Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
A pioneering aviation event in England came to an end when Louis Paulhan finished first in a two-man London-to-Manchester plane race. The French aviator landed in Manchester early in the morning after he had begun his 186-mile flight from London. His competitor, an Englishman named Claude Grahame-White, had been hampered by everything from engine problems... Continue Reading →
Jan Smuts International Airport began operations in the city of Kempton Park, 20 miles northeast of Johannesburg, in what was then the Union of South Africa. (The Republic of South Africa came into existence nine years later.) The South African Airways’ Skymaster plane named Tafelberg was the first aircraft to touch down at the new... Continue Reading →
A dedication ceremony was held for a new international airport in east-central France. French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing formally inaugurated the airport, which opened to passengers a week later. Lyon Satolas Airport was built in Colombier-Saugnieu; this commune is approximately 13 miles from Lyon, the third largest city in France. The facility was designed in... Continue Reading →
The runway for a new airport in the Maldives, a country situated in the Indian Ocean, was completed four years after construction on the paved strip had begun. The conclusion of work on the runway marked an important step in building the airport on the Maldivan island of Kaadedhdhoo, with the facility officially opening about... Continue Reading →
Boliviana de Aviación (BoA), which serves as the national airline of Bolivia and is entirely owned by the South American country’s government, formally began operations with its first commercial flight. This flight was made by a Boeing 737 airliner traveling between the cities of La Paz (the capital) and Cochabamba. Evo Morales, Bolivia’s president since... Continue Reading →
Margaret “Maggie” Gee became an aviation pioneer during World War II when she was one of only two Chinese-Americans to serve in the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP). The organization, which was formed in August 1943 from both the Women’s Auxiliary Flying Training Detachment and Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron, consisted of female pilots who performed... Continue Reading →
The first flight between Portugal and its then-territory of Madeira, a North Atlantic archipelago located 280 nautical miles off the coast of Africa, took place when a Felixstowe F .3 seaplane traveled from Lisbon to the city of Funchal on the southern shore of Madeira’s main island. The Portuguese Naval Aeronautical Service crew on board... Continue Reading →
A new airport was officially opened in Seychelles, an Indian Ocean archipelago located 932 miles east of mainland Africa. Seychelles International Airport is near the Seychellian capital of Victoria on Mahé, which is the largest and most heavily populated of the archipelago’s 115 islands. A British colony when the airport made its debut, Seychelles achieved... Continue Reading →
Ellen Church (1904-1965) was the first female flight attendant. The Iowa-born Church was a registered nurse and she also had a pilot’s license. While Boeing Air Transport (predecessor to United Airlines) would not give her a job as a pilot, it did hire her to serve as a flight attendant for the company’s planes. Church... Continue Reading →
A major transportation development for the kingdom of Jordan took place when a new passenger terminal at the Middle East nation’s leading airport was dedicated. Jordan’s King Abdullah II attended the Thursday ceremony at Queen Alia International Airport (QAIA) - located 20 miles south of the capital city of Amman - and formally inaugurated the... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 