Aircraft Timeline of Events

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Aircraft

An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air, or, in general, the atmosphere of a planet. An aircraft counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines.Although rockets and missiles also travel through the atmosphere, most are not considered...

Timeline of Events

1906

3.18.1906

Traian Vuia flies a heavier-than-air aircraft for 20 meters at 1 meter altitude.

9.7.1906

Alberto Santos-Dumont flies his 14-bis aircraft at Bagatelle, France for the first time successfully.

1911

10.23.1911

First use of aircraft in war: An Italian pilot takes off from Libya to observe Turkish army lines during the Turco-Italian War.

1912

4.16.1912

Harriet Quimby becomes the first woman to fly an airplane across the English Channel.

1913

5.13.1913

Igor Sikorsky becomes the first man to pilot a four-engine aircraft.

1928

6.18.1928

Aviator Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly in an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean (she was a passenger; Wilmer Stutz was the pilot and Lou Gordon the mechanic).

1944

2.20.1944

World War II: The "Big Week" began with American bomber raids on German aircraft manufacturing centers.

1947

11.2.1947

In California, designer Howard Hughes performs the maiden (and only) flight of the Spruce Goose; the largest fixed-wing aircraft ever built.

1983

9.6.1983

The Soviet Union admits to shooting down Korean Air Flight KAL-007, stating that the pilots did not know it was a civilian aircraft when it violated Soviet airspace.

2006

8.10.2006

Scotland Yard disrupts a major terrorist plot to destroy aircraft traveling from the United Kingdom to the United States.