On this day in history: Maiden flight of Boeing 747, 1969

With long-distance commercial air travel becoming more popular the President of Pan American World Airways (Pan Am), Juan Trippe, urged Boeing to build a much larger passenger aircraft to replace the successful 707 and alleviate traffic congestion at airports. In 1965 Boeing engineer Joe Sutter took control of a development team, which liaised with Pan Am and other airlines to design an aircraft that would meet their requirements. The result was the 747, an aircraft that could be easily adapted to become a freight carrier when the expected supersonic air travel revolution took place.

In April 1966, Pan Am became the first of twenty-six airlines to pre-order 747s, which Boeing undertook to start delivering be the end of the decade. Pan Am again partnered Boeing along with Pratt and Whitney in the design of a new turbofan engine that would produce enough power for the enormous airliner. In spite of the limited development time, the first prototype 747 rolled out of Boeing's purpose-built assembly plant at Paine Field near Everett, Washington, on 30th September 1968.

On 9th February 1969, the first air-worthy prototype called City of Everett made its maiden flight. The flight crew comprised test pilots Jack Waddell and Brien Wygle, and flight engineer Jess Wallick. Apart from a minor fault with one of the flaps the crew reported that the aircraft handled extremely well in flight.

Flight tests continued for the next few months during which time the engineers ironed out any problems, particularly with the engines. On 15th January 1970 Pan Am took possession of the first production 747s that entered service between New York and London a week later. Over the next forty years development continued on the 747 with Boeing manufacturing a number of variants for carrying cargo as well as passengers, including the President of the United States, and even giving a piggy-back to the prototype Space Shuttle.

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On this day in history: First gasoline powered automobile patented, 1886

The German engine designer and automobile engineer Karl Benz was born on 25th November 1844 in Karlsruhe, Baden, to Josephine Vaillant. A few months after he was born, his mother married his father, a locomotive driver named Johann George Benz, who died in a railway accident when Karl was only two years old. The death left the family in financial difficulty, but Josephine managed to provide her son with a quality education.

Karl was an excellent student, attending the local grammar school and technical college before gaining a place at the city's university to study mechanical engineering at the age of fifteen. He graduated in 1864 at the age of nineteen and spent the next seven years moving between jobs where he received professional training. In 1871 Benz opened a mechanical workshop in Mannheim with August Ritter.

Ritter turned out to be a liability. The business only survived when Benz's fiancée, Bertha Ringer, used her dowry to buy Ritter's shares. The business continued to struggle financially, so from 1878 Benz started working on patenting various innovations in engine design, including the two stroke engine, an ignition system using sparks from a battery, spark plugs, the carburettor, the clutch, the gear shift, and the water radiator. Nevertheless, the high production costs of Benz's Gas Factory resulted in the local banks demanding that his business become incorporated.

The creation of the joint-stock company Gasmotoren Fabrik Mannheim in 1882 left Benz with only five per cent of the shares in the business. He also became marginalised when it came to designing new products. Dissatisfied, a year later he left the company that he had built to enter into a partnership with the owners of a bicycle repair business, Max Rose and Friedrich Wilhelm Eßlinger.

The company called Benz & Company Rheinische Gasmotoren-Fabrik produced a successful range of industrial machines and quickly expanded. The success of the business enabled Benz to start developing his ideas for a horseless carriage that he had been considering since his youth. In 1885 he produced the Benz Patent Motorwagen. A three wheeled vehicle powered by a 0.8hp four-stroke engine with a top speed of 16 km/h (10 mph).

On 29th January 1886, Benz patented his Motorwagen. Over the next few years Benz tested his design on public roads, refined his design and produced two more models of his Motorwagen, which he made available for sale to the public. In 1888 he made his first sales, including one to the Paris-based bicycle manufacturer Emile Roger. Roger had previously produced Benz's engines under license, now he also started manufacturing the automobiles and selling them to Parisians.

Benz continued to produce innovative designs of motor vehicles. In 1894 he produced the Velo, which many regard as the first production automobile and a year later he designed the first truck. He died in 1929 at the age of eighty-four as one of the key figures in the development of the automobile industry.

