January 24

2012 -- Virginia-based Aurora Flight Sciences has announced the sale of a Centaur optionally-piloted vehicle (OPA) to the Swiss air force, marking both the aircraft's first sale and the world's first OPA purchase. 

The aircraft, a highly modified Diamond DA42, will be used to test technologies for integrating unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) into civil airspace.  Delivery is scheduled in November 2012.

2012 -- Spirit Airlines is asking customers to protest Department of Transportation rules that require disclosure of taxes and fees by joining its campaign for low fares at www.KeepMyFaresLow.org. The carrier sent out e-mails to customers and posted a banner on its website about the new rules, which took effect today.  

2012 -- Lock up your satellites and batten down your power-lines because a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), the strongest Solar Radiation Storm since May, 2005 reached magnetosphere arly today , prompting airlines to reroute flights and skywatchers to seek out spectacular light displays.

According to NASA, the CME moved at almost 1,400 miles per second (2,253 km/s). The burst of solar wind has the potential to cause isolated reboots of computers on board satellites, damage power lines, and disrupt radio transmissions. It can also expose those in space or at high altitudes--in an airplane, for example--to intense radiation. The reason those flights over the North Pole were being rerouted, and no launches into space are expected for the duration of the event for this reason.

2012 -- Engineers inspecting Airbus A380 aircraft for cracks on a part inside the wings have found similar flaws on at least one aircraft, industry sources said.

European safety authorities ordered urgent inspections on just under a third of the superjumbo fleet last week after two types of cracks were discovered on a bracket inside the wings of the world's largest jetliner.  Cracks have been found inside the 9,100 sq ft wing of at least one of the superjumbos examined under last week's directive, industry sources said.  They also said cracks on another part of the wing were discovered two years ago. The problem was documented at the time but attention has not focused on that incident until now.

2012 -- Airbus insisted today that the cracks found on the wings during this inspection was a different issue from the latest flaws and had been resolved. 

European safety inspectors reacted to the earlier problem by ordering checks in October 2010, a month before an engine blowout severely damaged a Qantas A380 and triggered global headlines. It was during $130m repair-- lasting more than a year--to that airliner in Singapore that the latest type of crack was discovered. This in turn has led to the discovery of another and potentially more significant type on the same part.  

2012 -- Stunt pilot hopes to build a vertical-winged airplane.

2011 -- Gorgon Stare is "Not Operationally Effective" and "Not Operationally Suitable."

2011 -- Former Northrop Grumman engineer Noshir S. Gowadia, 66, of Maui, Hawaii, was sentenced late today to 32 years in prison for communicating classified national defense information to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), illegally exporting military technical data, assisting China in developing a low-signature cruise missile exhaust system and providing classified information on the B-2 Spirit bomber, as well as money laundering, filing false tax returns and other offenses.

2011 -- Balkan military officials say technology for new plane may have come from U.S. Nighthawk shot down over Serbia in 1999.

2011 -- A suicide bomber set off an explosion that ripped through Domodedovo airport, Moscow’s busiest airport today. The attack killed at least 31 people and wounded nearly 170, Russian officials said.

The explosion was definitely a terrorist act committed by a suicide bomber, investigators at the airport say. They believe a man wearing an explosive device was in the crowd of people meeting arriving passengers. There are reports that the bomb was packed with shrapnel. There are reports that the investigators are trying to determine the role of the airport’s security service in connection with the incident. According to the Investigative Committee, airport documentation regulating safety is being seized by law enforcement officials. The brazen suicide attack appeared to mark the escalation of Chechen rebels’ efforts to strike at civilian targets in the capital. While there was no immediate claim of responsibility, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in a televised address that it was an act of terrorism. The body parts of the alleged suicide bomber have been found at the scene according to Interfax news agency. A source from the blast investigation team told Itar-Tass that the parts may indeed belong to a terrorist, but added that it is too early to say for sure that the explosion was carried out by a suicide bomber. “Before a professional examination is taken, one must be very careful with such terms as ‘suicide bomber,’” the source said. According to him, the perpetrators could have used someone who did not know he was going to blow up, or he could have just been carrying an explosive device with him.

Russian suicide bombing video.

2011 -- Cathay Pacific flight attendants have called off a labor slowdown planned for the busy Lunar New Year holiday next week, but warned they might take action if a new pay deal is not reached.

