1958 in aviation
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1958:
Events
January
February
- February 1 – United Airlines sets a record commercial Honolulu, Hawaii-to-Los Angeles, California, flight time of 6 hours 21 minutes.[4]
- February 5 – Two United States Air Force aircraft – a B-47B Stratojet and an F-86 Sabre – collide in mid-air over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Georgia in the United States. The F-86 crashes after its pilot ejects, but the B-47B remains airborne, jettisons a Mark 15 hydrogen bomb into Wassaw Sound off Tybee Island, Georgia, and makes an emergency landing at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, Georgia. The bomb has not been recovered.
- February 6 – The British European Airways Airspeed Ambassador G-ALZU Lord Burghley, operating as Flight 609, crashes on its third attempt to take off from a slush-covered runway at Munich-Riem Airport in West Germany, killing 23, including eight Manchester United footballers.
- February 13 – A British Ministry of Defence White Paper makes Britain's nuclear weapons programme public knowledge.
- February 25 – United Airlines sets a record commercial Honolulu, Hawaii-to-San Francisco, California, flight time of 5 hours 43 minutes.[4]
- February 27 – The Silver City Airways Bristol 170 Freighter G-AICS, travelling from Ronaldsway Airport, Ballasalla, on the Isle of Man to Ringway Airport in Manchester, England, crashes into Winter Hill, Rivington Moor, Lancashire, in North West England in bad weather, killing 35 of the 42 people on board and injuring all seven survivors.
March
April
- The Handley Page Victor strategic bomber begins to enter squadron service with the Royal Air Force.[6]
- April 6 – Vickers Viscount N7437, operating as Capital Airlines Flight 67, stalls and crashes into Saginaw Bay near Freeland, Michigan, while on approach to Freeland-Tri City Airport in Saginaw, Michigan. All 47 people aboard die. The cause is attributed to ice accretion on the horizontal stabilizer.[7]
- April 21 – United Airlines Flight 736, a Douglas DC-7 bound for Denver, Colorado, collides at 21,000 feet (6,400 m) with a U.S. Air Force F-100 Super Sabre fighter on a training mission near Las Vegas, Nevada. All 47 persons aboard the airliner and both F-100 crew members are killed.
May
- May 7 – U.S. Air Force Major Howard C. Johnson of the 83rd Fighter Interceptor Squadron set a new world record for altitude, flying a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter to 27,813 meters (91,249 feet).[8]
- May 16 – U.S. Air Force Captain Walter W. Irwin sets a new world airspeed record of 1,404 mph (2,259 km/h) in an F-104 Starfighter,[8] the first record over 2,000 km/h (1,242 mph).
- May 17 – Four F3H Demons and four F8U Crusaders make a non-stop crossing of the Atlantic Ocean.
- May 18 – In a Zero Length Launch (ZEL) experiment, a U.S. Air Force North American F-100D Super Sabre becomes airborne with no runway or take-off roll at all, using its own engine in afterburner and boosted by a 130,000-pound- (58,967-kg)-thrust Astrodyne rocket.[9]
- May 20 – Vickers Viscount N7410 of Capital Airlines collides in mid-air with a Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star of the Air National Guard. All eleven on board the Viscount are killed when it crashes at Brunswick, Maryland, as is one of the two crew members of the T-33.[10]
- May 22-23 – Flying a Douglas F4D-1 Skyray, United States Marine Corps Major N. LeFaivre breaks five world climb-to-height records, including 15,000 meters (49,221 feet) in 2 minutes 36 seconds.[11]
- May 23 – The Short S.C.1 vertical take and landing (VTOL) aircraft makes its first hovering flight.
- May 25 – A Dan-Air Avro 685 York C.1 cargo aircraft suffers an in-flight engine fire and crashes during a forced landing near Gurgaon, Haryana, India, killing four members of the five-person crew.
June
- June 9 – London Gatwick Airport opens after two years of extensive reconstruction. It is the first multimodal airport in the world, with direct rail connections from the main terminal to London and Brighton.
