 - Israel sounds aviation alarm.

Israel's aviation safety is appalling, said Transportation Minister Shaul MofazThe Lapidot Commission released an interim report Wednesday decrying antiquated technologies and a lack of runways at Ben Gurion Airport. It further said that a lack of airspace for civilian traffic -- given the needs of the military -- and pirate radio broadcasts endangered planes coming into land.

2001 - Robert Everett Stevenson, American astronaut, Payload Specialist, died this date from cancer.

1985 - Japan Air Lines JAL Boeing 747SR crashes into Mount Otsuka, 70 miles northwest of Tokyo.

There were 524 people aboard, and all but four were dead by the time rescuers reached the remote crash site 12 hours later.

Twelve minutes into the flight, as JAL flight 123 was approaching its cruising altitude, an explosion shook the aircraft. A bulkhead had blown in the tail, creating over-pressurization that severed the four sets of hydraulic-control lines and blew part of the tail section off. With a total loss of hydraulic pressure, Captain Takahama radioed he was getting no response from his controls. For the next 27 minutes, Takahama attempted unsuccessfully to regain control of the aircraft as it descended uncontrollably in a flight condition known as the Dutch roll¹. At 6:50 p.m., JAL flight 123 crashed into Mount Otsuka at a point 4,780 feet above sea level.

1977 - Enterprise reusable orbiting vehicle (space shuttle) launched.

The Enterprise, named after the Star Trek space module and the prototype for the space shuttle, made its first flight on its own within Earth's atmosphere after being launched from a Boeing 747, separated, and then touched down in California's Mojave Desert; the space shuttle Enterprise passed its first solo flight test.

1962 - Vostok 4 launched from Baikonur.

Joint flight with Vostok 3. The launch of Cosmonaut Pavel Romanovich Popovich proceeds exactly on schedule, the spacecraft launching with 0.5 seconds of the planned time, entering orbit just a few kilometers away from Cosmonaut Nikolayev in Vostok 3. Popovich had problems with his life support system, resulting in the cabin temperature dropping to 10 degrees Centigrade and the humidity to 35%. The cosmonaut still managed to conduct experiments, including taking color motion pictures of the terminator between night and day and the cabin interior.

Despite the conditions, Popovich felt able to go for the full four days scheduled. But before the mission, Popovich had been briefed to tell ground control that he was "observing thunderstorms" if he felt the motion sickness that had plagued Cosmonaut Titov and needed to return on the next opportunity. Unfortunately, he actually did report seeing thunderstorms over the Gulf of Mexico, and ground control took this as a request for an early return. He was ordered down a day early, landing within a few mintutes of Nikolayev. Only on the ground was it discovered that he was willing to go the full duration, and that ground control had thought he had given the code.

1960 - Echo 1 (US) launched. The first telecommunications satellite, the , was launched by the United States from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The Echo satellites were NASA's first experimental communications satellite project. Each spacecraft was a large metallized balloon designed to act as a passive communications reflector to bounce communication signals transmitted from one point on Earth to another.

1960 - X-15A High Altitude Test mission. USAF Major Robert M. White takes X-15 to 41,605 m.

Maximum Speed - 2851 kph. Established a new altitude record for a manned vehicle of 136,500 feet. This topped Captain Kincheloe's record altitude of 126,200 feet attained on September 7, 1956, in the X-2 rocket research aircraft.

1957 - In first test of Automatic Carrier Landing System, LCDR Don Walker is landed on USS Antietam (CV 36).

1951 - Charles Eldon Brady Jr., American astronaut, NASA Group 14--1992, is born in Pinehurst, North Carolina, U.S.A.

1946 - President Harry Truman signs a bill authorizing an appropriation of $50,000 to establish a National Air Museum in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.

The small museum eventually becomes the National Air and Space Museum--the most visited museum in the world.

1944 - Lt. Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., USNR, the older brother of John F. Kennedy, was killed with his co-pilot in a mid-air explosion after taking off from England in a PB4Y from Special Attack Unit One (SAU-1).

Following manual takeoff, they were supposed to parachute out over the English Channel while the radio-controlled explosive filled drone proceeded to attack a German V-2 missile-launching site. Possible causes include faulty wiring or FM signals from a nearby transmitter.