A facsimile of Benz's 1886 German patent No. 37435 is available to download in pdf format.

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On this day in history: First underground railway opened, 1863

By the 1850s many of those commuting into central London by rail had to continue their journey by road because all but one of metropolis' seven railway termini were outside the City of London. Consequently, the idea of connecting London's major stations to the City with an underground railway grew in popularity, not only to alleviate the increased traffic congestion on the roads but also to make rail travel via London easier. In 1852 the Solicitor to the City of London, Charles Pearson, helped set up the City Terminus Company having been a vocal supporter of a number of proposals for underground railways, including one in which he suggested that the vehicles be pushed through the tunnels by compressed air.

Pearson failed to find any funding for his plans; however, the Bayswater, Paddington and Holborn Bridge Railway Company had more success. Founded in 1853, its directors secured funding from the Great Western Railway (GWR) and acquired the City Terminus Company. Later that year they received the approval of a Royal Commission for their plan, resulting in the passage of an Act of Parliament in the following year.

This act authorised the construction of an underground railway between Praed Street in Paddington (near the GWR's London terminus) and Farringdon in the City of London, to be known as the Metropolitan Railway. Although not a director of the new company, Pearson continued to promote the scheme, even managing to secure some £200,000 funding for the railway from the City of London Corporation. In February 1860 construction work finally began.

The work did not go smoothly: the cut-and-cover method favoured of tunnel construction by the chief engineer, John Fowler, involved digging up the streets that the line would follow causing a great deal of traffic congestion. At one point the Fleet Sewer burst filling the recently dug tunnels with London's effluence. Nevertheless, the work was completed in less than three years.

On 10th January 1863, the world's first underground railway opened to the public. On the previous day, the directors of the company travelled with several hundred invited guests in two trains from Paddington to Farringdon Street station where they had an elegant lunch. The line proved to be a great success with an average of over 25,000 passengers using the railway each day, but sadly Pearson was not one of them as he had died in September of the previous year.

You can read the Guardian's account of the Opening of the Metropolitan Railway to the public on the newspaper's website.

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The world`s first public railway opened: 27th September 1825
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Queen Victoria`s first train journey: 13th June 1842
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On this day in history: Balloonmania reached the United States, 1793

In the years following the Montgolfier brothers' first successful balloon flights in 1783 'balloonmania' swept across Europe. One of the greatest promoters of this new form of transport was the Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard. He made his first successful flight at Paris using a hydrogen filled balloon in March 1784. He then travelled around Europe demonstrating his balloons becoming the first to fly a balloon across the English Channel (accompanied by Dr. John Jeffries), as well the first to fly such devices in Belgium, Germany, Holland and Poland.

Blanchard then crossed the Atlantic and on 9th January 1793 he added to his records by making the first balloon flight in the United States. President George Washington observed Blanchard take to the air at around 10:10am from Philadelphia in Pennsylvania after having given the Frenchman a letter under his seal requiring that no US citizen hinder him. Also watching the launch were the future presidents John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe. At 10:56am, Blanchard landed at Deptford in Gloucester County, New Jersey, where he soon attracted a crowd of bemused onlookers who were not only impressed by the manner of his arrival, but also by the President's letter.

Blanchard's Journal of my forty-fifth ascension, being the first performed in America, on the ninth of January, 1793 is available in a number of file formats on the Internet Archive site.

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Montgolfier Brothers first public balloon flight: 17th December 1783
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On this day in history: Voyager completed record flight, 1986

In 1980, a former United States Air Force pilot called Dick Rutan met fellow pilot Jeana Yeager (no relation of Chuck Yeager) at an airshow in Chino, California. Romance blossomed between the two, and Yeager became a test pilot at Rutan's aircraft company, which he ran with his aerospace designer brother, Burt. Over lunch one day at the Mojave Inn in 1981, the three of them discussed making an aircraft capable of being the first aircraft to circumnavigate the World without landing or refuelling.

Over the next five year's they refined the initial design that Burt sketched on a napkin to create Voyager. The aircraft had a lightweight fuselage made from carbon fibre, fibreglass and Kevlar. Engines powered propellers at the front and rear, with the front only used to provide the extra power for take-off and the early part of the flight.

