Fun of Flying Site
Airplane Heroics and
Aviation Anniversaries

The following page is a sample listing from the Airplane Heroics section of the Celebrate Today! Special Events Data Files which features hundreds of historic airplane anniversaries, heroics, events, and so on. The following entries are excerpted from the Celebrate Today! Special Events Data Files.

January 1

1914: Airline Service Day — Tony Jannus flew the world's first scheduled airline flight from Saint Petersburg, Florida to Tampa, Florida.

1929: Airplane Endurance Record Day — Aided by refueling, Carl Spaatz and Ira Eaker flew an Army Fokker for 150 hours and 40 minutes over Los Angeles, California. They set the first airplane endurance record by remaining in flight from January 1st to January 7th.

January 6

1942: Round-the-World Commercial Air Flight Day — The Pan Am Pacific Clipper started out on its around-the world flight on December 2, 1941, and arrived back in New York City on January 6, 1942.

January 8

1997: Airline Turbulence Days — Two American Airlines flights experienced turbulence within a few days of each other. In one case, ten people were injured as they were tossed about in the plane as it dropped 300 feet; in the other, six people were injured.

January 9

1793: Aviation in America Day — The first balloon flight in the U.S. was made by French balloonist Jean Pierre Blanchard in 1793. He and his companion, a little black dog, took off from the Walnut Street prison yard in Philadelphia and landed near Woodbury (now Deptford, New Jersey).

1996: The Flight to Nowhere — A United flight to Tokyo spent 6 hours on a runway at New York's Kennedy Airport due to congestion and mechanical problems. As the delay continued, the passengers got unruly. Paul Harvey called it the flight to nowhere, although it did take off the next day.

January 10

1910: International Air Meet Day — The first international air meet was held at Los Angeles, California, in 1910.

1951: Jet Passengers Day — Donald Rogers piloted the first passenger jet from Chicago, Illinois to New York City. The flight took one hour and 42 minutes.

January 16

1957: Non-Stop, Around-the-World Flight Day — On this day, the first non-stop, around-the-world flight by jet planes was begun by three B-52s. Taking off from Castle Air Force Base in California, the flight around the world took 45 hours and 19 minutes.

January 21

1976: Concorde First Flight Day — The supersonic Concorde jet made its first commercial flight from Paris, France to Dakar, Senegal. A joint project of Great Britain and France, the prototype of the Concorde was shown in France on December 11, 1967, and made its first trial flight on January 1, 1969.