On 7th July 1919, Oskar Bider, the famous Swiss aviation pioneer, died crashing his Nieuport 21 during an aerobatic performance in Dübendorf. Oskar Bider was born in 1891, in Langenbruck, Basel-Land. From his early years, […]
On 30th June 1956, a United Airlines DC-7 and a Trans World Airlines L-1049 Super Constellation collided in the air over Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. All 128 people on board of both airliners […]
On 23rd June 1913, Igor Sikorsky performed the first flight of his heavy aircraft, after re-designing it into four-in-line engine configuration. In 1911, the young aviation pioneer and aircraft designer, Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky, began his […]
On 16th June 1963, Vostok 6 spacecraft was launched from Baikonur cosmodrome, with just one cosmonaut on board – Valentina Tereshkova, who became the first woman in space. Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova was born in 1937, […]
On 9th June 1928, a Fokker F.VII/3 named ´Southern Cross´ flown by Charles Kingsford Smith and his crew, successfully landed in Brisbane, Australia, therefore completing the 11,566-kilometre-long journey from Oakland, California. Sir Charles Edward Kingsford […]
On 2nd June 1910, Charles Rolls made a non-stop double crossing of the English Channel with a Wright aeroplane. Charles Steward Rolls, the British aviation and motoring pioneer, was born on 27th August 1877 in […]
On 26th May 1941, Fairey Swordfish aircraft launched from HMS Ark Royal aircraft carrier hit German battleship Bismarck with two torpedoes, damaging her stern and making the ship unmanoeuvrable. The story of pursuit of one […]
On 19th May 1891, Oswald Boelcke, pioneer aviator, World War I air ace and godfather of the German fighter aviation, was born in Giebichenstein, Saxony (now a district of Halle). Oswald Boelcke was the fourth […]
On 12th May 1940, Boulton Paul Defiant fighter performed its first operational sortie. On that day, six aircraft of that type, together with six Spitfires, executed a combat patrol over the English Channel and coastal […]
On 5th May 1953, Christopher Draper – commonly known as the Mad Major – performed an incredible stunt by flying under fifteen (out of eighteen planned) bridges on the river Thames, located within the greater […]
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