Weeping Cherry

Born in Earlsdon, Coventry, England on June 1, 1907, Whittle left Leamington College in 1923 to join the Royal Air Force (RAF). Through his early days as an Aircraft apprentice he maintained his interest in the Model Aircraft Society where he built replicas, the quality of which attracted the eye of his commanding officer, who was so impressed that he recommended Whittle for the Officer Training College at Cranwell in Lincolnshire in 1926, a rarity for a "commoner" in what was still a very class-based military structure. A requirement of the course was that each student had to produce a thesis for graduation. Whittle decided to write his thesis on future developments in aircraft design, in which he described what is today referred to as a motorjet.

Whittle and Hans von Ohain met after the war and initially Whittle was angry with him as he felt Ohain had stolen his ideas. Ohain eventually convinced him that his work was independent and after that point the two became good friends.

The VZ-9 Avrocar (full military designation VZ-9-AV) was a Canadian VTOL aircraft developed by Avro Aircraft Ltd. as part of a secret U.S. military project carried out in the early years of the Cold War.^[1] The Avrocar intended to exploit the Coandă effect to provide lift and thrust from a single "turborotor" blowing exhaust out the rim of the disk-shaped aircraft to provide anticipated VTOL-like performance. In the air, it would have resembled a flying saucer. Two prototypes were built as "proof-of-concept" test vehicles for a more advanced USAF fighter and also for a U.S. Army tactical combat aircraft requirement.^[2] In flight testing, the Avrocar proved to have unresolved thrust and stability problems that limited it to a degraded, low-performance flight envelope; subsequently, the project was cancelled in 1961.

• Diameter:18 ft (5.486 m)
• Height: 3 ft 6 in (1.1 m)
• Engines: 3 x Turbomeca Marboré Continental J69-T-9
• Max Speed: 300 mph (482 km/h)
• First Flight: 12 November 1959
• Number built: 2

August 5

• 2012 – An Israeli airstrike halts an attempt by a group of gunmen to use commandeered Egyptian armored vehicles to ram their way through an Israeli border crossing from Egypt into Israel.^[3]

• 2011 – The International News Safety Institute asks Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon to investigate whether the 30 July NATO airstrike against the Libyan Jamahiriya Broadcasting Corporation violated a United Nations Security Council Resolution that prohbits attacks on journalists.^[4]

• 2009 – SATA International Flight 466, an Airbus A320-214, registration CS-TKO, makes a very heavy landing at Lisbon Portela Airport, Portugal, with a force of 4.6G being recorded. The aircraft is substantially damaged but may have flown twice since.

• 2009 – A Pakistan Air Force Chengdu FT-7 crashes near Attock, northwest Pakistan, killing the pilot.

• 2004 – UH-1N Huey 160439 from HMM-166 shot down near Najaf; crew wounded.^[5] Helicopter was later written off.^[6]

• 1994 – USAF A-10 Thunderbolt IIs attack and destroy a Serbian anti-tank gun

• 1994 – Clive Robertson Caldwell, British fighter pilot, dies at 84.

• 1989 – Piedmont Airlines is merged into USAir.

• 1984 – An Aeroflot Antonov AN-12 loses all four engines after flying into heavy hail and crashes in Pakistan, killing all 23 aboard.

• 1981 – Ronald Reagan fires 11,359 striking air-traffic controllers who ignored his order for them to return to work.

• 1973 – First flight of the Trident TR-1 Trigull

• 1973 – Arab terrorists open fire inside and toss grenades inside a terminal at Athens Airport, killing three and injuring 55. The attack was intended for passengers traveling to Israel, but the Tel Aviv flight had already departed—most of the victims were waiting for a flight to New York. The attackers are captured and executed.

• 1971 – Entered Service: McDonnell Douglas DC-10 with American Airlines

• 1970 – A USAF McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II of the 36th TFW, Bitburg, Germany, TDY to Zaragoza Air Base, Spain, crashes on a gunnery range 25 miles from Zaragoza, killing pilot Capt. Charles A. Baldwin, 28, of Charleston, West Virginia, and navigator Capt. Stephen N. Smith, 27, of Pinebrook, New Jersey.

• 1969 – The space probe Mariner 7 makes its closest approach to Mars, beaming back photos and data from just around 10,000 miles above the Martian surface.

• 1966 – The Soviet Union protests damage to one of its merchant ships in a North Vietnamese port due to American air attacks.

• 1964 – US Navy aircraft attack North Vietnamese naval bases, spearheading direct US involvement in the Vietnam War.

• 1954 – As the first pre-production Douglas A2D-1 Skyshark, BuNo 125480, piloted by George Jansen, is flown on a test flight out of Edwards AFB, California, the temperamental gearbox transferring the Allison XT-40A power to counter-rotating propellers fails, and even though the powerplant continues to partially function, the props automatically feather. Unable to spot a reasonable landing spot, the pilot ejects, suffering back injuries that leave him a plaster cast for several months. The Skyshark program is cancelled one month later, with only six of ten pre-production A2D-1s completed ever being flown.

