Tag: Flight

• Podcast

8th March 1910: First female pilot’s license awarded to French actress Raymonde de Laroche

• 8th March 2023
• Tagged as: Aircraft, Equality, Flight, France, Raymonde de Laroche, Women

Elise Raymonde Deroche was the daughter of a Parisian plumber.

• Podcast

18th February 1930: Nellie Jay, better known as Elm Farm Ollie, becomes the first cow to fly and be milked in an aeroplane

• 18th February 2023
• Tagged as: Aeroplane, Aircraft, Airplane, America, Bovine, Cow, Flight, Milk, St Louis, United States, USA

Elm Farm Ollie gave a total of 24 quarts (23 litres) of milk which was then packed into paper cartons and dropped by parachute to the crowds at the St Louis International Air Show.

• Podcast

6th February 1958: Munich Air Disaster kills 23 members of the Manchester United football team after BEA flight 609 crashes at Munich-Riem airport

• 6th February 2023
• Tagged as: Aeroplane, Britain, Crash, Culture, disaster, England, Flight, Football, Germany, Manchester United, Munich, Sport

Flight 609 hit slush on the runway, causing the plane to skid off the end of the runway before crashing through the airport fence, speeding across a road, and losing its port wing after catching on a house.

• Podcast

28th May 1987: Mathias Rust, an 18-year-old amateur pilot from West Germany, illegally landed a private aircraft near Moscow’s Red Square

• 28th May 2022
• Tagged as: Aircraft, Border, Cold War, Flight, Russia, Soviet Union, USSR, West Germany

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.

• Podcast

21st May 1927 and 1932: Charles Lindbergh makes the first solo non-stop flight across the Atlantic, followed five years later by Emilia Earhart as the first woman

• 21st May 2022
• Tagged as: Aircraft, Aviation, Charles Lindbergh, Emilia Earhart, Flight, Transatlantic

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.

• Podcast

2nd May 1952: The world’s first passenger jet aircraft carries 36 passengers from London to Johannesburg

• 2nd May 2022
• Tagged as: Aircraft, Britain, Flight, London, South Africa, Technology

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.

• Podcast

3rd February 1959: Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper killed in a plane crash known as ‘The Day the Music Died’

• 3rd February 2022
• Tagged as: Aircraft, Airplane, Crash, Culture, Day the Music Died, Flight, Music, Plane Crash, Rock and Roll

Their private plane took off at 12:55am on 3 February, but managed to fly only 6 miles before crashing amidst deteriorating weather.

• Podcast

19th January 1915: Two German Zeppelin airships drop bombs on the Norfolk towns of Great Yarmouth and Kings Lynn in Britain’s first experience of an air raid

• 19th January 2022
• Tagged as: Air Raid, Aircraft, Airship, Bomb, Britain, England, First World War, Flight, Germany, Norfolk, War, Zeppelin

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 20^th Century.

• Podcast

17th December 1903: Wright brothers make the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight

• 17th December 2021
• Tagged as: Aircraft, America, Flight, North Carolina, Science, Technology, United States, USA

Orville piloted the first flight, which lasted for just 12 seconds over a total distance of only 36.5 metres.

• Podcast

22nd October 1797: The first high altitude parachute descent

• 22nd October 2021
• Tagged as: Aircraft, Balloon, Flight, France, Invention, Parachute, Science, Technology

Frenchman André-Jacques Garnerin performed the first high-altitude parachute descent.