Milestones of Flight: 11/10

2008 - Brazil approves Azul Airlines of JetBlue founder.

2007 - Sir Richard Branson welcomes aboard Kyla Ebbert from San Diego, Calif., on Virgin America's first flight to Las Vegas.

Ebbert, was kicked-off a Southwest Airlines flight for her provocative clothing, and was welcomed with open arms by Virgin America at San Francisco International Airport.

2007 - United Launch Alliance successfully launched the first operational Delta IV Heavy expendable launch vehicle for the U.S. Air Force yesterday from Space Launch Complex-37.

Weighing 5,200 pounds, the DSP-23 satellite completed a 6 hour, 20 minute mission.The DSP-23 launch completes the deployment of this important constellation of satellites. DSP satellites provide early warning for intercontinental ballistic missile launches and have been used by the military for more than 30 years.

2007 - Barbara Cesar, a longtime advocate of Southern California’s aviation and business community as well as a dedicated provider of opportunities for youth, passed away, due to complications from minor surgery.

2006 - A small plane crashed soon after takeoff at Shelton Airport, killing the pilot, sheriff's deputies said. The plane took off from Sanderson Field at about noon, headed west and then had an emergency. The plane was returning to the airport when it spiraled and hit the ground. KIRO TV Video:

2006- The price of a commercial flight to the International Space Station has risen from $20 million to $21 million.

2006 10-11 Blue Angel 60 year anniversary. Last Show of the Year Scheduled for Pensacola, Florida.

2002 - U.S. warplanes flying from an aircraft carrier in the Gulf struck missile sites in southern Iraq in response to hostile acts.

2001 - In the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President George W. Bush addresses the United Nations to ask for the international community’s help in combating terrorism around the world.

This speech was the first time Bush laid out a policy of pre-emptive action against regimes that sponsored terrorists.

1998 - EVA Mir EO-26-2.

1998 - Operational manager of Aerojet, 1942-1966, William E. Zisch, died this date.

1997 - The U-2 surveillance flights over Iraq were resumed by the UN.

1988 - The U.S. Air Force reveals the F-117A Stealth fighter to the public for the first time. Manufactured by Lockheed, using radar-absorbent materials and a radical new design, the F-117A can evade radar detection.

The Air Force was opposed to stealth and had to be forced to develop it by SecDef Harold Brown. He is remembered mostly for his largely successful efforts at arms control -- an unusual accomplishment for a SecDef Indeed, arms control formed an integral part of Brown's national security policy. He staunchly supported the June 1979 SALT II treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union and was the administration's leading spokesman in urging the Senate to approve it. SALT II limited both sides to 2,250 strategic nuclear delivery vehicles (bombers, ICBMs, SLBMs, and air-to-surface ballistic missiles), including a sublimit of 1,200 launchers of MIRVed ballistic missiles, of which only 820 could be launchers of MIRVed ICBMs.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 ensured that the Senate would not accept the treaty at that time, forcing the president to withdraw it from consideration.

He can take a lot of credit for the current state of our military strength because of his championing of the the fundamental decision to rely on a distinctive American asset -- innovative technology. This reliance on a technological edge, dubbed the "offset strategy," essential to ensuring America's overall military edge.

That edge persists today. The long-term readiness of the national security establishment to face tomorrow's threats, however, remains in question.

1985 - Conducted the first atmospheric flight of BTS-002 the plane-analogue of Buran spacecraft, developed under the management of G.E. Lozino-Lozinskiy.

Cosmonaut Igor Volk was at the controls; takeoff was from the Zhukovskiy test flight centre near Moscow. Two flying labs, based on Tu-154 transports, were used to prior to this to duplicate anticipated Buran handling and test systems software. They conducted 140 flights before Buran's first flight, including 69 automatic landings at Zhukovskiy and at the Jubilee airfield at Baikonur.

