Battle of Backbone Mountain

Born in Earlsdon, Coventry, England on June 1, 1907, Whittle left Leamington College in 1923 to join the Royal Air Force (RAF). Through his early days as an Aircraft apprentice he maintained his interest in the Model Aircraft Society where he built replicas, the quality of which attracted the eye of his commanding officer, who was so impressed that he recommended Whittle for the Officer Training College at Cranwell in Lincolnshire in 1926, a rarity for a "commoner" in what was still a very class-based military structure. A requirement of the course was that each student had to produce a thesis for graduation. Whittle decided to write his thesis on future developments in aircraft design, in which he described what is today referred to as a motorjet.

Whittle and Hans von Ohain met after the war and initially Whittle was angry with him as he felt Ohain had stolen his ideas. Ohain eventually convinced him that his work was independent and after that point the two became good friends.

The de Havilland Canada DHC-8, popularly the Dash 8, is a series of twin-turboprop airliners designed by de Havilland Canada in the early 1980s. They are now made by Bombardier Aerospace which purchased DHC from Boeing in 1992. Since 1996 the aircraft have been known as the Q Series, for "quiet", due to installation of the Active Noise and Vibration Suppression (ANVS) system designed to reduce cabin noise and vibration levels to near those of jet airliners.

Notable features of the Dash 8 design are the large T-tail intended to keep the tail free of propwash during takeoff, a very high aspect ratio wing, the elongated engine nacelles also holding the rearward-folding landing gear, and the pointed nose profile. First flight was in 1983, and the plane entered service in 1984 with NorOntair. Piedmont Airlines (formerly Henson Airlines) was the US launch customer for the Dash 8 in 1984.

The Dash 8 design had better cruise performance than the earlier Dash 7, was less expensive to operate, and more notably, much less expensive to maintain. The Dash 8 had the lowest costs per passenger mile of any feederliner of the era. The only disadvantage compared to the earlier Dash 7 was somewhat higher noise levels, but only in comparison as the Dash 7 was notable in the industry for extremely low noise due to its four very large and slow-turning propellers.

• Length: 107 ft 9 in (32.84 m)
• Wingspan: 93 ft 3 in (32.84 m)
• Height: 27 ft 5 in (8.34 m)
• Powerplant: 2× Pratt & Whitney Canada PW150A turboprops, 5,071 shp (3,781 kW) each
• Cruise speed: 360 knots (414 mph, 667 km/h)
• Maiden Flight: June 20, 1983

April 25

• 2013 – The Israeli Air Force scrambles an F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter to intercept an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) as it approaches Israel from the coast of Lebanon. The F-16 shoots down the UAV, which Israel suspects belonged to Hezbollah, over the Mediterranean Sea at an altitude of 6,000 feet (1,829 meters) six miles (9.7 km) from Haifa, Israel.^[1]

• 2011 – Prime Minister of Italy Silvio Berlusconi approves the use of Italian aircraft in ground-attack missions in Libya as part of NATO's Operation Unified Protector.^[2]

• 2010 – A Royal New Zealand Air Force Bell UH-1H Iroquois crashed in heavy fog about 40 km north east of Wellington. Three persons were killed and a fourth seriously injured.

• 2009 – Lockheed P-2 V Neptune N442NA of Neptune Aviation Services crashes into a hill at Stockton, Utah, while on a ferry flight. The aircraft is destroyed and all three crew were killed.

• 1996 – First flight of the Yakovlev Yak-130

• 1992 – Second prototype Lockheed YF-22A, N22YX, suffers severe damage during start of a go-around when it belly-flops at Edwards AFB, California, following eight seconds of pilot-induced oscillation at an altitude of 40 feet when test pilot Tom Morgenfeld ignored a test-card requiring the 2-D convergent-divergent thrust nozzles to be locked in position during this stage of the PIO tests. Control surface actuators hit rate limiters causing commands to get out of synchronization with their execution, and the test fighter hit the ground, skidded several thousand feet, inducing fire that destroyed 25 percent of the airframe. Crash footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdfIiZnVhTI Aircraft never flew again, being rebuilt as a shell and subsequently used to test antennae at the Rome Air Development Center, Griffiss AFB, New York.

• 1990 – McDonnell-Douglas F-15 Eagle s/n 81-0049 flown by the 32nd TFS based at Soesterberg AB, Netherlands suffered an engine fire while flying in a three ship formation during Exercise Elder Forest and subsequently lost all hydraulic power. Pilot major George D. Hulsey ejected safely and was picked up by an oil-rig supply vessel. Aircraft crashed into the North Sea, 9 miles off Spurn Point Humberside, United Kingdom.