2011 -- Air France-KLM SA released the findings of an independent review broadly critical of some of the airline's past safety practices and internal safeguards.

The project was initiated by Chairman Jean-Cyril Spinetta in late 2009, six months after the crash of an Air France Airbus A330, which killed all 228 people aboard en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. The cause remains unknown—with search teams continuing to look for Flight 447's data recorders—but the crash immediately focused attention on Air France's safety record and pilot training.

2011 -- UFO video for the month.




1986 -- U.K. Trade and Industry Secretary Leon Brittan became the second cabinet minister to resign over the Westland affair.

Two weeks ago, Defence Secretary Michael Heseltine walked out of his cabinet post claiming his views on the future of the helicopter company were being ignored.

1986 -- The Voyager II space probe made closest approach to Uranus. The spacecraft came within 81,500-km (50,600 miles) of Uranus's cloudtops.

The probe radioed thousands of images and great amounts of other scientific data on the planet, its moons, rings, atmosphere, interior and the magnetic environment surrounding Uranus. Its images of the five largest moons around Uranus revealed complex surfaces indicative of varying geologic pasts. The cameras also detected 10 previously unseen moons. It also studied the fine detail of the ring system and newly discovered two more rings. Launched on August 20, 1977, Voyager II earlier visited Jupiter and Saturn. After Uranus, it travelled on to Neptune and eventually interstellar space.

1985 -- The Discovery flew the 15th Space Shuttle mission with Col. Loren J. Shriver leading the four-man crew on the first dedicated DOD mission to "probably" deliver an intelligence satellite through January 27.

1979 -- U.S. Vice President Walter P. Mondale presented Lieutenant Colonel Herbert Fix with the Harmon International Aviation Trophy.

Colonel Fix received the award for his role as Commanding Officer of USMC Helicopter Squadron HMH-463 during the evacuations of Phnom Penh and Saigon in 1975. The citation praised Colonel Fix for carrying out his missions "without casualties among the aircrews of 16 rotary wing aircraft in HMH-463, although the operations took place under combat conditions involving anti-aircraft fire, machine gun and small arms fire, and in part at night with few navigational aids." Colonel Fix was the first U.S. Marine Corps pilot to receive the Harmon Trophy. At the time of the award, he was Project Manager for the H-1/H-3 Helicopters Project Office at the Naval Air Systems Command.

1978 -- U.S. Air Force Tactical Air Command deployed eight F-15 Eagles from Langley AFB, Virginia to Osan AB, South Korea.

This was the first operational training deployment of the F-15s to the western Pacific.

1978 -- Nuclear-powered USSR satellite Cosmos 954 re-enters the Earth's atmosphere and disintegrates over the Northwest Territories, scattering radiation; Canadian Armed Forces launches large operation to recover debris.

The clean-up operation was a coordinated event between the United States and Canada. Dubbed "Operation Morning Light", the clean-up effort continued into October 1978 and resulted, according to the Atomic Energy Control Board (now the  Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission), in the estimated recovery of about 0.1 percent of COSMOS 954's power source.

1975 -- First flight Aerospatiale SA 365 Dauphin F-WVKE.

1973 -- The Spirit of '76, the VC-137 in which Lyndon B. Johnson became President in 1963, flew his body from Texas to Washington, D.C. in a final tribute.

1966 -- 117 people have been killed after an Air India Boeing 707 crashed near the summit of Mont Blanc in the Alps.

The plane was on a regular Bombay to New York flight when the accident happened at around 0800 local time. All 106 passengers and 11 crew were killed on the aircraft as it prepared to land at Geneva airport in Switzerland. One of the victims included chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission Dr Homi Jehangir Bhabha, who was on his way to Vienna. The remaining passengers were Indian nationals, 46 of whom were sailors.

1963 -- A B-52C on a training mission out of Westover Air Force Base, Massachusetts, lost its vertical stabilizer due to buffeting during low-level flight, and crashed on the west side of Elephant Mountain near Greenville, Maine. Of the nine crewmen aboard, two survived the crash.

1961 -- Bulgarian cosmonaut Krasimir Mihailov Stoyanov is born in Varna, Bulgaria.

1961 -- A B-52 bomber suffered structural failure and disintegrated in mid-air 12 miles north of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro, North Carolina, releasing two hydrogen bombs.