1940 - In preparation for Adler Tag (Eagle Day), Göing's plan to achieve air mastery over England, German bombers struck at British harbors, radar stations and coastal airfields.

1944 - Italian based American bombers attack the Bordeaux-Merignac airfield and then fly on to Britain.

1941 - The first Air Corps rocket-assist takeoff made by a Wright Field test pilot, Capt. Homer A. Boushey.

Using a small civilian-type Ercoupe aircraft impelled by 12 powder rockets of 50 pounds thrust each, first flew on rocket power alone after an initial boost from a towing automobile. Subsequent refinements of this technique were made for assisting heavily-loaded aircraft in taking off from limited space. This technique is still used when needed.

1937 - Start of tragic flight of S.A. Levanevskiy and crew across the North Pole to the U.S. on a V. F. Bolkhovitinov designed DB-A airplane.

The plane disappeared without a trace. Traces of the location of what may have been the result of a forced landing were found at the end of the 1970s.

1933 - P.Balashevym establishes world record for parachuting - a parachute jump from an altitude of only 80 meters.

1927 - The Royal Air Force holds a fly-off between four competing flying boat designs, the Supermarine Southampton, Blackburn Iris, Short Singapore, and the Saunders-Roe Valkyrie.

1918 - The Post Office Department took charge of the U.S. airmail service, previously operated by the Army Air Corps.

1915 - Flt Cdr Charles Edmonds² RNAS becomes the first pilot to attack a ship with an air-launched torpedo. He is flying a Short Type 184 from HMS Ben-my-Chree. His target is a Turkish supply ship.

Although it is now considered that in fact this ship may already have been sunk by the submarine E14, the implications of this first aerial torpedo attack on a ship were still considerable - especially as Edmonds and another pilot Flight Lieutenant G B Dacre claimed similar successes five days later. The torpedoes could have been a lethal threat to the Turkish sea lanes, but it was soon discovered that the weight of the 14” torpedoes meant that the Short Seaplane could only get them into the air given a perfect combination of calm seas, light breezes and an engine running to its absolute limits. The torpedo carrying aircraft was a weapon for the future.

1912 - Tsar decrees the organization of the Russian air force

1908 - Controlled by Thomas Baldwin and Glenn Curtiss, the Signal Corps’ Dirigible Balloon No.1, known as SC-I, the first Army dirigible, begins flight trials at Fort Meyer near Washington, D.C.

1888 - The first gas-powered aircraft flies. Built by the German experimenter, Wolfert, the powered airship (dirigible) fitted with a 2 hp Daimler benzene engine running two propellers, flies for 2 ½ miles from Seelberg to Kornwestheim, Germany.

1882 - Vincent Hugo Bendix, an American inventor who developed systems for automobiles and aircraft and companies to manufacture them, is born.

His first company, the short-lived Bendix Company of Chicago (1907-9) made a car called the Bendix Buggy. In 1910, he invented the Bendix drive which made the electric self-starter possible. It used a gear to engage with the engine at low rotational speed then fly back, disengaging automatically at higher speed. The first four-wheel brake system for automobiles was his creation. He entered aviation systems production in 1929 with the Bendix Aviation Corporation (later be renamed Bendix Corporation), and started Bendix Helicopters, Inc. in 1942. During WW II, Bendix was the major source of U.S. aviation electronics.
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¹ The name comes from the movement that (Dutch) skaters make when skating on ice.

² Flight Commander Charles Edmonds report of his mission over the Sea of Mamora where he sighted a Turkish steamer amidst a group of sailing ships and a tug:

"I glided down and fired my torpedo at the steamer from a height of about 14 feet and range of some 300 yards, with the sun astern of me. I noticed some flashes from the tug ... so presumed she was firing at me and therefore kept on a westerly course, climbing rapidly. Looking back, I observed the track of the torpedo, which struck the ship abreast the mainmast, the starboard side. The explosion sent a column of water and large fragments of the ship almost as high as her masthead. The ship was about 5,000 tons displacement, painted black, with one funnel and four masts. She was lying close to the land, so cannot sink very far, but the force of the explosion was such that it is impossible for her to be of further use to the enemy."13 Flight Commander Charles Edmonds, HMS Benmy-Chree,
RNAS