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2008 - Virgin Atlantic sacked 13 cabin crew staff today after they criticised some of the airline's passengers on the social networking website Facebook.
The airline opened an investigation on October 23 following complaints from passengers and other Virgin staff members over the cabin crew's Facebook discussion on a now-depopulated Facebook group called "London Gatwick Ground Staff," where they referred to certain customers as "chavs" and claim that some of the company's 747s were infested with cockroaches.
The Telegraph reports that a big complaint was passengers who put boarding passes in their mouths before handing them over to gate personnel--definitely something worth griping about. Customers were also called "smelly and annoying." (Fliers from the U.S. got a special shout-out for their "stupid American accents.")
Somehow absent from the coverage of this event is whether their charges are true. Are Virgin Atlantic flights filled with chavs and cockroaches, and are American accents stupid?
2007 - The director of Brazil's Civil Aviation Agency, Milton Zuanazzi, resigned today under fire from the defense minister, who blames him for the country's months long aviation crisis.
2007 - Abandoning its secrecy claims, NASA promised Congress today that it will reveal results of a federal aviation survey which found that aircraft near collisions, runway interference and other safety problems occur far more often than previously recognized.
However, NASA administrator Michael Griffin said, that before any release NASA would scrub the data to make sure none of the 24,000 pilots who were interviewed anonymously could be identified, taking until the end of the year to do what a survey expert told Congress could be done in a week.
Airport authorities believe an airport with 50 million passengers and countless takeoffs and landings per day is not the place for a large wild cat community.
2007 - A British citizen who apparently missed his flight tonight decided to try a different tactic to catch a plane: He ran across all lanes of Michigan's Interstate 94, through a field, across railroad tracks and jumped over a barbed wire fence.
2006 - The F-117,¹ Nighthawk, the world's first stealth fighter, is being retired.
2006 - General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) along with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS)/Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Office of Air and Marine unveiled CBP-104, CBP's second Predator B unmanned aircraft system (UAS), at Ft. Huachuca/Muni-Libby Army Air Field (AAF).
The UAS will be deployed along the southwest border of the United States.
2006 - In a fresh sign of improving U.S.-Libya relations, a Libyan airline company, al-Barrak, has received a new Boeing 737-800 airplane, the first to be delivered to Libya in 25 years.
This is part of a deal concluded last February. The company ordered six planes from Boeing at a total cost of $336 million.
Jointly developed by China and Pakistan, the plane is capable of carrying multiple air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons, with a range of 1,200 kilometers or about 750 miles.
Critics of former president Clinton point out that in 1998, a bipartisan House investigation found that China had been allowed to buy more than 600 supercomputers, and that it had made little attempt to disguise what they were to be used for. Many had been shipped directly to weapons-design facilities or PLA-controlled enterprises.
In the Clinton years China obtained from the United States sophisticated so-called-fly-by-wire technology to the detriment of American national security. The technology was originally listed on the Department of State Munitions Control List. At he Clinton administration's request it was transferred to the Commerce Department's Control List, whereupon it was allowed to be licensed for production outside the Unite States China licensed it supposedly for use solely on civil airliners. By 2004 it was discovered on advanced Chinese and Pakistani combat aircraft as was the single-crystal jet engine fan-blade technology, which had either been illegally or accidentally transferred to China. The consequence has been that the Chinese and Pakistani fighters both are achieving performance capabilities comparable to our F-16A Block 15.
America's security has rested in part on the technological advantages it enjoyed for decades over potential adversaries. During the Clinton administration, critics argue, those advantages were greatly diminished.
2002 - . Lionel Poilâne, French gourmet baker and entrepreneur, and his wife Irena died when the helicopter he was piloting in fog crashed near his country house in Brittany, France.
2001 - U.S. bombing in Afghanistan was reported to be the heaviest in the 4-week campaign.
2000 - A Los Angeles-bound Singapore Airlines Boeing 747 mistakenly went down a runway at Taiwan's Chiang Kai-Shek International Airport that had been closed for repairs because of a recent typhoon. The resulting collision with construction equipment killed 83 people on board. 96 people survived the crash.
1999 - EgyptAir Boeing 767 crashes into Atlantic Ocean after taking off from John F. Kennedy Airport in New York on flight to Cairo, Egypt, killing all 217 on board.
