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On This Day in Aviation History AUGUST 27 th
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1783 - Jacques Alexandre César Charles flies the 1st balloon filled with gas rather than fire-heated air using hydrogen produced by pouring 489 lbs. of sulfuric acid on 1,000 lbs. of iron. The balloon has a diameter of 12 ft.

1784 - 1st balloon ascent in Britain is made by James Tytler in a hot-air balloon at Ediburgh, Scotland, reaching a height of some 350 feet, and travelling for half a mile.

1877 - Birth of Charles Stewart Rolls, British motoring and aviation pioneer. Together with Frederick Henry Royce he co-founded the Rolls-Royce car company.

1890 - Birth of Eric Charlton Gilroy, Canadian WWI flying ace (as observer)

1896 - Birth of Karl Plauth, German WWI pilot and test pilot for Junkers.

1897 - Birth of Hector Eugene Joseph Garaud, French WWI fighter ace.

1898 - Birth of William Ernest "Bull" Staton, British WWI fighter ace who pioneered the bombing technique of using pathfinders to mark targets during WWII and postwar high ranking RAF officer.

1909 - 1st flight of the Farman III (Gnome 'Oméga'  engine equiped) , Henri Farman setting a record breaking flight of 180 kilometres in just over 3 hours at Reims, France

1910 - Death of Clément Guillaume Jean van Maasdijk, 1st Dutchman to be killed in air accident, when the engine of his plane stopped in flight at Arnheim.

1910 - 1st wireless transmission from an airplane took place at the track at Sheepshead Bay Race Track in Brooklyn. Pilot J.B. McCurdy, who had a telegraphic key on the steering wheel of his Curtiss biplane, and a 50 foot antenna trailing the plane, repeatedly sent a 17 word message to H.M. Horton, whose receiver was located in the grandstand of the race track. The range for the 1st experiment was two miles.

1913 - Lieutenant Pyotr Nesterov of the Russian Army in Kiev performs the 1st loop-the-loop with a Nieuport IV. The complete circle and other intentional acrobatic stunts prove to be valuable experience for the wartime maneuvers needed during aerial battles.

1914 - 1st Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) unit arrives on the Continent. The Eastchurch Squadron of the Royal Naval Air Service, under the command of Commander C.R. Samson, is transferred to Ostend and the squadron is subsequently re-deployed to Dunkirk.

1916 - Birth of Howard Clifton 'Tick' Lilly, American test pilot.

1918 - Birth of Ann G. Baumgartner Carl, American Aviatrix, WWII WASP and test pilot, 1st American woman to fly a USAAFjet aircraft.

1923 – An Air Union Farman F.60 Goliath crashes near East Malling, Kent due to engine failure and panic among the passengers, killing one of 13 on board.

1923 - At Rockwell Field, California, Lts. Lowell H. Smith and John P. Richter takes off with a DH-4B Liberty 400 to set FAI refueled duration and distance records.

1924 - 1st flight of the Zeppelin LZ-126, German experimental, military Airship (later ZR-3 USS Los Angeles).

1926 - Death of John Rodgers, USN officer and early aviator, when his plane nose-dived in the Delaware river.

1927 - Bert Hinkler flies the prototype Avro Avian 581A (G-EBOV) non-stop from London to Riga in 10 hrs, 45 minutes.

1929 - Death of Herman Potocnik (pseudonym Hermann Noordung), Austro-Hungarian rocket engineer and pioneer of cosmonautics (astronautics).

1931 - 1st flight of the Praga E-39, Czechoslovakian biplane trainer aircraft.

1931 - The Dornier Do X, German large and heavy flying boat reaches New-York almost 9 months after departing Friedrichshafen.

1932 - 1st flight of The Abbott-Baynes Scud 2, British high-performance sailplane.

1939 - Death of Hiromichi Shinohara (the Richthofen of the Orient) , highest-scoring fighter ace of the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service (IJAAF), Killed in his K1-27 during a bombing escort mission.

