August 31

2011 -- Betty Skelton, 85, a daredevil pilot who was a three-time national aerobatics champion and became known as the "fastest woman on Earth" when she set speed records in airplanes and automobiles, died of cancer.


She made her first solo flight — illegally — at age 12 and went on to become a pioneering and charismatic pilot in the days of propellers and open cockpits. She gave her first aerobatics performance at 19, appearing in the same show in Jacksonville in which the Navy's precision flight team, the Blue Angels, debuted in 1946.  In 1959 she was the first woman to volunteer to undergo the same medical and psychological tests as the Mercury 7 astronauts.


2011 --  Peter Twiss, a British test pilot who set a world aviation speed record in March 1956 when he became the first flier to officially exceed 1,000 miles an hour in level flight, died at Titchfield, England. He was 90.


On March 10, 1956,  Twiss, a test pilot for Britain’s Fairey Aviation, climbed into the cockpit of the delta-winged Fairey Delta 2, a research plane powered by a single turbojet engine, and took off from an experimental aircraft station near England’s south coast,  landing 24 minutes after he had taken off, with an average speed of 1,132 miles an hour for his runs.


Under the rules governing international aviation speed records, Twiss was required to make two runs without dropping by more than 328 feet or climbing by more than 2,460 feet, even when turning between his runs.


Twiss eclipsed the previous record speed for level flight, set in 1955 by Col. Horace A. Hanes of the U.S. Air Force’s flight-test center at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Colonel Hanes flew a North American F-100C Super Sabre at an average speed of 822 miles an hour, the first level flight exceeding the speed of sound. The Air Force pilot Chuck Yeager was the first to break that barrier, in 1947, but he did it in a rocket plane propelled from a bomber that had carried it aloft.

2011 -- The Pentagon should cease additional purchases of the Boeing Co. (BA) F-18E/F fighter and focus its limited dollars on buying Lockheed Martin F-35 fighters, according to Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia.  

The Lockheed Senate advocate¹ outlined his case in letter  to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, urging him to “fully commit to the expeditious fielding” of the F-35 and “forgo procuring additional fourth generation aircraft such as the F-18E/F.”

 2011 -- The U.S. Navy, Department of Energy and Department of Agriculture are forming a public-private partnership to develop drop-in advanced biofuels.

2011 -- 


2011 -- Andrei Reus, director general of the state-owned Oboronprom corporation producing helicopters, aircraft engines and air defense systems, said "Until 2020 Russian Helicopters will supply the Defense Ministry with 140 helicopters worth at least 120 billion rubles [$4 billion]," 


He also said that Russian Helicopters had earmarked $200-250 million for research, mainly the development of such helicopters as Mi-38, Ka-62, Mi-34S1, and for upgrading Mi-17.


Western media reports quoted experts as saying this week that Russian companies stood to lose almost 7 million euros ($10 million) due to the change of government in Libya. The experts said the new Libyan government would most likely look to NATO for future weapons supplies after the organization helped them to overthrow long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi.


2011 -- U.S. taking initial steps to grapple with space debris problem.


A multibillion-dollar radar system should vastly increase the amount of orbital debris under surveillance, but actually removing any debris will be a monumental challenge

2011 -- Germany has decided against installing body scanners across the country's airports after a pilot scheme in Hamburg was blighted by false alarms, the interior ministry announced today.

2011 --  Boeing has secured board approval to build a revamped version of its 737 jet with enhanced engines. The company has lined up nearly 500 commitments from a handful of airlines to purchase the plane, called 737 MAX. Boeing plans to start delivering the 737 MAX in 2017, two years after Airbus is scheduled to start delivering a competing model.

2011 -- Across Africa, along with other parts of the world, there are many villages that are inaccessible by road for at least part of the year. The only reasonably fast way of getting medicine and other essential goods to these locations is to fly them in by conventional aircraft. 

Such an approach can be costly, however, and requires the services of a trained pilot. Matternet, a startup company currently based out of Silicon Valley's Singularity University is proposing an alternative - a network of ground stations for small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which would inexpensively deliver payloads to remote communities.

If this works there would be a military application, i.e.,  due to the sheer lack of infrastructure in Afghanistan; its geographical position as a landlocked nation it costs  $1.2 million a year  to support one U.S. service member deployed in Afghanistan. 