Captains Ahmed al-Habashy and Raouf Noureldin were at the controls. Relief pilot Gamil al-Batouti 59-years-old, the father of five, was suspected to have caused the crash. In 2002 the National Transportation Safety Board reported that el-Batouty was solely responsible for the crash.
1996 - Col. Frank Kurtz, who flew the last B-17 stationed in the Pacific during WW II, died from complications after a fall. His most famous landing was a crash landing in the Australian outback when he was ferrying Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson and several congressional committee members.
His daughter, Swoosie Kurtz, was given her distinctive name, by the press, it comes from the B-17 The Swoose, now in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum. The airplane, with its record-setting fame, was flown by her father Col. Frank Kurtz who was the most decorated Air Force pilot of WW II.
Swoosie Kurtz has played a wide range of roles in such feature films as Citizen Ruth, Liar Liar, Duplex, Bubble Boy, Get Over It, Cruel Intentions, The Rules of Attraction, Dangerous Liaisons, Reality Bites, The World According to Garp, Against All Odds, Bright Lights, Big City, True Stores, Stanley and Iris, and A Shock to the System.
1995 -Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, hosts the presidents of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia for peace talks designed to end the war in the former Yugoslavia.
1994 - An American Eagle French-built ATR-72, en route from Indianapolis to Chicago, crashed in Roselawn, Indiana, and killed 68 people.
In 1997 American Airlines and 7 other companies settled a suit filed by relatives for $110 million.
1993 - Anatoli Fyodorovich Voronov, Russian cosmonaut, Air Force Group 2--1963, dies from cancer at 63.
1985 - First flight of first An-124 military transport airplane.
1980 - Julian Nott builds the world's second pressurized cabin for a hot air balloon, designed with Roger Munk, and pilots it to 55,134 feet (16,806 m)from Longmont, Colorado. Nott, a British balloonist, had on July 14, 1972, claimed a record of 36,000 feet.
1979 - A U.S. DC-10, flown by Western Airlines, crashed at Mexico City when it struck a vehicle and 74 were killed.
1968 - President Lyndon Johnson announces that on the basis of developments in the Paris peace negotiations, he has ordered the complete cessation of "all air, naval, and artillery bombardment of North Vietnam." Accordingly, effective November 1, the U.S. Air Force called a halt to the air raids on North Vietnam known as Operation Rolling Thunder.
1967 - USMC Major Hugh Michael Fanning's A-6 Intruder was downed over North Vietnam.
Please contact his wife if you have any information about him, she'd like to hear from you.
S. Kathryn Fanning
P. O. Box 18472, Oklahoma City, Ok 73154
oklahomawriter@earthlink.net
1964 - Astronaut Theodore C. Freeman died in an aircraft accident at Ellington Air Force Base, near Houston, Texas. Freeman, an Air Force captain and a member of NASA's Group 3--1963, was preparing to land his T-38 training jet when it struck a goose and lost power. He ejected from his aircraft, but did not have sufficient altitude for his parachute to open. Freeman thus became the first American astronaut to lose his life in the quest for the moon.
1962 - Start of service of the An-24 with AI-24 engines in the civil air fleet.
The An-24 is a 44-seat twin turboprop transport manufactured in the Ukraine by the Antonov Design Bureau. Over 1,000 examples were built and in 880 are still in service worldwide, mostly in the CIS and Africa.
China's Xian Aircraft Manufacturing Company makes copies of the An-24 as the Yunshuji Y-7. Production continues in China, though production in Ukraine was shut down in 1978.
1956 -The US Navy R4D-5 Skytrain Que Sera Sera, commanded by Rear Admiral George Dufek, becomes the first airplane to make a landing at the South Pole.
Rear Adm. George Dufek, Capt. Douglas Cordiner, Capt. William Hawkes, Lt. Cmdr. Conrad Shinn, Lt. John Swadener, Aviation Machinist's Mate 2nd Class J. P. Strider and Aviation Machinist's Mate 2nd Class William Cumbie are the first men to stand on the South Pole since Capt. Robert F. Scott in 1912.
They came with an advance party to build the first permanent South Pole Station. Eighty-four flights later, the Navy had dropped over 700 tons of supplies at the South Pole, and by Mar 1957, the first phase of construction of the Amundsen-Scott station was completed. The station was established in that year for the International Geophysical Year under Paul Siple, first station scientific leader. It continued to function year-round until January 1975, when a new station was occupied.
1951 - The service-test C-124A departed for the United States, having successfully completed its test in the Far East and convinced the 315th Air Division of the need for a Globemaster squadron.