At 8.01am local time on 14th December 1986, Dick and Jeanna lifted off from the runway at Edwards' Air Force Base, California, to embark on their record-breaking flight attempt. Despite a tricky take-off, in which Voyager's wing-tips sustained damaged, and course changes necessitated by the weather and a lack of permission to fly in Libyan airspace, over the next five days the pair flew their westward course around the World. Approaching California one of the fuel pumps failed; nevertheless, they successfully landed back at Edwards' on 23rd December, having flown 26,366 miles (42,432 km) in nine days, 3 minutes and 44 seconds.

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Montgolfier Brothers first public balloon flight: 4th June 1783
First Zeppelin flight: 2nd July 1900
First successful powered aeroplane flight: 17th December 1903
First flight around the world: 28th September 1924
Charles Lindbergh arrived in Paris: 21st May 1927

On this day in history: First successful powered airplane flight, 1903

At the dawn of the twentieth-century, the brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright left their cycle manufacturing business in Dayton, Ohio and travelled to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina to undertake experiments with flying machines. Over the next few years they made their annual pilgrimage to the sands of Kitty Hawk to refine the design of their manned gliders. Following successful test flights in the 1902 Glider, the brothers added an engine designed and built by one of their employees, Charlie Taylor, to their next model: the Wright Flyer I.

In December 1903, the brothers returned to North Carolina and assembled the Flyer while performing flight tests with the 1902 Glider. On the 14th, the brothers tossed a coin to decide which of them should pilot the Flyer for its maiden flight. Wilbur won, but he stalled the plane after pulling up too sharply.

Fortunately the aircraft did not suffer any major damage and was ready for another test flight within days. On 17th December 1903, Orville took his chance to make history. The flight lasted for twelve seconds in which time he covered a distance of 36.5m (120 feet). According to the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale this was the World's first "sustained and controlled heavier-than-air powered flight."

The Smithsonian Institution refused to recognise the Wright's flight, preferring to give the accolade to one of their former secretaries, Samuel Pierpont Langley. Following Orville's unsuccessful attempt blackmail the Smithsonian into recognising the Wright's achievement by threatening to allow another museum to have the Flyer, the aircraft become an exhibit at the Science Museum in London, in 1928. Fifteen years later, Orville allowed the aircraft to be relocated to the Smithsonian after he received assurances that no other successful flight will be recognised by the Institution on a date prior to that of the brothers.

To learn more about these pioneering aeronauts and their aircraft, see the Wright Experience site.

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Montgolfier Brothers first public balloon flight: 4th June 1783
First Zeppelin flight: 2nd July 1900
First flight around the world: 28th September 1924
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Maiden flight of Boeing 747: 9th February 1969
Last commercial Concorde flights: 24th October 2003

On this day in history: First trans-oceanic yacht race, 1866

At 1pm on 11th December 1866, three schooners sailed from Sandy Hook, Connecticut, their destination was the Needles, near Cowes in the Isle of Wight. The three yachts taking part in 'The Great Atlantic Yacht Race' were the Henrietta, owned by New York Herald publisher James Gordon Bennett, Jr., George A. Osgood's Fleetwing, and the Vesta, owned by the tobacco manufacturer, Pierre Lorillard. Each owner wagered $30,000 on what was the first ever trans-oceanic yacht race, and while Osgood and Lorillard remained in New York, Bennett set sail with his crew.

A flotilla of sailing craft escorted the three yachts from New York to the docks at Sandy Hook, which were lined with a cheering throng. One day into the race, the Henrietta opened a lead on the other two craft and later the Vesta, under the command of Captain Dayton, parted company with the Fleetwing commanded by Captain Thomas. The trailing yacht ran into trouble on the eighth day of the race when she encountered a heavy gale that caused six men to be washed overboard, all of whom were lost along with the yacht's jibboom.

The Henrietta won the race and the $90,000 prize (more than $2 million in today's money), taking 13 days, 21 hours and 55 minutes to complete the crossing. In spite of her earlier tragedy, the Fleetwing came second due to a navigational mistake by the pilot who joined the crew to guide them safely to their goal. Due to misty conditions, he mistook the lighthouse at St. Katherine for the one at the Needles.