2011 -- Video of China’s J-20 stealth jet up close on the ground.  The F-22-like canopy opens followed by the plane’s weapons bay doors.

1983 -- U.S. Representative Lawrence McDonald of Georgia and head of the John Birch Society, Tae Kwon Do master Hyong Ung Hong, and 267 others were killed when their Korean Airlines Boeing 747 Flight 007 drifted off course and was shot down by a Russian SU-15 air force jet.

Chun Byung In, the pilot in command of 007, held the rank of colonel in the South Korean Air Force. He had flown the Korean president to the U.S. in 1982, and flew overseas routes linking Southeast Asia to the Middle East, Paris to Los Angeles, and New York to Seoul. The co-pilot on 007 was Lieutenant Colonel Sohn Dong Hui.

McDonald’s widow claims that her husband, the national chairman of the John Birch Society, was "murdered." She holds that it was no accident that "the leading anti-Communist in the American government" had been on a plane that was "forced into Soviet territory" and shot down.

For 2-1/2 hours 007 ventured as far as 226 miles inside Soviet airspace, the Russians were testing new missiles directly below. It is possible that the Russians thought 007 was an RC-135 intelligence plane. Several weeks after the downing of Flight 007, Soviet President Yuri Andropov blamed the United States for a "sophisticated provocation, masterminded by U.S. special services, an example of extreme adventurism in politics."

1978 -- The British government announces that it has acquired a 20% interest in the Airbus Industries A310 and a voting seat on the Airbus board.

1977 -- Alexander Fedotov climbs to 123,524 feet in a Mikoyan Ye266M, a world record altitude for air-breathing craft.

1977 -- First flight Antonov An-72/74 Coaler.

Developed as tactical transport replacement for the An-26 in service with the Soviet air force. The most significant feature is the considerable increase in lift achieved through the Coanda effect whereby the engine exhaust gases are blown over the high wing's upper surface.

1971 -- Dave Scott became the first person to drive a vehicle on the Moon - the battery-powered Lunar Rover (LRV) - as part of the Apollo 15 mission to the mountainous Hadley-Apennine region. 

This LRV, the first to be carried on an Apollo mission, built by Boeing, weighed 460 lb (209 kg) and folded into a space 5 ft by 20 in (1.5 m by 0.5 m). Each wheel was independently driven by ¼ horsepower (200 W) electric motor. The astronauts could travel further from their landing site and sample a wider variety of lunar materials. The car travelled 17.4 miles (28 km) and collected about 168 pounds (76 kg) of lunar materials to return to Earth. Shepard and Mitchell of the previous Apollo 14 walked about 2.5 miles (4 km), hauling their scientific gear in a two-wheeled cart.

1969 -- Rocky Marciano, the former heavyweight champion boxer, and two others died in the crash of a Cessna 172H airplane near Newton, Iowa.

He was one day short of celebrating his 46th birthday.

1967 -- United States Senate Preparedness Investigating Committee issues a call to step up bombing against North Vietnam, declaring that McNamara had "shackled" the air war against Hanoi, and calling for "closure, neutralization, or isolation of Haiphong." 

President Johnson, attempting to placate Congressional "hawks" and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, expanded the approved list of targets in the north, authorizing strikes against bridges, barracks, and railyards in the Hanoi-Haipong area and additional targets in the previously restricted areas along the Chinese border.

1962 -- President Kennedy signed the Satellite Act.

Congress thus stated that it was to be the policy of the U.S. "to establish, in conjunction and in cooperation with other countries, as expeditiously as practicable a commercial communications satellite system, as part of an improved global communications network, which will be responsive to public needs and national objectives, which will serve the communication needs of the United States and other countries, and which will contribute to world peace and understanding."   The service was to sensitive to meeting the needs of economically less developed countries. Control of international satellite communications was given to a new private corporation called the Communications Satellite Corporation or Comsat.

1956 -- During a nighttime training flight, CIA pilot Frank G. Grace stalled his U-2 at an altitude of 50 feet when he tried to climb too steeply during take off. 

The aircraft fell to earth, cartwheeled on its left wing, and struck a power pole near the runway. Grace died in the crash. He was 30 years old, married, and the father of four children. 