• 1986 – First flight of the Air Tractor AT-501

• 1983 – NASA exploration spacecraft Pioneer 10 flies past the orbit of Pluto.

• 1980 – Dan-Air Flight 1008, a Boeing 727, crashes into a mountain near Tenerife, Spain; all 138 passengers and eight crew die.

• 1972 – Hans-Werner Grosse sets a new sailplane distance record of 1,460 km (908 miles) in a Schleicher ASW 12

• 1968 – Apollo 6's SIV-B staqe re-enters the Earth's atmosphere and the Apollo 6 command module is recovered.

• 1967 – A USAF Lockheed EC-121H-LO Warning Star, 53-549, of the 551st AEWCW, out of Otis AFB, Massachusetts, ditches in the North Atlantic ~one mile off of Nantucket, Massachusetts, just after having taken off from that base. One survivor, 15 crew KWF. Five bodies were not recovered. Col. James P. Lyle, the Commander of the 551st AEW&C Wing to which all the aircraft and crew members were assigned, was the pilot. Colonel Lyle had been assigned to take over that command nine months earlier. It was he who presented each of the next of kin of 11 November 1966 crash victims with the United States Flag during that memorial service.

• 1962 – The United States Department of Defense announces its choice of the Northrop F-5 Freedom Fighter for its Military Assistance Program.

• 1957 – Northrop SM-64 Navaho, 53-8272, falls back onto launchpad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, a few seconds after liftoff and explodes.

• 1956 – First flight of the Bensen B-8 Gyro-Boat with a basic free-turning rotor system, known as the Roto-sail

• 1955 – First flight of the FFA P-16

• 1952 – John Jay Hopkins founds General Dynamics Corporation.

• 1951 – Cubana de Aviación Flight 493: Douglas DC-4, registration CU-T188, (ex-C-54A-15-DC, 42-72263) c/n 10368, en route from Miami, Florida, United States, to Havana, Cuba, has a mid-air collision with US Navy Beechcraft SNB-1 Kansan, BuNo 39939, which was on an instrument training flight in the vicinity of Naval Air Station Key West at the same time. All 43 aboard the airliner and four on the SNB were killed. Flight 493 departed Miami at 1109 hrs. and was cleared to climb to 4,000 feet (1,200 m) on a direct heading to Key West. Approximately ten minutes later, the SNB-1 took off from NAS Key West for simulated instrument training. Although the flight was not cleared to a specific altitude or heading, standard instrument training procedures were in place. At 1149 hrs. Flight 493, heading south, and the SNB-1, heading west, collided over NAS Key West at an estimated altitude of 4,000 feet (1,200 m).

• 1948 – A North American YP-86 becomes the first jet-powered aircraft to exceed Mach 1.

• 1945 – 275 B-17 s escorted by four groups of P-51 Mustangs attack the Pilzen-Škoda armament factory in Czechoslovakia. It is the last heavy bomber mission by the United States Army Air Forces’ 8th Air Force against an industrial target.

• 1945 – The incomplete German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin is scuttled at Stettin to prevent her capture by the Soviet Union.

• 1945 – The last bombing attack was carried out by No. 6 (RCAF) Group with 192 aircraft dropping over 902 tons of bombs on Wangerooge Island.

• 1940 – McGee Airways pioneers the transportation of fresh meat and milk to the Alaskan interior.

• 1940 – Swordfish and Skuas from the British aircraft carriers HMS Ark Royal and HMS Glorious raid targets in the Trondheim area in Norway.

• 1940 – Oberfeldwebel Hermann Förster is the first German night fighter pilot to shoot down a British bomber during World War II. Flying a Messerschmitt Bf 109D-1, he downs a Handley Page Hampden laying naval mines off the coast of Schleswig-Holstein.

• 1939 – First flight of the Arsenal VG-33

• 1928 – Charles A. Lindbergh landed on the Plains of Abraham, Quebec City, in a Curtiss Falcon carrying pneumonia serum for Floyd Bennett.

• 1922 – Known as the Stout ST-1, the first all-metal airplane designed for the U. S. Navy makes its first flight piloted by Eddie Stinson.

• 1918 – Belgium's top-scoring ace, Willy Coppens, claims his first victory.

• 1914 – The first combat flight by a U. S. Navy aircraft takes place. It is a flight to observe Mexican positions during the Veracruz Incident.

• 1868 – John Bevins Moisant, designer, builder and pilot of the first aluminum airplane, is born in Kanakee, Illinois.

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