Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/July 20

July 20

• 2008 – (20–26) 16th FAI World Rally Flying Championship

• 2007 – First flight of the Boeing X-48

• 2005 – First flight of the Grob G180 SPn

• 2004 – Aerocomp Comp Air Jet

• 2004 – First flight of the Grob G180 SPn

• 1992 – Round World Air Race begins in Paris.

• 1976 – America’s Viking I robot spacecraft made a successful, first-ever landing on Mars.

• 1974 – The Turkish Air Force supports Operation Atilla, a Turkish invasion of Cyprus, as a war over the island between Turkey and Greece and the Greek Cypriots breaks out. Turkish aircraft join with Turkish Navy in sinking a Greek Cypriot torpedo boat which attempts to attack the approaching Turkish naval flotilla, and Turkish aircraft support the amphibious landing.

• 1971 – First flight of the Mitsubishi T-2

• 1969 – Neil Armstrong is the first man to walk on the moon.

• 1956 – First flight of the Aerotécnica AC-12

• 1951 – First flight of the Hawker Hunter

• 1948 – Sixteen Lockheed Shooting Stars complete the first west to east transatlantic flight by jet aircraft.

• 1945 – 473 B-29 s drop 3,255 tons (2,952,917 kg) of bombs on Fukui and other cities in Japan.

• 1944 – Saipan-based U. S. Navy PB4Y-1 Liberators of Bomber Squadron 109 (VB-109) again strike Iwo Jima, Chichi Jima, and Haha Jima. During the strikes of July 14, 15, and 20, they claim between 10 and 30 Japanese aircraft destroyed on the ground.

• 1944 – Flying Fortresses of US 8th Air Force attack Leipzig / Dessau.

• 1944 – Japanese aircraft carrier Hijo sinks by US air attack.

• 1944 – Liberators of US 8th Air Force attack Gotha Russelsheim / Eisenach.

• 1944 – US 15th Air Force attacks Friedrichshaven Memmingen.

• 1943 – U. S. aircraft strike the escorts of a Japanese convoy in New Georgia Sound, sinking two destroyers and damaging the heavy cruiser Kumano.

• 1940 – The British Commonwealth Air Training Plan began operations when students started training at No. 1 Service Flying Training School at Camp Borden, Ontario.

• 1940 – Fleet Air Arm Swordfish of No. 813 Squadron conduct another torpedo strike against Tobruk, sinking two Italian destroyers.

• 1939 – Canada’s first North American Harvards No.’s 1321 & 1322 were delivered to RCAF Sea IsIand.

• 1939 – First flight of the Heinkel He 176

• 1936 – Twenty Junkers Ju 52s ferry Spanish Nationalist troops from Morocco to Spain in the world's first major military airlift.

• 1930 – July 20-August 1, 7560 km race over Europe of the Challenge 1930 contest.

• 1927 – Lindbergh begins NY flight (Spirit of St Louis).

• 1925 – First flight of the Boeing Model 40

• 1908 – Orville Wright warns Glenn Curtiss that the wing flaps used in the AEA’s June Bug are an infringement of the Wrights’ patent.