1942 -- Milestons in the Jagdwaffe's combat record in Russia were constantly reached and surpassed; Johannes Macky Steinhoff's 100th victory came this date.

Steinhoff was one of very few Luftwaffe pilots who survived to fly operationally through the whole of the war period 1939-45. He was one of the highest-scoring pilots with 176 victories, and one of the first to fly the Me 262 jet fighter in combat, being a member of the famous aces squadron JV 44 led by Adolf Galland.

1940 -- U.S. senator Ernest Lundeen of Minnesota and 24 others were killed in the crash of a Pennsylvania Central Douglas DC-3 plane. While flying through a thunderstorm, lightning hit the plane, disoriented the crew, and caused them to lose control. The plane nosed over and plunged to the earth.

1916 -- British astronomer Robert Hanbury Brown was born in India.  

Hanbury, as he was always known, worked on the secret development of the coastal radar — Chain Home² — which was to prove vital in the 1940 Battle of Britain. By then, Hanbury was working with R.A. Watson-Watt and then E.G. Bowen. His splendid autobiography, Boffin (Adam Hilger, 1991), gives a vivid account of the trials and triumphs of this work, which by 1941 gave night fighters of the Royal Air Force the edge over the German bombers.

1913 --  English radio astronomer Sir Alfred Charles Bernard Lovell was born.

During WW II he helped develop aircraft onboard radar systems.  In 1946, he showed that radar echoes could detect optically invisible daytime meteor showers. He gained funding to build the 250-ft-diam. telescope. When completed in 1957, it was able to track the first artificial satellite, Sputnik I.

1910 -- The first U.S. airplane flight over water was made by Glenn Hammond Curtiss in his biplane over Lake Erie from Euclid Beach Park, Cleveland, Ohio, to Cedar Point, Sandusky, Ohio. At an altitude between 400 and 500 feet, the 70 mile trip took 78 minutes nonstop. 


Curtiss reported in the New York Times that he found that the "lake wind was not so steady as ocean trade winds. It was puffy the last twenty miles, and the riding then a little rough. Otherwise the flight was smooth." He delayed his return because of rain. The next day, flying back to Cleveland, he beat both the Lake Shore Limited train and homing pigeons, although it took longer than the first flight because he had to face strong winds. His return to Euclid Beach was greated by 20,000 people.


1895 -- Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin patented in Germany his invention of the rigid airship, known as the Zeppelin. 


The overall cylindrical shape with rounded ends was covered with a cotton shell, framed with aluminium struts, wire-braced and contained a number of independent hydrogen balloons used for lift. Two or more seperate engines were suspended below for propulsion. The patent title, "Lenkbarer Luftfahrzug" (steerable air-cruising train), referred to a feature whereby additional cylindrical mid-segments could be connected together for a longer airship with greater carrying capacity, though none were ever made in this form. A similar U.S. patent was issued on 14 Mar 1899 for his "Navigable Balloon.
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¹  Georgia's aircraft industry has played a vital role in the nation's defense and has been a central factor in the state's economic resurgence since WW II.  There  a long tradition of aviation activity in Georgia, which continues today with the Lockheed Martin Aeronautical Systems Company in Marietta, e.g., The center-wing section of the JSF is made in Marietta, Ga., a plant that is otherwise headed for shrinkage as the F-22 line shuts down. A second major program, the re-engined C-5M, is due to end at 52 aircraft, leaving Marietta dependent on the C-130 and JSF.


²  Britain's first early-warning system, the Chain Home coastal radar stations, consisted of 110-meter-high towers that broadcast radio signals with a wavelength of 10 to 15 meters.  The radio signals bounced off approaching aircraft, and by timing the delay btween transmitting a pulse of radio waves and receiving the bounced  signals, it was possible to calculate the distance.  The Chain Home system was also capable of determining the direction of approaching aircraft by comparing the bounced signals received at two different antennas.  The differing signal strength could be used to determine the direction, and a second pair of antennas could find the elevation.


Once you knew the distance, elevation, and directon, it was possible to accurately detect aircraft up to 200 kilometers away, and Chain Home was used to great effectduring the Battle of Britain and the Blitz.