- June 28 – The 22-year operational career of the Avro Anson comes to an end with a six-plane formation fly-past over their base by the Southern Communications Squadron at Bovington, Hampshire, in the United Kingdom.[12]
August
September
October
- October 4 – BOAC de Havilland Comet 4 G-APDB makes first the commercial transatlantic crossing by a jet airliner, from London Heathrow Airport to New York International Airport, Anderson Field via Gander.
- October 10 – A C-123B Provider serving as a maintenance support aircraft for the United States Air Force Thunderbirds air demonstration team flies into a flock of birds and crashes near Payette, Idaho, killing the entire flight crew of five and all 14 maintenance personnel on board. It remains the worst accident in Thunderbirds history.
- October 19 – A People's Republic of China-owned Tupolev Tu-104 crashes at Kanash during a regular flight between Beijing and Moscow, killing all 65 passengers and crew members. Among those killed are 16 Chinese government officials, one Briton, four East Germans and the son of the Cambodian ambassador to China.[15]
- October 22 – The Vickers Viscount 701 G-ANHC, operating as British European Airways Flight 142, collides with an Italian Air Force F-86E Sabre over Anzio, Italy. Both aircraft crash; the F-86E pilot ejects and survives, but all 31 people aboard the Viscount die.
- October 26 – Snowy Mountains Project worker Tom Sonter accidentally discovers the wreckage of the Australian National Airways Avro 618 Ten Southern Cloud, which had disappeared without trace in bad weather over the Snowy Mountains in New South Wales, Australia, with the loss of all eight people on board on March 21, 1931, in Australia's first airline disaster.
- October 26 – The first commercial flight by a Boeing 707 jet airliner takes place, on Pan American World Airways transatlantic service from New York City to Paris.
November
December
First flights
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
November
December
Entered service
January
April
May
August
November
December
Retirements
June
References
- ^ Wikipedia HMS Warrier (R31) article.
- ^ Scheina, Robert L., Latin America: A Naval History 1810-1987, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1987, ISBN 0-87021-295-8, p. 196.
- ^ Scheina, Robert L., Latin America: A Naval History 1810-1987, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1987, ISBN 0-87021-295-8, p. 218.
- ^ a b Aviation Hawaii: 1950-1959 Chronology of Aviation in Hawaii
- ^ Chinnery, Philip D., Vietnam: The Helicopter War, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institue Press, 1991, ISBN 1-55750-875-5, p. 2.
- ^ Crosby, Francis, The Complete Guide to Fighters & Bombers of the World: An Illustrated History of the World's Greatest Military Aircraft, From the Pioneering Days of Air Fighting in World War I Through the Jet Fighters and Stealth Bombers of the Present Day, London: Anness Publishing Ltd., 2006, ISBN 978-1-84476-917-9, p. 289.
- ^ "Accident description". Aviation Safety Network. http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19580406-0. Retrieved 6 September 2009.
- ^ a b c Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 283.
- ^ Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, ISBN 0-517-56588-9, p. 353.
- ^ "Accident description". Aviation Safety Network. http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19580520-1. Retrieved 6 September 2009.
- ^ Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, ISBN 0-517-56588-9, p. 190.
- ^ a b Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN 0-7607-0592-5, p. 81.
- ^ Crosby, Francis, The Complete Guide to Fighters & Bombers of the World: An Illustrated History of the World's Greatest Military Aircraft, From the Pioneering Days of Air Fighting in World War I Through the Jet Fighters and Stealth Bombers of the Present Day, London: Anness Publishing Ltd., 2006, ISBN 978-1-84476-917-9, pp. 41, 42.
- ^ Directory of U.S. Military Rockets and Missiles: AIM-9.
- ^ "65 Passengers, All Crew Killed in Red Plane Crash". The Daily Reporter. 20 October 1948. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=jm0rAAAAIBAJ&sjid=mdkEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3623,1002561&dq=china+plane+crash&hl=en. Retrieved 1 June 2011.
- ^ Thetford, Owen, British Naval Aircraft Since 1912, Sixth Edition, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1991, ISBN 1-55750-076-2, p. 112.
- ^ Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN 0-7607-0592-5, p. 88.
- ^ Taylor 1965, p.83.
- ^ Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 311.
- ^ Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, ISBN 0-517-56588-9, p. 454.
- ^ Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 162.
- Taylor, John W. R. Jane's All The World's Aircraft 1965-66. London: Sampson Low, Marston, 1965.
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