1972 - Two men hijack Southern Airways Flight 49 out of Birmingham, Alabama, and hopscotch it variously in the U.S., Canada, and Cuba while demanding $7M.

At one point they circle Oak Ridge National Laboratory and threaten to crash the plane into that top secret nuclear installation. After two days, and exhausting most of the aircraft's supply of mini-liquor bottles, the plane lands for good in Havana where the men were imprisoned for 8 years. They returned to the US in 1980 where they were sentenced to 25 years. Said one of the two hijackers later, "I wanted to fly over the Statue of Liberty and urinate on it."

1971 -Nine airplanes were damaged when Communist forces bombard the airport at the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, killing 25 persons and wounding 30.

1970 - SPACE MILESTONE: LUNA 17 (USSR) launched. This unmanned spacecraft landed and released Lunakhod 1, an 8-wheel, radio controlled vehicle, on moon's Sea of Rains, November 17, which explored lunar surface sending data back to Earth.

1968 - SPACE MILESTONE: ZOND 6 (USSR) was launched for a lunar flight which circled the Moon and returned to the Soviet Union, using a skipping technique. The craft orbited within1,500 miles (2418 km.) of the Moon and returned

1957 - Sputnik II ceased transmissions.

1954 - Lt. Col. John Strapp traveled 632 MPH in a rocket sled.

Dr. Stapp was known as the "fastest man on earth" for his 1954 ride, though the speed has since been surpassed and was never accepted by auto racing officials as an official land speed record. The speed was impressive, at any rate. Dr. Stapp accelerated in 5 seconds from a standstill to 632 miles an hour. The sled then decelerated to a dead stop in 1.4 seconds, subjecting Dr. Stapp to pressures more than 40 times the pull of gravity.

He won what will perhaps be even more lasting fame in a test five years earlier, when he suffered injuries owing to a mistake by a Captain Murphy. The result: Murphy's Law.

1933 - Ronald Ellwin Evans, American astronaut, NASA Group 5--1966, is born in St. Francis, Kansas, U.S.A.

1924 - Reshetnev Mikhail Fedorovich, rocket designer, is born.

Companion-in-arms of S.P.Korolev, director general of NPO of Applied mechanics.

1918 - Lenin Prize laureate, Raikov Ivan Iosifovich, specialist in the area of liquid-propellant jet engine, is born.

Deputy leader of RKK Energiya.

1907 - Henri Farman makes a flight of 3,379 feet in one minute 14 seconds in his Voisin-Farman I biplane. This flight in France was the first in Europe of over one minute

1907 - Louis Bleriot introduces what will become the modern configuration of the airplane. His No.VII has an enclosed or covered fuselage (body), a single set of wings (monoplane), a tail unit, and a propeller in front of the engine.

1895 - John Knudsen Jack Northrop, American aircraft designer, is born.

Northrop was an early advocate of all-metal construction and the flying wing design. As early as 1923, Jack Northrop had been convinced that the flying wing, in which the aircraft carried all loads and controls within the wing and dispensed with fuselage and tail sections, was the next major step forward in aircraft design. He pursued various flying wing and tailless aircraft designs during WW II. In the decades following the war, Northrop's name was attached as manufacturer and designer of several other aircraft, culminating in the B-2, which vindicated Jack Northrop’s dream of a flying wing design.

1889 - Scientist and aircraft designer B.N. Yur'ev is born.

1888 - A.N. Tupolev, Soviet aircraft designer is born.

He designed the first Soviet all-metal ANT-2 and ANT-3 aircraft. He developed over 100 airplanes, many of which were used during the Great Patriotic War (the TB-3, TB-7, STB, and Tu-2). In the post-war years a number of civil and military aircraft were developed under his leadership, including the first Soviet jet bomber, the Tu-12, the Tu-104 jet passenger aircraft, the Tu-114 liner, and the first supersonic passenger aircraft, the Tu-144. He was a member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1953), General-Colonel and Engineer (1968), and three-times Hero of Socialist Labor.