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On this day in history: First German steam-hauled railway opened, 1835

The development of public railways in Britain attracted interest from the rest of Europe. King Ludwig of Bavaria sent the engineer Joseph von Baader to England to evaluate the new method of transport. In spite of Baader's favourable report, the Bavarian government's initial interest in railway development came to nothing, but years later a group of businesspeople formed a committee to consider the construction of a railway between Nuremberg and Fürth.

On 14th May 1833, they founded the Gesellschaft zur Errichtung einer Eisenbahn mit Dampffahrt zwischen Nürnberg und Fürth ("Company for the Establishment of a Steam Railway between Nuremberg and Fürth"). The major shareholder in the company was the merchant George Zacharias Platner, who contributed 21,000 of the planned 132,000 guilder capital and became the company's first director. The king authorised the use of his name by the railway company, from which his government purchased a token two shares.

The king also permitted the road builder Paul Camille von Denis to manage the construction of the railway, which Denis decided would use the English gauge. The company also looked to England for its first locomotive because no German company was then capable of the undertaking. They purchased a 2-2-2 steam locomotive called Adler ("Eagle") from Robert and George Stephenson of Newcastle for 13,000 guilders.

On 7th December 1835, Adler hauled the first train along the 7.45 km Ludwigsbahn, driven by the Englishman, William Wilson. The high cost of importing coal from Saxony meant that only two of the hourly passenger services were steam-hauled, with the remainder drawn by horses. The company purchased another Stephenson locomotive, Pfeil ("Arrow"), followed by a series of German-built locomotives before finally withdrawing horse-drawn services in 1863.

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The world`s first public railway opened: 27th September 1825
Tom Thumb beat a horse: 28th August 1830
Queen Victoria`s first train journey: 13th June 1842
First underground railway opened: 10th January 1863
Steam locomotive world speed record: 3rd July 1938
Last steam-hauled mainline passenger train on British Railways: 11th August 1968

On this day in history: King`s Cross Fire, 1987

On 18th November 1987 at around 7.30pm a fire was discovered in a machine room at King's Cross St Pancras underground station. The machine room was beneath an escalator that connected the Piccadilly line with the mainline station. Subsequent investigations concluded that a discarded match on the escalator was the most likely cause of the fire.

Even though the evening rush hour was coming to an end, hundreds of commuters were still in the station, the busiest on London's Underground network. Initially there was little concern as the fire appeared to be small, producing little smoke. Unfortunately, the fire soon spread over the partly-wooden escalator before a flashover engulfed the ticket office in flames and smoke, trapping many passengers underground.

By that time, the first fire-fighters had arrived including London Fire Brigade Station Officer Colin Townsley, who was on the concourse when the flashover occurred, while he stopped to help a woman who was struggling to exit the station. Townsley was one of the thirty-one fatalities caused by the fire, most of who had been caught in the ticket hall during the flashover. Fourteen ambulances were used to take the sixty-plus people who received injuries as a result of the fire to various London hospitals.

150 fire fighters battled the blaze until it was declared extinguished at 1.46 the next morning. Nevertheless, emergency crews remained at the scene until the following evening. A number of bodies were recovered from the station, including one that was not identified until 2004 as a 73-year-old homeless man from Falkirk, Scotland, called Alexander Fallon.


ITN news footage of the disaster

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Great Fire of London destroyed St. Paul`s Cathedral: 4th September 1666
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On this day in history: Suez Canal opened, 1869

In the late eighteenth-century, Napoleon Bonaparte charged a survey team with the task of discovering the remnants of an ancient waterway that once joined the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Their findings appeared in the series of publications known as Description de l'Égypte published between 1809 and 1826. Although engineers deemed the route unsuitable for a new canal, the benefits of such a waterway inspired the French diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps to secure a concession from the viceroy of Egypt, Said Pasha, to form a company construct a ship canal.

This authorisation, secured in 1854, granted a ninety-nine year lease on the land for the canal operators Compagnie Universelle du Canal Maritime de Suez ("The Suez Canal Company"), which incorporated in 1858. International scepticism resulted in most of the available shares being bought by French citizens. The Egyptian state purchased the remaining forty-four percent of the shares in the company in order that the project progress.

