Rust approached Moscow in the early evening and, after passing the city’s ‘Ring of Steel’ anti-aircraft defences, touched down on a bridge next to St Basil’s Cathedral and taxied his aircraft into Red Square.
The very first non-stop transatlantic flight had occurred in 1919 when John Alcock and Arthur Whiten Brown flew a modified Vickers Vimy bomber aircraft from Newfoundland to Ireland in just under 16 hours.
The De Havilland DH 106 Comet operated by the British Overseas Airways Corporation reduced the overall journey time from London to Johannesburg by a third.
Their private plane took off at 12:55am on 3 February, but managed to fly only 6 miles before crashing amidst deteriorating weather.
The four people killed in the air raids were all civilians, which served as a stark message about the changing nature of warfare in the 20th Century.
Orville piloted the first flight, which lasted for just 12 seconds over a total distance of only 36.5 metres.
Frenchman André-Jacques Garnerin performed the first high-altitude parachute descent.
In what Kenneth Arnold later complained was an ‘historic misquote’, the press coined the now-ubiquitous phrase ‘flying saucers’ to describe the UFOs.
On the 18th February 1930, Nellie Jay – better known as Elm Farm Ollie – became the first cow to fly in an aeroplane.
She continued making exhibition flights until 1916, earning her the nickname the ‘Tomboy of the Air’.
28th June 2015
11th November 2022
11th November 2022
9th November 2019
