Date | On This Date In Aviation History | Information Source |
4/20/1944 | Bomber Command Target: Cologne | The Bomber War by Robin Neillands |
4/20/1937 | First flight of the Curtiss XP-37 USAAF SerNo 35-375 derivative of the P-36. | Complete Book of Fighters, 2001 |
4/20/1942 | The USS Wasp (CV-7), on special ferry duty out of Glasgow, Scotland, entered the Mediterranean and launched 47 Spitfires of the RAF to Malta. When the operation was duplicated on 9 May, it was the occasion for Winston Churchill's message, "Who says a Wasp cannot sting twice?" | United States Naval Aviation 1910-1960 by Deputy Chief Of Naval Operations |
4/20/1914 | US Naval aviation's first combat action began when three aircraft from the base detachment left Pensacola on the USS Mississippi to assist forces at Vera Cruz, Mexico where they flew observation and photographic sorties | Wright To Fly, by Peter R. March |
4/20/1914 | France hosted the Schneider Trophy Contest at Monaco and it was won by Australian Howard Pixton in a Sopwith Tabloid floatplane, powered by a 100hp Gnome Monosoupape rotary engine. His average speed beat the previous record (44.75 mph) by 25mph. | Wright To Fly, by Peter R. March |
4/20/1916 | The Escadrille Americans was established as an American volunteer flying unit fighting on the Western Front, later becoming the famed Lafayette Escadrille. | Wright To Fly, by Peter R. March |
4/20/1942 | Malta was re-enforced by 47 Spitfires that took off from USS Wasp. | Wright To Fly, by Peter R. March |
4/20/1979 | The 16th and last production Concorde flew. | Wright To Fly, by Peter R. March |
4/20/1981 | Initial flight of the first production Sukhoi Su-27 'Flanker'. | Wright To Fly, by Peter R. March |
4/20/1994 | The Italian Navy received its first of sixteen AV-8B Harrier IIs ordered for operations from its new carrier, the Guiseppe Garibaldi. | Wright To Fly, by Peter R. March |
4/20/1942 | Forty-seven Spitfires arrive aboard the USS Wasp to bolster the defense of Malta. | Aviation Century - World War II by Ron Dick & Dan Patterson |
4/20/1956 | First flight of the Sud-Est SE 212 delta mixed-powered interceptor. | X Planes and Prototypes By Jim Winchester |