Tag: Flight

• Podcast

23rd October 1910: Blanche Stuart Scott becomes the first American woman to pilot an aircraft in public

• 23rd October 2023
• Tagged as: Aircraft, Flight, Technology, Women

She continued making exhibition flights until 1916, earning her the nickname the ‘Tomboy of the Air’.

• Podcast

14th October 1947: Chuck Yeager becomes the first person to officially break the sound barrier in the experimental Bell X-1

• 14th October 2023
• Tagged as: Aircraft, America, Cold War, Flight, Science, Sound Barrier, Space Travel, Technology, United States, USA

Flying at 45,000 feet, Yeager reached Mach 1.06 or approximately 700 miles per hour over the Rogers Dry Lake of the Mojave Desert in California.

• Podcast

25th July 1909: Louis Blériot makes the first powered cross-Channel flight

• 25th July 2023
• Tagged as: Aircraft, Aviation, Daily Mail, English Channel, Flight, France, Invention, Science, Technology

French aviator Louis Charles Joseph Blériot made the first flight across the English Channel in a heavier-than-air aircraft.

• 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.