1939 - 1st flight of The Heinkel He 178, German Experimental prototype/Pioneer aircraft, world's 1st aircraft to fly under turbojet power and 1st practical jet plane

1939 - The Ambrosini SAI.7 (S.7), Pre WWII Italian racing aircraft (developped post-WWII as a trainer), set a new world airspeed record for a 100 km closed loop, which it completed at 403.9 km/h (252 mph) 

1940 - 1st flight of The Caproni Campini N.1 (sometimes referred to as the CC.2), Italian experimental jet aircraft.

1941 - Birth of Yury Vasilyevich Malyshev, Soviet pilot and Cosmonaut.

1941 - The Type VIIC U-boat U-570 is attacked by two Lockheed Hudsons of No.269 Squadron off Iceland and so heavily damaged that it is unable to submerge. The U-570 then surrender to Hudson 'S' of No.269 Squadron, piloted by Squadron Leader J.H. Thompson, which continues to circle the aircraft until relieved by a Coastal Command Consolidated Catalina. Naval forces arrive and tow the U-boat to Iceland and U-570 is eventually repaired and sailed to the United Kingdom, becoming HM Submarine Graph.

1943 - Death of José Pascual 'Popeye' Santamaria, Spanish Republican fighter ace of the spanish civil war and WWII along with the Soviets, killed in action in his Yak-1 by a BF-109.

1946 - 1st flight of the Avia S 92.1 Turbina, Czech-built Me 262.

1956 - Death of Carl Sterling Bates, American pioneer aviator, glider pilot and early aircraft designer. He designed in 1911 a gasoline powered airplane that was equipped with a three-point landing gear, an air-cooled engine, a metal propeller and metal wing rudders.

1958 - Birth of Sergei Konstantinovich Krikalev (Krikalyov),  Russian cosmonaut and mechanical engineer. 

1959 - Birth of Yves Rossy, Swiss pilot, inventor and aviation enthusiast. He is the 1st person to achieve sustained human flight using a jet-powered fixed wing strapped to his back. This jet pack has led to his being nicknamed Jet Man, Rocket Man and Fusion Man.

1962 - Launch of Mariner 2, American space probe to Venus, 1st successful spacecraft in the NASA Mariner program.

1976 - 1st flight of The PZL-Mielec M-18 Dromader, polish single engine agricultural aircraft, mainly used as a cropduster or firefighting machine.

1982 - Soyuz T-5, Russian manned spaceflight, is back on earth

1985 - Launch of STS-51-I, Space shuttle Discovery mission to deploy 3 communications satellites into orbit.

1986 - 1st flight of the Piel CP-90 'Pinocchio' II, French single-seat, single-engine aerobatic sport aircraft marketed for homebuilding.

1988 - Death of Sadao Uehara, Japanese Navy WWII fighter ace, killed in the crash of the helicopter he was flying.

1989 - Launch of Marcopolo 1 (Sirius 1/Sirius W), Hughes Space and Communications's 1st satellite.

1990 – Stephen Ray "Stevie Ray" Vaughan, famous American electric blues guitarist and singer, is killed in the crash of a Bell 206B Jet Ranger.

1990 - 1st flight of The Northrop YF-23 (or Northrop–McDonnell Douglas YF-23), American single-seat, twin-engine fighter aircraft prototype.

1992 - 1st flight of the Dyn'aero CR-100, French kit built single engine, two-seat monoplane intended as both an aerobatic trainer and a tourer, primarily for aero club use.

2006 – Comair Flight 191 (or Delta Connection Flight 5191) Bombardier Canadair Regional Jet (CRJ) CRJ-100ER crashes on takeoff from Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Kentucky bound for Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia. Of the passengers and crew, 49 of 50 are confirmed dead in the hours following the crash.

2008 - 1st flight of the Sikorsky X2, American experimental compound helicopter with coaxial rotors.

2009 - Avianova, Russian low cost airline, begins operations.