First flight of the F-16.
It was an accident. During high speed ground test a horizontal stabilizer was damaged and the test pilot took the aircraft off due to the severe oscillations it was experiencing.
One of the greatest fighter aircraft of all time, it remains in production, although not for the U.S.
A British Mosquito is shot down with its Oboe navigational aid intact, allowing the Germans to develop countermeasures.
The United States Army Air Force announced the production of the Bell P-59 Airacomet. The first US jet fighter aircraft, it would prove to be a disappointment and provided no real advantage over existing piston engined aircraft.
The first pilot's licenses were issued in France on this day in 1909. The issuing entity was the Aero-Club de France and the recipients were Orville Wright, Wilbur Wright, Albert Santos-Dumont, Louis Blériot, Robert Esnault-Pelterie, Léon Delagrange, Henri Farman and Captain Ferdinand Ferber.
John Evershed discovered, on the same day, that gas radiates over the surface of sunspots, from the inner border to the outer edge.
George C. Marshall was Time's Man Of The Year.
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The USS Turner suffered a series of internal explosions while in harbor off of the Ambrose Light in New York. 138 of the 256-man crew died during the incident. A Coast Guard Sikorsky HNS-1 flown by Lieutenant Commander Frank A. Erickson flew two cases of blood plasma, lashed to the helicopter's floats, from New York to Sandy Hook, saving many of the injured crewman, and providing the first incident of a helicopter used in that fashion.
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Gregory "Pappy" Boyington was shot down and became a Prisoner of War of the Japanese.
For the sum of $1,000,000,000.
It is uncertain if the Biden Administration shall approve the deal.
The first XP-80 was completed.
The Kelly Johnson design would go into service in 1945, too late for the Second World War, but would see service in Korea, by which time it was already eclipsed by later designs.