Five crewmen parachuted to safety, while three others died when the aircraft exploded in mid-air. The bombs jettisoned as the plane descended, one parachuting to earth intact, the other plunging deep into waterlogged farmland. To this day, parts of the nuclear bomb remain embedded deep in the muck. The area is off-limits, and is tested regularly for radiation releases.

1952 -- American astronaut William Francis Bill Readdy is born in Quonset Point, Rhode Island.

1950 -- First flight North American YF-93.

1945 -- The first successful launch of German A-4b intermediate range boost-glide missile.

Winged boost-glide version of the V-2 missile. The A4b designation was used to disguise work on the prohibited A9 program. Two prototypes were flown; a manned version was planned. The A4b had an empty mass 1350 kg greater than the basic V-2, with wings of 52 degree sweep. Another variation was conceived and under construction at the end of the war - a boosted version. This would use a ring of 10 solid propellant rockets to achieve Mach 6 cruise at 20,000 m altitude, extending the range by a further 400 km.

1944 -- Twelfth Air Force provided air cover for Allied units landing on Anzio beach in Italy. U.S. control of the air played a major role in defending the beachhead.

1932 -- French pilots Paul Codos and Henri Robida land in Paris after flying in a Breguet 27 reconnaissance aircraft from Hanoi in French Indochina in a record time of 3 days, 4 hours, and 17 minutes.

1925 -- A motion picture of a solar eclipse was taken by the U.S. Navy from the dirigible Los Angeles.

The craft was at an elevation of about 4,500-ft and positioned about 19 miles east of Montauk Point, Long Island, New York. This give a view of a total eclipse of the sun that lasted just over 2 minutes. Four astronomical cameras and a spectrograph were used as well as two moving picture cameras. This was the first time in the U.S. that a dirigible had been used as a platform for observation of a total eclipse of the sun. The first U.S. attempt to photograph one from an aircraft September 23, 1923 was unsuccesful due to cloudy conditions, but on April 28, 1930, a flight over California sponsored by the U.S. Naval Observatory recorded a total solar eclipse.

1914 -- German expert in guided missiles during WW II Gerhard Bernhard Heller is born.  

1913 -- The withdrawal of the Ottoman fleet within the Dardanelles was confirmed by 1st Lieutenant Michael Moutoussis and Ensign Aristeidis Moraitinis  flying their Maurice Farman hydroplane over the Nagara naval base, where they spotted the enemy fleet.

During their sortie, they accurately drew a diagram of the positions of the Ottoman fleet, against which they dropped four bombs. Moutoussis and Moraitinis travelled over 180km and took 2 hours 20 minutes to complete their mission.  This operation is regarded as the first naval-air operation in military history and was widely commented upon in both the Greek and international press.

1907 -- Petr Vasilyevich Dementiev is born. Minister of Aviation Industry 1953-1977.

1902 -- Oskar Morgenstern is born.

German-American economist and mathematician who popularized "game theory" which mathematically analyzes behaviour of man or animals in terms of strategies to maximize gains and minimize losses. He coauthored Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (1944), with John von Neumann, which extended Neumann's 1928 theory of games of strategy to competitive business situations. They suggested that often in a business situation ("game'), the outcome depends on several parties ("players"), each estimating what all of the others will do before determining their own strategy. Morgenstern was a professor at Vienna University, Austria, from 1931 until the Nazi occupation in 1938), when he fled to America and joined the faculty at Princeton University.   Founded Mathematica, which provided economic analyses to government, notoriously the study that found the shuttle cheaper than expendable LVs. His later publications included works on economic prediction and aspects of U.S. defence.

1900 -- German engineer Arthur P. Urbanski  is born.  After WW II, a member of the Rocket Team in the United States thereafter.

1888 -- German aircraft engineer Ernst Heinrich Heinkel is born.

He was chief designer of the Albatros Aircraft Company in Berlin before WW I. He founded the Heinkel-Flugzeugwerke at Warnemünde in 1922, making at first seaplanes, and later bombers and fighters which achieved fame in WW II. He built the first jet plane, the HE-178, and the first rocket powered aircraft, the HE-176. After Adolf Hitler came to power, Heinkel's designs formed a vital part of the Luffwaffe's growing strength. In 1942 the government took control of his factories.