On 6th June 1917, the first wheeled torpedo-carrying aircraft in the world, Sopwith Cuckoo biplane, was officially approved for test flight. Shortly after, the aeroplane performed its maiden flight, although the exact date is unknown. […]
On 30th May 1944, the Swiss-developed SB-2 Pelikan (English: pelican) light transport aircraft, performed its maiden flight. In 1938, the then Swiss Eidgenössisches Luftamt (Federal Aviation Office) launched the programme of new light transport aircraft, […]
On 23rd May 1923, Societé anonyme belge d’Exploitation de la Navigation aérienne (Belgian Corporation for the Exploitation of Aerial Navigation) aviation carrier was established. The company, commonly known as SABENA (or Sabena), was the Belgian […]
On 16th May 1919, three Curtiss NC-4 flying boats of the US Navy left Newfoundland and headed the Azores, in attempt for the first transatlantic flight of the powered, heavier-than-air aircraft. In April of 1913, […]
On 9th May 1888, Count Francesco Baracca, the best Italian air ace of the Great War, was born. Francesco Luigi Giuseppe Baracca was born in Lugo (commonly referred to as Lugo di Romagna or Lugo […]
On 2nd May 1891, the founding commander of the South African Air Force, General Sir Helperus Andreas van Ryneveld – commonly known as Pierre van Ryneveld – was born in Senekal, in the then Orange […]
On 25th April 1945, the only German aircraft carrier ´Graf Zeppelin´ was captured by the Red Army in Stettin (now Szczecin, in Poland). However, shortly before she was significantly damaged by the Germans themselves who […]
On 18th April 1952, prototype of Convair YB-60 long-range heavy bomber, successfully performed its maiden flight. The story of YB-60 starts already in the early 1940s, when the US military authorities issued the first requirement […]
On 11th April 1952, prototype of YH-21 rotorcraft, successfully performed its first flight. The helicopter was designed by Frank N. Piasecki, the American aviation engineer and rotorcraft pioneer, and was developed in response to the […]
On 4th April 1984, the well-known Soviet aircraft designer, Oleg Konstantinovich Antonov (Олег Константинович Антонов) died in Kiev (in now Ukraine), at the age of 78. Antonov, born in 1906 in Troitsa village, the Moscow […]
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