Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
January 9, 1996 At the age of 71, aviation pioneer Berta Zerón de García – with more than 10,000 flight hours to her credit – took to the skies as a pilot for the last time. The airplane that she flew for her final trip was a Cessna 206. Born in the city of Pachuca in... Continue Reading →
January 3, 1922 The Aero Letňany A.10, which was the first commercial aircraft to be built in Czechoslovakia, made its inaugural flight. (Czechoslovakia came into existence in 1918 after breaking free from the Austro-Hungarian Empire; it remained a sovereign state until peacefully dissolving into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993.) The Aero Letňany A.10 – also... Continue Reading →
December 26, 1960 Airplane designer and builder Giuseppe Mario Bellanca died in New York City at the age of 74. Bellanca had been born on the island of Sicily in southern Italy in 1886. As a young man, he became enthralled with the possibilities of human flight. This enthusiasm led him in 1909 to help create... Continue Reading →
December 17, 1903 It was the dawn of a new era. Orville and Wilbur Wright made transportation history near the North Carolina town of Kill Devil Hills (about four miles, or6.4 kilometers, south of the better-known town of Kitty Hawk) by bringing about the world’s first controlled, powered, and sustained heavier-than-air human flight. The brothers each... Continue Reading →
December 14, 1986 The Rutan Model 76 Voyager, the first aircraft to circle around Earth without stopping or refueling, embarked on its historic flight at Edwards Air Force Base in California in the Mojave Desert. This westerly flight of 26,366 statute miles (42,432 kilometers) would end with great success nine days, three minutes, and 44... Continue Reading →
November 29, 1882 Aviation pioneer Henri Fabre was born in the French city of Marseille. Fabre’s advanced knowledge of science early on in life helped foster his powerful interest in human flight. With unmatched intensity, he studied and developed designs for planes and propellers. The result of Fabre’s efforts was his creation of the first... Continue Reading →
October 18, 1909 The aristocrat known as Charles, Count de Lambert became the first person to fly over the French capital city of Paris in a plane. He quickly gained worldwide attention for this achievement. “Great Record in Air,” proclaimed a headline in the next day’s edition of the New York-based Buffalo Express. De Lambert,... Continue Reading →
October 12, 1799 An aviation milestone took place when Jeanne Geneviéve Labrosse Garnerin, who was flying in a hot-air balloon in the skies over France, became the first woman to make a parachute descent back to earth. The balloon was approximately 2,953 feet (900 meters) above the ground when she made this descent, with her... Continue Reading →
Federico Fernández Cavada was born sometime around 1831 in the city of Cienfuegos on the southern coast of Cuba. After his father’s death in 1838, his U.S.-born mother brought him and his brothers with her to live in Philadelphia. Fernández Cavada, who became both an engineer and topographer, joined the Union Army shortly after the... Continue Reading →
September 18, 1948 A first-of-a-kind flight took place in the skies above Muroc Dry Lake (part of present-day Edwards Air Force Base) in the Mojave Desert in southern California. The pioneering jet plane was the Convair XF-92A, which had been designed and built for the U.S. Air Force (USAF) by the aircraft manufacturing company Consolidated... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 