December 2

2012 -- Henry Lafont, a French pilot who took part in a harrowing aerial escape from North Africa to fight for the honor of France after its capitulation to Hitler and who became the last surviving French veteran of the Battle of Britain, died today, in the Brittany region of France. He was 91. Lafont flew Hawker Hurricane fighters out of southern England with the 615 Squadron. He went on to fly numerous fighter missions over Libya and Europe. In 1941 he shot down two German fighters. He suffered shrapnel wounds when his plane was downed in Libya in the spring of 1942. Remaining in the French Air Force after the war, Mr. Lafont served on the staff of NATO and in the Algerian conflict. He retired as a colonel in 1966. He was the director of the prominent Paris air show at Le Bourget from 1967 to 1984.

2010 -- TSA guidelines say it is not Subject To X-Ray, But Agents Insisted A mother in a security line at Phoenix Airport who also happens to be an attorney was reportedly placed in a "specialty screening area" by TSA agents when she objected to allowing breast milk she was carrying to be x-rayed.

The "specialty screening area" is a glassed-in enclosure in view of other passengers clearing security.

2010 -- After nearly 39 years of service, the Força Aérea Brasileira, FAB, (Brazilian air force) formally retired its Embraer EMB-326 (AT-26) Xavante fleet. The event is expected to signal the start of a search for a replacement jet trainer.

2010 -- The inadequate state of Brazil’s airport infrastructure has been highlighted this month at the Brazil Investment Summit and the Latin American and Caribbean Air Transport Association (ALTA).

GOL Airlines CEO Constantino de Oliveira Jr., warned that Brazil’s airport infrastructure is lagging behind the nation’s fast-growing and emerging aviation industry while IATA labelled Brazil’s air transport infrastructure as a “growing disaster”.

2010 -- U.S. cargo pilots Kevin Kuranz, center, of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and Christopher Schmidt, of Maryville, Tennessee, were detained today in Santo Domingo after agents from the Caribbean nation's anti-narcotics agency found about 321 pounds (146 kilograms) of cocaine and 4 pounds of heroin (2 kilograms) hidden in floor and ceiling panels of their cargo plane.

The two pilots, employees of Milwaukee-based Air Cargo Carriers, and 18 Dominican military and government officials were detained after authorities found the hidden cocaine in their Short 360 cargo plane.

2010 -- On Capitol Hill the House by a vote of 234-188, the lame lawmakers approved a "Motion to Concur in the Senate Amendment with an Amendment" to the Airport and Airway Extension Act of 2010, Part III. Believe it or not, that's Beltwayese for "tax increase."

The act, which would increase marginal income tax rates by as much as 264% (on qualified dividends) effective January 1, is technically a tax cut. We're not making this up. In order to comply with screwy Beltway accounting practices, when Congress enacted the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, the legislation provided that they would expire at the beginning of next month. Thus Congress has to "cut" taxes in order to prevent them from going up.

2010 South Korean President Lee Myung-bak's choice for new defense minister said that South Korean jets will bomb North Korea if Pyongyang stages an attack similar to last week's deadly artillery barrage.

Lee's nominee, Kim Kwan-jin, told a parliamentary confirmation hearing that North Korean aggression will result in airstrikes. He said South Korea will use all its combat capabilities to retaliate.

2010 -- Australian officials probing last month's engine blast on a Qantas flight have warned that a "critical safety issue" with Rolls-Royce engines on Airbus A380s could lead to "catastrophic" failure.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau said that a misaligned component had thinned the wall of an oil pipe in the exploded engine, causing "fatigue cracking" that prompted leakage and a fire "central to the engine failure".

"This condition could lead to an elevated risk of fatigue crack initiation and growth, oil leakage and potential catastrophic engine failure from a resulting oil fire," the ATSB said, noting it was "understood to be related to the manufacturing process."

2005 -- USAF Gen. Norton Schwartz, head of U.S. Transportation Command, has a new perspective on recapitalizing air mobility—swap new C-17s for new tankers.

Schwartz has said in two recent news media interviews that, given the current budget environment, he would go with new tankers over more C-17s because the tankers can double up as airlifters and he can lease cargo aircraft. His view is the polar opposite of that of his predecessor, now retired Gen. John Handy, who maintained that the Pentagon needed 222 new C-17s to meet its mobility requirements. The Senate has voted to authorize 42 more.

2001 -- During Operation Enduring Freedom, a 20th Special Operations Squadron MH-53 Pave Low helicopter crew earned the Mackay Trophy by rescuing the crew of another MH-53 that had crashed on a rescue mission in the mountains of Afghanistan.

1989 -- U.S. President Bush reported that on December 1 U.S. fighter planes from Clark Air Base in the Philippines had assisted the Aquino government to repel a coup attempt.

In addition, 100 marines were sent from the U.S. Navy base at Subic Bay to protect the U.S. Embassy in Manila.

1986 -- A Concorde airliner carrying 94 passengers returns to Charles de Gaulle airport after an 18-day round-the-world journey; total flying time amounted to 31 hours, and 51 minutes.

There was an around-the-world charter every year for rich tourists, and operated like a round-the- world cruise with many overnight stops.

1976 -- U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld authorized the U.S. Air Force to begin B-1 production. Congress had restricted funding for the program to $87 million a month earlier in September.

1976 -- The Boeing 747 SCA, an ex-American Airlines airliner which has been adapted to carry the U.S. reusable space shuttle, makes its flight.



1965 -- Hugh Latimer Dryden died from cancer.

Dryden was a U.S. physicist and deputy administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA, 1958) for 7 years. He made pioneering studies in the aerodynamics of high speed and some of the earliest studies of air flow around wing surfaces at the speed of sound. During WW II he headed the Washington Project of the National Defense Research Committee, which developed the Bat radar-homing missile, the first successful U.S. guided missile, which was used by the navy against the Japanese during WW II.

1959 -- The inaugural flight of a BOAC Comet 4 aircraft on the London to Johannesburg route took place.

1955 -- Vickers Viscount airliners go into regular service in the Caribbean area with British West Indian Airways.

1943 -- The Combined Chiefs of Staff asked the Allied Expeditionary Air Force to attack "ski sites" in the Pas de Calais and Cherbourg Peninsula areas of France. These areas were identified as V-1 missile launching sites.

1936 -- First flight Boeing's YB-17 Flying Fortress.

1919 -- First flight Handley-Page W8 (also known as the H.P.18) was the company's first civil transport aircraft. It housed two crew in an open cockpit and 15 passengers in an enclosed cabin. Powered by two 450 hp (336 kW) Napier Lion engines.

1917 -- American French Air Service Ace Major Gervais Raoul Lufbery scored victories 15 and 16.

1917 -- German Air Service Ace Lt. Walter von Bülow-Bothkamp scores his 28th and victory.

He was killed in action when his Albatros D.V shot down by Frank Quigley and William Fry on January 6, 1918.

1917 -- 26th victory scored by German Air Service Ace Leutnant Heinrich Bongartz.