Heidy's History Hangar #1

1929

-- Imperial Airways, an early British commercial air transport

company, starts service of a weekly passenger route departing

England for India.  Travellers would fly some of the legs of the

trip, and some legs were taken by rail. The cost was £130 per

person, the voyage lasted seven days.

Imperial Airways operated from 1924 to 1939.

1939

--  A prototype Heinkel He 100 fighter sets the world airspeed

record of 463 mph, outrunning aircraft with twice its horsepower. 

The speedy little single-prop only saw a production run of 12

aircraft.  Little else is known about this bullet-bird.

--  1939 also witnessed the first flight of the Australian C.A.C.

CA-16 Wirraway.  The CA-16 was a training and general purpose

military aircraft modeled after the  North American NA-16 trainer. 

The model was used by the Royal Austrailian Air Force and Navy, and

was retired in 1959.

"Wirraway" is an aboriginal word meaning "challenge."

1949

--  While not technically on this date, I found this while

researching and thought it worth adding.  The source is

YoungEagles.org, and I quote verbatim:

"March 15-April 26, 1949

The Sunkist Lady flies an endurance record of 1,008 hours and 2

minutes or just a couple of minutes over 42 days.

The flight was the duo's fourth attempt at breaking the 726-hour

record set in 1939 by Long Beach pilots Wes Carroll and Clyde

Scliepper. Their first three attempts failed because of mechanical

problems.

The plan was for the Lady to travel from Fullerton to Miami and

back. The Lady would then stay aloft over Southern California until

the record had been broken. At airports along the route, the ground

crew would land, board Willys Jeepsters, and race along the runway

while the Sunkist Lady passed low overhead. Three-gallon cans of

gasoline and food would then be passed up to the pilots."

1961

The North American X-15 rocket plane, perhaps the most important

USAF/USN X-series experimental aircraft, reached an altitude of

169,000 ft.

The X-15 may not have been as well-known as the Bell X-1, the

aircraft held several speed and altitude records in the early

1960s, skimming the top layers of the atmosphere and collecting

data that was used in the design of later aircraft and spacecraft.

Birthday
======

Sergey Ilyushin, Russian aerospace engineer 1894 - 1977

Sergey Vladimirovich Ilyushin Was a Russian aircraft designer.  He

founded the Ilyushin aircraft design.  

He was born in the city of Dilialevo, Russia.  Ilyushin took an

interest in aviation in 1910 and was became a pilot during the

First World War. He recieved a degree in engineering from the Air

Force Academy in 1926, and began designing aircraft. 

Some of his best known designs were the  Ilyushin Il-2 strike

aircraft and Ilyushin Il-4 bomber, quite familiar to Combat Flight

Simulator pilots. After the war, his commercial airliners, such as

the Ilyushin Il-18 and Ilyushin Il-62, saw extensive use.

Thanks for reading, and hope you enjoyed it.  Please send me a PM with any tips, constructive criticism, or other comments.

Have a 29.92 day!