The construction began in 1859 employing tens of thousands of workers, most of whom were Egyptian forced labourers. Fearing a challenge to their domination of world trade, the British sent armed Bedouin to lead a revolt of the labourers. The viceroy condemned the use of slavery, halting work on the canal until the practice of involuntary labour ceased.

Following ten and a half years construction, on 17th November 1869 workers breached the barrage on the Suez plains reservoir filling the canal with water. Later that day the first ships sailed the 199 miles (192km) of canal joining the two seas. Ten days later the Egyptian Khedive, Ismail Pacha, officially opened the waterway.

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On this day in history: Only spaceflight of Buran, 1988

In 1974 engineers of the Soviet Union began work on the Buran ("Blizzard") project, which was a response to NASA's Space Shuttle programme. The Russian engineers favoured a design for a lighter reusable spacecraft where the entire body of the craft created lift, but the military leadership demanded that they copy the delta-wing design of the American Shuttle. Six years later, construction commenced on the spacecraft, with the first full-scale prototype reaching completion in 1984 and the first of the two completed production vehicles appearing in 1986.

As with the NASA design, in order to achieve space flight the Buran needed an external source of thrust that would be jettisoned when no longer needed. Buran employed an Energia rocket supplemented by four smaller liquid-fuel Zenit booster rockets, unlike the Shuttle, which uses two solid-fuel booster rockets connected to a fuel tank. The Energia made a successful test-launch in May 1987, paving the way for an unmanned test-flight of Buran.

At 3am local time on 15th November 1988 orbiter OK-1.01 lifted off from the launch pad at Baikonur Cosmodrome. The space flight lasted 206 minutes, during which Buran orbited the Earth twice before making a successful automatic landing on a runway back at Baikonur despite of a powerful cross-wind. Nevertheless, the success of the test flight was not enough to save the project, which was mothballed due to lack of funds and the shifting political situation in the Soviet Union before President Bosis Yeltsin officially cancelled the project in 1993.

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First man-made object to reach the Moon, 14th September 1959
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On this day in history: First manmade object to orbit another planet, 1971

On 30th May 1971, an Atlas-Centaur rocket launched from Cape Canaveral carrying the Mariner 9 spacecraft. NASA's Mariner program was an investigation of Mars, Venus and Mercury using unmanned probes. Mariner craft achieved many firsts: Mariner 2 was the first spacecraft to fly past another planet (Venus) and Mariner 4 was the first to pass close to Mars.

The program also had its fair share of setbacks: Mariner 1 was destroyed following a rocket malfunction; Mariner 3 failed to reach Mars due to a technical fault; and Mariner 8 ended up in the Atlantic Ocean after an unsuccessful launch. With the demise of Mariner 8, its identical sister craft was tasked with becoming the first object to orbit another planet. Mariner 9 arrived at Mars on 13th November when it entered orbit.

For nearly a year, NASA received data from the probe's infrared and ultraviolet instruments. Mariner 9 also took photographs of the planet's surface after having to wait for a couple of months because of the amount of dust in Mars' atmosphere. The scientists switched Mariner 9 off on 27th October 1972 after it depleted its supply of gas that fuelled the altitude control.

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First man-made object to reach the Moon: 14th September 1959
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Also on this day in history
The Brezhnev Doctrine, 1968

On this day in history: First aerial bombing, 1911

On 29th September 1911, the Italian government declared war on the Ottoman Empire having failed to achieve their demand for control of those Ottoman territories that make up modern day Libya. The conflict marked the first military use of airplanes. Initially the Italians used the new technology for reconnaissance, and later to attack Turkish troops.

On 1st November, Liuetenant Giulio Gavotti [pictured] set off on a reconnaissance flight over the Ain Zara oasis in his Taube ("dove") monoplane. He took with him four 2kg grenades with the intention of attacking the Turkish forces without the knowledge of his superiors. He dropped each of the bombs onto the enemy camp, but (thankfully) there were no casualties.