• 1952 – Convair B-36D-25-CF Peacemaker, 49-2661, c/n 121, on bailment to Convair, San Diego, California, crashes into San Diego Bay at 1430 PDT, while on a normal shakedown flight following completion of "San-San" project modification. The number 5 engine catches fire in flight and then falls off the wing. The aircraft is destroyed by impact and explosion. Four of the eight crewmembers, all Convair flight test employees, receive minor injuries, two are uninjured, and two are lost, first flight engineer W. W. Hoffman, by drowning, while the pilot, David H. Franks, 40, stays with the plane to manoeuvre it out to sea and away from occupied land. His body is never found. Coast Guard planes rescue four and Navy ships pick up two. The rescued, none seriously injured, are R. W. Adkins, co-pilot; Kenneth Rogers, flight engineer, W. F. Ashmore, Roy E. Sommers, D. R. Maxion and W. E. Wilson, all of San Diego. The UB88 Project dive team determined that the bomber actually came down in the Pacific off of Mission Beach.

• 1951 – First flight of the HAL HT-2

• 1950 – AA USAF Boeing B-29-85-BW Superfortress, 44-87651, of the 99th Bomb Squadron, 9th Bomb Group, 9th Bomb Wing, carrying a Mark 4 nuclear bomb, suffers two runaway propellers and landing gear problems on takeoff at Fairfield-Suisun Air Force Base, Fairfield, California. The crew attempts an emergency landing but crashes, causing a huge explosion that kills 19 aboard the plane and on the ground, including mission commander Brig. Gen. Robert F. Travis; the airfield is later renamed Travis Air Force Base in his honor. Numerous nearby mobile homes are severely damaged and many civilians, firefighters, and USAF ground crew are injured- 60 required hospital treatment and 47 suffered superficial injuries according to newspaper reports, but other sources place the total as high as 173. The USAF attributes the explosion to ten or twelve conventional 500-pound HE bombs aboard the B-29 and claims that the nuclear bomb's fuel capsule was aboard a different aircraft, but admits that the bomb casing contained depleted uranium used as ballast, and later orders a public health assessment of the crash site.

• 1946 – Second (of only 14 built) Douglas C-74 Globemaster, 42-65403, c/n 13914, crashes at Torrance, California when it loses a wing during an overload dive test. All four crew bail out successfully.

• 1945 – First production Martin JRM-1 Mars flying boat, BuNo 76819 named "Hawaii Mars", crashes on test flight in the Chesapeake Bay after porpoising during landing - never delivered to the US Navy.

• 1944 – During test flight out of the Fisher plant at Cleveland, Ohio, third Fisher XP-75 Eagle, 44-32161, crashes at Fairfield Village, Ohio, three miles (5 km) N of Cleveland, after an explosion and fire at 23,000 feet (7,000 m) - pilot Russell Stuart Weeks bailed out at 4,000 feet (1,200 m).

• 1943 – The Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) and the 319th Women’s Flying Training Detachment (WFTD), both organizations of civilian women ferry pilots employed by the U. S. Army Air Forces Air Transport Command, are merged to form the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP).

• 1940 – No. 2 SFTS was officially opened at Uplands Airport, Ontario, by the Governor-General.

• 1936 – Five Italian Savoia-Marchetti SM.81 bombers are among aircraft covering a convoy of merchant ships carrying 3,000 Nationalist soldiers and their equipment from Spanish Morocco to Spain.

• 1936 – Chicago and Southern Flight 4, a Lockheed Model 10 Electra, crashes after takeoff due to pilot error, killing all 8 on board.

• 1935 – Wiley Post, the first pilot to fly solo around the world, and his passenger Will Rogers are killed in a crash in Alaska.

• 1933 – 5-7 – Maurice Rossi and Paul Codes fly a Blériot 110 from New York to Rayal, Syria, establishing a new distance record of 9,104 km (5,657 miles).

• 1930 – Neil Armstrong, Ohio, X-15 pilot, 1st Moonwalker (Gemini 8, Apollo 11) was born.

• 1925 – Lloyd Aero Boliviano commences operations.

• 1918 – The commander of the Imperial German Navy’s Naval Airship Division, Fregattenkapitän Peter Strasser, is killed in action when the Zeppelin in which he is riding as an observer, L70, is shot down in flames over the coast of England.

• 1918 – The first American night patrol of the war takes place when a Felixstowe F.2 A flying boat crewed by Ens. Ashton W. Hawkins and Lt. George F. Lawrence take off on patrol from RAF Killinghome, England.

• 1917 – The first Aero Squadron of the Signal Corps leaves the United States for Europe under the command of Maj. Ralph Royce.

• 1905 – Nineteen-year old Welshman Ernest Willows makes the first flight of Willows No. 1 a semi-rigid airship he had built.