On This Day In Aviation History

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On this date in 1951 USAF Captain Charles F Blair Jr. flew Excalibur III, a North American P-51B Mustang, non-stop from New York to London to test the jet stream. He traveled 3,478 miles at an average speed of 446 miles per hour in 7 hours 48 minutes.

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On this date in 1970 the Convair B-58 Hustler was retired.

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On this date in 1971 McDonnell Douglas delivered the 4,000th F-4 Phantom II. The jet was built as F-4E SN 69-7294. Eventually Phantom 4,000 was converted to an F-4G Wild Weasel. The jet was shot down as an aerial target drone on 4 November 1998.

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The first nighttime carrier landing for a jet aircraft occurred on this day in 1950.

On this date in 1950 Eight Grumman F9F Panthers trapped aboard the USS Valley Forge (CV-45) to complete the first night landing trials aboard an aircraft carrier by jets.

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On this date in 1964 the Boeing 727 entered service with Eastern Airlines.

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It was #OTD in 1943 that one of the most famous (and very often mistold) B-17 incidents of WWII took place. During a mission to bomb the ports of Tunis, the B-17F, All-American III, collided with a Messerschmidt Bf-109 fighter which cut diagonally through the bomber’s fuselage, carried away the left horizontal stabilizer and elevator, and damaged the flight control cables. The crew, led by Lieutenant Kendrick R. Bragg, managed to nurse the aircraft back to base and made a very careful landing, holding the tail off the ground as long as possible. Amazingly, none of the crew were injured, and the aircraft was eventually repaired and returned to duty!
Read the whole story at This Day in Aviation here: https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/1-february-1943/

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On this date in 1964 President Lyndon Johnson publicly acknowledged the existence of the Lockheed A-12 Mach 3+ spy plane program.

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The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon made its official first flight on this day in 1974.

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On this date in 1944 the Republic XP-72 flew for the first time.

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On this date in 1951 the Douglas DC-6B, the extended all-passenger variant of the DC-6A without its cargo door, flew for the first time.