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On this day in history: Last commercial Concorde flights, 2003

During the late 1950s, aircraft manufacturers around the world started working on designs for supersonic passenger jets. The costs for such projects were so prohibitive that few of them progressed beyond the design stage. In the early 1960s, the British Aircraft Corporation, which had inherited the Type 223 supersonic transport (SST) project from the Bristol Aeroplane approached the French Sud Aviation, who were working on the Super-Caravelle SST, with an offer to co-operate on a joint project.

The result of this co-operation was Concorde, which made its maiden flight in 1969. By this time, Concorde only had one compettitor, the Russian Tupolev Tu-144, but cold war tensions and the crash of a Tu-144 at the 1973 Paris Air show meant that it was Concorde that attracted orders from the major airlines. Nevertheless, the oil crisis of late 1973, environmental concerns about nervousness about sonic booms (the noise the aircraft made as it broke the sound barrier) resulted in the cancellation of all the orders except those from the national airlines of France and the United Kingdom. These orders for ten aircraft each still required substantial government subsidies to keep the project alive.

In spite of these setbacks, Air France and British Airways (BA) started scheduled flights using Concorde in 1976. Although other airlines occasionally leased the aircraft, the high operation costs meant that supersonic travel was only feasible for the most profitible routes. Nevertheless, to continue running the services required high ticket prices, the continued government funding in the case of Air France and the sale of the British fleet of aircraft to BA at a knock-down price.

All this changed following the crash of a Concorde near Paris in July 2000. The year long grounding of all the Concordes contributed to the decision taken by both airlines to withdraw the aircraft. On 27th June 2003, an Air France Concorde flew for the last time and on 24th October that same year three BA Concordes made the last commercial flights by the aircraft: G-BOAG flew from New York to London; G-BOAE made a return flight to Edinburgh; G-BOAF flew around the Bay of Biscay. All three circled over London before landing within minutes of each other at Heathrow Airport.

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On this day in history: First man to drive an automobile at over 300 mph, 1935

Sir Malcolm Campbell's fascination with automotive speed began while he was in Germany learning the family trade, diamond dealing. On three successive occasions from 1906 he won the London to Lake End trials motorcycle races before graduating to racing cars at Brooklands in 1910. After the end of the First World War, he set his sights on the land speed record.

In 1924 he drove a 350HP V12 Sunbeam at over 146 mph at Pendine Sands, on the south coat of Wales, taking the land speed record for the first time. He went on to take the record another eight times, mainly due to his rivalry with fellow Briton, Henry Segrave. The last time he took the record was on 3rd September, 1935 at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.

The car Campbell used for the attempt was called Bluebird, like his other racing and record-breaking cars. Designed by Reid Railton, the power plant in this version was a 2,300hp 36.7 litre supercharged Rolls-Royce V12, enough to propel machine and driver to an average speed of over three-hundred miles per hour on the two runs in both directions over a measured mile. Initially, the American Automobile Association calculated an average speed of 299.875 mph, but they later revised this to 301.397 mph.

Following his return to Britain, Campbell received a knighthood and set his sights on the water speed record, which he set four times. Campbell died after a long illness in 1948. His son, Donald, followed in his father's footsteps making attempts at the land and water speed records, breaking both in 1964, before his tragic death attempting to retake the water speed record in 1967.

A website dedicated to Sir Malcolm Campbell has a page of images and press clippings of his 1935 record breaking attempt.

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On this day in history: Blackpool tramway opened, 1885

From the early nineteenth century, various towns and cities around the world introduced trams (streetcars) as a means of public transport. First horses and then steam engines provided the power for the trams until Werner von Siemens demonstrated his electric motor at the 1881 International Exposition of Electricity in Paris. A British engineer called Michael Holroyd Smith became aware of electric traction and began experimenting with narrow-gauge electric tramways in 1883.

Spurred on by the success of these experiments, Smith demonstrated standard-gauge versions of his invention in Manchester and then in the seaside town of Blackpool. This latter demonstration led to the formation of the Blackpool Electric Tramway Company in 1885, which commissioned Smith to construct a two-mile long tramway along the Promenade from Claremont Park to South Shore. Most of the directors of the company hailed from Smith's home-town of Halifax, as were the engineers that built the track.