1951 - Eighteen of the 67 Air Guard squadrons mobilized in 1950-1951 during the Korean War are returned to state control on this date.
Only one of the 18, the 116th Fighter Squadron from Moses Lake Air Force Base, WA, served overseas during this period. Issued new F-86A Sabre jets the 116th was stationed at the Royal Air Force base at Manston, England as part of the reinforcement of NATO forces put in place to discourage a Soviet attack in Europe. The six squadrons that actually deployed and fought in Korea were released in July 1952. The last flying units of the Air Guard serving on active duty during this period were finally released on December 31, 1952.
1949 - Terrence Wade Wilcutt, American astronaut, NASA Group 13--1990, is born in Russellville, Kentucky, U.S.A.
1948 - The U.S. Air Force revealed the use of ramjet engines for the first time on piloted aircraft, a modified F-80.
1943 - F4U2 Chance Vought Corsair of VF(N)-75 accomplishes US Navy's first successful radar-guided interception -- occurs in the skies over New Georgia, Solomon Islands.
Early operations of VF(N)-75 in New Georgia revealed considerable problems with the operating procedures; however, Lt. Hugh D. O'Neill destroys a Japanese G4M bomber during night attack off Vella Lavella in first kill by a radar-equipped night fighter of the Pacific Fleet. The tactics finally developed let the F4U-2 climb towards its target from astern. This also helped to decelerate the fighter enough, to prevent it from overshooting its target.
VF(N)-101 was created by splitting of part of VF(N)-75. It was the first carrier-based nightfighter unit of the USN. This was in January 1944, and made the unit the first carrier-based Corsair squadron. A limited number of night operations was flown, because of reluctance to take the risk. Nevertheless, no accidents occured, which helped to clear the Corsair for carrier operations.
Nevertheless, the Navy preferred to develop a nightfighter version of the F6F Hellcat, which was easier to fly and to deck-land. For night operations those were important advantages, and the Hellcat became the standard single-seat nightfighter.
Review of model F4U-2 Corsair with good illustrations and lots of historical detail.
1936 - Sergei Nikolayevich Gaidukov, Russian cosmonaut, Air Force Group 4--1967, is born in Zhuravka, Voronezh, Russia.
1933 - France’s air minister Pierre Cot formally inaugurates the country’s national airline, Air France.
1930 - Michael Collins, U.S. Astronaut, NASA Group 3--1963, was born in Rome, Italy.
Collins was the Apollo 11 Command Module Pilot orbiting while Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin walked on the moon. Selected as a NASA astronaut in October, 1963, Collins' first assignment was as Gemini VII backup pilot. As a pilot on the three-day Gemini X Mission, launched July 18, 1966, he docked with a separately launched Agena target vehicle, and made two extra-vehicular space walks, retrieving micrometeorite detection equipment from the Agena. On the Apollo 11 first lunar landing mission, launched July 16, 1969, he remained in orbit while Armstrong and Aldrin walked the Moon's surface. His skill, recovering the Eagle and returning the orbiter to Earth, were vital to the success of the mission.
1929 - Intercontinental flight from Moscow to New York on ANT-4 Strana Sovetov ends.
1902 - Holger N. Toftoy is born.
Toftoy was a career U.S. Army officer, an expert in ordnance, who was responsible for bringing the German Rocket Team under the leadership of Wernher von Braun to the United States in 1945. He became commander of the Redstone Arsenal, Huntsville, in 1954 and worked closely with von Braun's teams in the development of the Redstone and Jupiter missiles. In the aftermath of Sputnik 1 in 1957, he persuaded the Department of Defense to allow the launch of the United States' first Earth-orbiting satellite aboard the Jupiter missile and the result was the orbiting of Explorer 1 on January 31, 1958. He also held a number of other positions in the Army, head of the Rocket Research Branch of the Chief of Ordnance in Washington, DC, and commander of the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. He retired from the Army in 1960 with the rank of major general.
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¹ That site is a great resource and if you want a short history, follow the "F-117 History" link on the left-hand column. It's like a cross between The Right Stuff The X-Files before it jumped the shark. ²
²This term arose from the television show Happy Days. Where the story developed with "The Fonz" is on water skis, wearing his leather jacket and literally, jumps over a shark. This was the point when most realized the show was no longer worth watching.
Cut and Paste Aviation Archive
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