Portal:Aviation

Amy Johnson (1 July 1903 – 5 January 1941) C.B.E. was a pioneering British aviatrix.

Born in Kingston upon Hull, Johnson graduated from University of Sheffield with a Bachelor of Arts in economics. She was introduced to flying as a hobby, gaining a pilot's A Licence No. 1979 on 6 July 1929 at the London Aeroplane Club. In that same year, she became the first British woman to gain a ground engineer's C License.

Johnson achieved worldwide recognition when, in 1930, she became the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia. She left Croydon on 5 May of that year and landed in Darwin, Australia on 24 May after flying 11,000 miles. Her aircraft for this flight, a De Havilland Gipsy Moth (registration G-AAAH) named Jason, can still be seen in the Science Museum in London. She received the Harmon Trophy as well as a CBE in homage to this achievement, and was also honoured with the No. 1 civil pilot's licence under Australia's 1921 Air Navigation Regulations.

In July 1931, Johnson and her co-pilot Jack Humphreys became the first pilots to fly from London to Moscow in one day, completing the 1,760-mile journey in approximately 21 hours. From there, they continued across Siberia and on to Tokyo, setting a record time for flying from England to Japan. The flight was completed in a De Havilland Puss Moth.

The Embraer ERJ-145 is a regional jet produced by Embraer, a Brazilian aerospace company. The ERJ 145 is the largest of a family of airliners, which also includes the ERJ 135, ERJ 140, and Legacy. All aircraft in the series are powered by two turbofan engines. It is one of the most popular regional jet families in the world with primary competition coming from the Canadair Regional Jet.

The first flight of the ERJ 145 was on August 11, 1995, with the first delivery in December 1996 to ExpressJet Airlines (then the regional division of Continental Airlines). ExpressJet is the largest operator of the ERJ 145, with 270 of the nearly 1000 ERJ 145s in service. The second largest operator is American Eagle, with 206 ERJ 145 aircraft. Chautauqua Airlines also operates 95 ERJ 145s through its alliances with American Connection, Delta Connection, US Airways Express and United Express. By some accounts, the ERJ 145 has a cost of ownership of about $2,500,000 per year.

• Span: 20.04 m (65 ft 9 in)
• Length: 29.9 m (98 ft 0 in)
• Height: 6.76 m (22 ft 2 in)
• Engines: 2× Rolls-Royce AE 3007A turbofans, 33.0 kN (7,420 lbf) thrust each
• Cruising Speed: 834 km/h (518 mph, Mach 0.78)
• First Flight: August 11, 1995
• Number built: ≈1000

August 6

• 2009 – A Swedish Air Force Saab JAS 39 Gripen C from F 17 Kallinge Blekinge Air Force Wing suffered a heavy landing at Ronneby Airport, Sweden caused by the failure of the under-carriage to operate after a fire alarm was trigged and the pilot was uninjured in the incident.

• 2005 – Tuninter Flight 1153, an ATR 72, ditches into the sea near Palermo, Sicily with 35 passengers and 4 crew members on board; 14 passengers and 2 crew members die.

• 1997 – Korean Air Flight 801, a Boeing 747, crashes while attempting to land in heavy rain in Hagåtña, Guam. Of the 254 people on board, 228 die.

• 1996 – First flight of the Kawasaki OH-1

• 1990 – The United States issues its first orders deploying military forces in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, sending two squadrons of United States Air Force F-15 Eagle fighters to the Persian Gulf region and several U. S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress bombers from the continental United States to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

• 1986 – First flight of the British Aerospace ATP

• 1974 – Turkish Air Force aircraft support a Turkish offensive at Karavas, Cyprus.

• 1969 – The biggest helicopter ever built, the Soviet Mil V-12 secures an unbeaten world lifting record for rotary-winged aircraft by carrying 40,205.5 kg (88,636 lb.) to a height of 2,255 m (7,400 ft.).

• 1969 – A sonic boom from an air show smashes windows in eight blocks of downtown Kelowna.

• 1966 – All 42 on board are killed when Braniff Flight 250, a BAC One-Eleven, flies into an active squall line and breaks apart in mid-air near Falls City, Nebraska.

• 1964 – The first North Vietnamese Air Force jet fighter unit, Fighter Regiment No. 921 (the “Red Star Squadron”), arrives in North Vietnam after training in the People’s Republic of China, bringing 36 MiG-17 and MiG-19 fighters to Phúc Yên airfield near Hanoi.