The grand opening of the world's first effective electric tramway took place on 29th September, 1885, presided over by Smith and the Mayor of Manchester, Alderman Harwood. The company operated the trams until 1892 when the Blackpool Corporation took them over and extended the network and installed overhead cables to supply the power rather than use a conduit in the track. The trams continue to operate to this day, managing to avoid the replacement of tramways in other cities by becoming a tourist attraction.

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The world`s first public railway opened: 27th September 1825
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On this day in history: First flight around the world, 1924

In 1923 the United States' Army Air Service decided to join the race to be the first to fly an aircraft around the world. Finding that none of their existing fleet were suitable for the task, the group of officers charged with organising the attempt received instructions from the War Office to evaluate the Fokker F-5 and the Davis-Douglas Cloudster. Rather than send details about the Cloudster, Donald Douglas chose to submit information about a modified version of the DT-2 torpedo bomber, called the Douglas World Cruiser, which the Air Service selected.

Douglas delivered a modified a World Cruiser with over five and a half times the original fuel capacity to the Air Service for testing. The aircraft met all the requirements and Douglas received an order for four more planes, the last of which arrived with the Air Service in March 1924. Douglas also delivered spare parts that were transported to various points along the proposed route for the flight.

On 6th April 1924, four World Cruisers — called the Boston, the Chicago, and the New Orleans — took to the air from Seattle, Washington for Alaska on the first leg of the attempt. A fourth plane — ironically called the Seattle — needed repairs and later set off to try to catch up with the other aircraft; however, it crashed into an Alaskan mountainside due to dense fog. Fortunately, the crew survived.

The remaining three planes continued on their journey, avoiding Russian air space because the Soviets had not given them permission to fly over their country. After flying across East Asia and the Middle East, the aircraft arrived in Paris on Bastille day (14th July). They then set off across the Atlantic via London and the north of England; however, on 3rd August the Boston had to land on the water (the planes were fitted with floats for the legs that crossed over large bodies of water) but it capsized while being towed by the ship that rescued the crew.

The Chicago and the New Orleans continued across the Atlantic landing at Iceland and Greenland. When they arrived in Canada they were joined by the test plane for the remaining legs that took them to Washington D.C. and Santa Monica, California, before returning to Seattle on 27th September 1924. The two crews — pilot Lt. Lowell Smith and 1st Lt. Leslie Arnold of the Chicago, and pilot Lt. Erik Nelson and Lt. Jack Harding of the New Orleans — had traveled over 25,000 miles in 175 days.

To learn more see C.V. Glines' article 'Around the World' on the Air Force Magazine Online site.

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First successful powered aeroplane flight: 17th December 1903
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On this day in history: The world`s first public railway opened, 1825

In the early nineteenth-century various groups group of businessmen decided to resurrect plans to improve transport links between the collieries of South Durham and the port of Stockton-on-Tees. The committees initially planned to cut a canal to re-route the River Tees but a lack of finance meant that no work was carried out. In September 1818, a joint meeting of interested parties considered whether a canal or a railway system would be more beneficial but since an agreement was not reached the businessmen decided to consult with a leading civil-engineer, John Rennie; however, the interested parties from the town of Yarm also invited the Welsh engineer George Overton to survey possible routes.

Overton's report favoured a scheme to build a railway at a cost of £124,000. In November 1818, after careful consideration of the report, the retired wool-merchant Edward Pease and the Darlington banker Johnathan Backhouse called a meeting at Darlington Town Hall to discuss the formation of a railway company. The plan received a favourable response resulting in the creation of the railway company the following month.

The first task of the company was to persuade Parliament to pass the required legislation. After two failed attempts, the Bill finally received Royal Assent in April 1821. To begin with the Stockton and Darlington Railway Company did little beyond decide upon the design of their seal and the wording of their motto, but finally, in early 1822, they appointed George Stevenson as their chief engineer. Construction started in May of that year and continued for the next three years.

On 27th September 1825, the Stockton and Darlington Railway held the formal opening of the line. The company invited local nobles and other dignitaries to travel in a special train along the twenty-five mile route from Shildon to Stockton. While the invited guests traveled in a special coach, the rest of the passengers rode in a further fourteen coal wagons and, as if to underline the commercial nature of the venture, the train also included another twelve wagons laden with coal and goods.

