Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
December 23, 1940 United Air Lines (later retitled United Airlines) launched what is generally regarded as the first all-cargo air service in the United States. The maiden flight for this service began when one of the company’s planes left New York City at 11:50 p.m. This aircraft, which carried approximately 2,500 pounds (1,134 kilograms) of... Continue Reading →
December 15, 1912 Aviation pioneer Antony Habersack “Tony” Jannus arrived in New Orleans at the end of an extensive and record-setting flight that had begun in the Great Plains the previous month. Jannus had flown out of Omaha in a Benoist Land Tractor Type XII biplane on November 6. Jannus wanted to make this trip... Continue Reading →
December 4, 1991 On the same day that Pan American World Airways (Pan Am) officially came to an end and halted its longtime operations, that airline’s final flight took place. Captain Mark Pyle piloted the airplane Clipper Goodwill, a Pan Am Boeing 727-221ADV, for Flight 436 between the cities of Bridgetown, Barbados, and Miami, Florida. ... Continue Reading →
November 20, 1954 Clyde Cessna died in Wichita, Kansas, at the age of 74. By the time of his passing, he had left a large and longtime imprint on the transportation world as an aircraft designer and aviation entrepreneur. Cessna was born in 1879 in Hawthorne, Iowa. When he was only two years old, he... Continue Reading →
Ola Mildred Rexroat, who achieved fame as the only Native American to serve as one of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) during World War II, was an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. She was born in Argonia, Kansas in 1917. Early on in her life, Rexroat moved with her family to South... Continue Reading →
November 10, 1949 The first flight of the multi-purpose Sikorsky S-55 helicopter took place in the skies above Bloomfield, Connecticut. This helicopter was built by Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, which had been established by aviation pioneer Igor Sikorsky in 1923 and originally known as Sikorsky Aero Engineering Corporation. (Sikorsky Aircraft has been part of Lockheed Martin... Continue Reading →
October 20, 2020 In the Republic of Indonesia, a recently completed international airport was formally opened in the village of Tanak Awu on the island of Lombok (part of the province of West Nusa Tenngara). This facility replaced Selaparang Airport, which is located in the town of Ampenan and had been closed three weeks earlier,... Continue Reading →
October 19, 1874 The first airborne wedding that is verifiable took place above the vicinity of Cincinnati, Ohio, in what one newspaper account characterized as “a matrimonial sensation.” Mary Elizabeth Walsh and Charles Samuel Colton exchanged vows in a hot-air balloon named “P.T. Barnum.” (Both the bride and groom worked for the legendary showman’s traveling circus.) ... Continue Reading →
October 16, 1908 An American made what is officially recognized as the first controlled, powered, and sustained heavier-than-air flight in the United Kingdom. Samuel Franklin (S.F.) Cody achieved this milestone when he piloted British Army Aeroplane No. 1, which he designed and built, off the ground in the town of Farnborough in southeastern England. Cody... Continue Reading →
October 13, 1860 A milestone in aviation occurred in the skies above Boston, Massachusetts, when James Wallace Black took photographs of the city while traveling above it in a hot-air balloon. Black, a one-time artist who set aside his palettes and paint brushes to pursue instead the still-nascent endeavor of photography, flew over Boston in a... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 