• 1958 – A Lockheed U-2A, 56-6697, Article 364, the fourth airframe of the initial USAF order, delivered January 1957 to USAF at Groom Lake, then to 4080th SRW, Laughlin AFB, Texas, in June: 1957, crashes this date killing trainee Lt. Paul Haughland. Despite Cessna L-27 chase plane to radio instructions, Haughland's U-2 rolled rapidly to starboard at 200 feet during landing approach and struck ground in a near-vertical attitude. Accident report notes that the flight manual did not sufficiently highlight the unusual stall characteristics.

• 1956 – First flight of the Beechcraft Travel Air

• 1956 – Spanish Air Force North American F-86F Sabre, C.5-4 crashes.

• 1957 – F/L WJ Marsh was awarded the George Medal when he rescued the pilot of a crashed North American Sabre at Chatham, NB. Four assisting airmen Cpl Onarheim, LAC Henderson, LAC Gommer and LAC Meier, were awarded the Queen’s Commendation for Brave Conduct.

• 1953 – Ted Williams returns to the Red Sox after serving a tour of duty as a Marine airman in the Korean War.

• 1953 – The first attempted launch of a Northrop B-62 Snark at Cape Canaveral, Florida, fails when, after 15 seconds of flight, the drag chute deploys prematurely and the missile crashes.

• 1953 – Israeli Air Force de Havilland Mosquito FB.6 2113, disappeared in flight over the Mediterranean, Two crew missing.

• 1952 – First flight of the Boulton Paul P.120

• 1952 – A fire breaks out on the hangar deck of the USS Boxer at ~0530 hrs. when a fuel tank of an aircraft catches fire while the ship is conducting combat operations in the Sea of Japan. The blaze is extinguished after a four to five hour fight. The final total of casualties was determined to be: 8 dead, 1 missing, 1 critically injured, 1 seriously burned and some 70 overcome by smoke. Of the 63 who had gone over the side, all were rescued and returned to the ship. Eighteen aircraft, mostly Grumman F9F-2 Panthers, were damaged (by fire and saltwater) or destroyed.

• 1950 – Entered Service: Handley Page Hermes with BOAC

• 1945 – Hiroshima is devastated when an atomic bomb, “Little Boy”, is dropped by the United States B-29 Enola Gay. Around 90,000 people were killed instantly.

• 1945 – B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay drops "Little Boy" the first nuclear weapon used in warfare over the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

• 1945 – All-time highest-scoring American flying ace (40 credited kills) Richard Bong is killed trying to bail out of a Lockheed P-80A Shooting Star jet fighter, 44-85048, after a fuel pump failure during a test flight at Burbank Airport, Burbank, California, USA. News of Bong's death is overshadowed by the dropping of the first nuclear weapon on Hiroshima the same day. The never completed Richard I. Bong Air Force Base in Wisconsin was named for him.

• 1943 – A third German air raid on Palermo is driven off by Allied night fighters with only a few bombs dropped on the harbor.

• 1941 – Two squadrons of United States Navy flying boats are based at Reykjavík, Iceland, to conduct flights as part of the Neutrality Patrol.

• 1941 – After running out of ammunition, Soviet National Air Defense Forces pilot Viktor Talalikhin rams a German Heinkel He 111 bomber over Moscow with his Polikarpov I-16 fighter, destroying both aircraft. Talalikhin parachutes to safety. It is the first aerial night ramming in history.

• 1937 – In response to a request by Spanish Nationalist leader Francisco Franco for the Italian armed forces to attack ships in the Mediterranean Sea bringing aid to the Republicans, Italian aircraft based on Majorca bomb a British, a French, and an Italian merchant ship near Algiers.

• 1936 – German Junkers Ju 52 transports begin a schedule of airlifting 500 Nationalist troops a day from Spanish Morocco to Spain. Nationalist leader Francisco Franco himself makes the flight on August 6.

• 1920 – Stefan Bastyr, Polish aviator, first flight in independent Poland dies (b. 1890).

• 1919 – Captain Harry Butler makes the first flight over Australia’s St. Vincent Gulf, carrying mail between Adelaide and Minlaton.

• 1916 – French ace Capitaine René Fonck gains his first confirmed victory. He will become the highest-scoring Allied and second-highest-scoring ace overall of World War I.

• 1910 – An International aviation meeting opens at Lanark, Scotland, drawing a wide range of flyers and airplanes. In all, 22 competitors participate.