At 9am, the large crowd of onlookers waved off the train, hauled by Stephenson's Locomotive No. 1. It took two hours to reach Darlington, where six coal wagons were removed from the train so that their contents could be given to the poor people of the town. The remaining train arrived in Stockton at 3.45pm welcomed by a cheering throng and a twenty-one gun salute.

See John Moore's Stockton and Darlington Railway Website for more information.

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On this day in history: First crossing of the English Channel in an autogyro, 1928

In January 1923, the world's first successful rotorcraft, the Autogiro, successfully completed its maiden flight. The Spanish engineer Juan de la Cierva designed the aircraft, which later became known as an autogyro. Like a helicopter, an autogyro gains lift from rotating rotor blades, but unlike a helicopter there is no power applied to the rotor, rather it spins due to a phenomenon known as autorotation. This enables the craft to fly at slower speeds, a problem that dogged Cierva's earlier designs for a bomber.

In 1926, following a demonstration of an autogyro to representatives of the British Air Ministry the year before, he moved to England where he set up the Cierva Autogyro Company funded by the Scottish industrialist James G. Weir. Cierva continued to refine and develop his designs culminating in the C.8 design, which he entered in the 1928 Kings Cup Air Race. Despite its retirement from the race the C.8 completed a three-thousand mile tour of Great Britain.

Spurred on by the success of the tour, Cierva then decided to fly the C.8 to France. At 10:00am on 18th September 1928, he departed from Croydon Airport at the controls of his autogyro accompanied by a Farman Goliath aeroplane of the French Air Force. Around 35 minutes later he landed at Lympne in Kent, and after a brief rest he set off across the English Channel - the first attempt to do so in any rotorcraft. He landed at St. Inglevert near Calais at 11:15am where he refueled the C-8 and had lunch.

At 12:35pm he took off on the next leg of the journey, arriving in Abbeville at 1:40pm. At 3:10pm he took to the skies for his final destination, Le Bourget Airport in Paris, where he arrived at 4:15pm to the delight of the large crowd that gathered there to greet him.

While the London to Paris flight went completely according to plan, Cierva was not so fortunate a few days later: he crashed his autogyro during a demonstration at Le Bourget. Undeterred, he repaired his aircraft and set off on a tour of Europe visiting Berlin, Brussels and Amsterdam.

Eight years later, Cierva set off again on a flight to the Continent from Croydon Airport, but this was to end in tragedy. The Dutch DC-2 stalled on take off, hit the roof of a building at the end of the runway and burst into flames. An ironic end to a man who dedicated his life to solving the problem of stalling aircraft.

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On this day in history: First man to drive an automobile at over 300 mph, 1935

Sir Malcolm Campbell's fascination with automotive speed began while he was in Germany learning the family trade, diamond dealing. On three successive occasions from 1906 he won the London to Lake End trials motorcycle races before graduating to racing cars at Brooklands in 1910. After the end of the First World War, he set his sights on the land speed record.



In 1924 he drove a 350HP V12 Sunbeam at over 146 mph at Pendine Sands, on the south coat of Wales, taking the land speed record for the first time. He went on to take the record another eight times, mainly due to his rivalry with fellow Briton, Henry Segrave. The last time he took the record was on 3rd September, 1935 at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.



The car Campbell used for the attempt was called Bluebird, like his other racing and record-breaking cars. Designed by Reid Railton, the power plant in this version was a 2,300hp 36.7 litre supercharged Rolls-Royce V12, enough to propel machine and driver to an average speed of over three-hundred miles per hour on the two runs in both directions over a measured mile. Initially, the American Automobile Association calculated an average speed of 299.875 mph, but they later revised this to 301.397 mph.



Following his return to Britain, Campbell received a knighthood and set his sights on the water speed record, which he set four times. Campbell died after a long illness in 1948. His son, Donald, followed in his father's footsteps making attempts at the land and water speed records, breaking both in 1964, before his tragic death attempting to retake the water speed record in 1967.



A website dedicated to Sir Malcolm Campbell has a page of images and press clippings of his 1935 record breaking attempt.



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