The Boeing 747 is a long-range wide-body airliner designed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes in the United States between 1968 and 2023. After the introduction of the 707 in October 1958, Pan Am wanted a jet 2+1⁄2 times its size, to reduce its seat cost by 30%. In 1965, Joe Sutter left the 737 development program to design the 747. In April 1966, Pan Am ordered 25 Boeing 747-100 aircraft, and in late 1966, Pratt & Whitney agreed to develop the JT9D engine, a high-bypass turbofan. On September 30, 1968, the first 747 was rolled out of the custom-built Everett Plant, the world's largest building by volume. The 747's first flight took place on February 9, 1969, and the 747 was certified in December of that year. It entered service with Pan Am on January 22, 1970. The 747 was the first airplane called a "Jumbo Jet" as the first wide-body airliner.
Concorde is a retired Anglo-French supersonic airliner jointly developed and manufactured by Sud Aviation and the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). Studies started in 1954, and France and the United Kingdom signed a treaty establishing the development project on 29 November 1962, as the programme cost was estimated at £70 million . Construction of the six prototypes began in February 1965, and the first flight took off from Toulouse on 2 March 1969. The market was predicted for 350 aircraft, and the manufacturers received up to 100 option orders from many major airlines. On 9 October 1975, it received its French Certificate of Airworthiness, and from the UK CAA on 5 December.
The Ramstein air show disaster occurred on Sunday, 28 August 1988 during the Flugtag '88 airshow at USAF Ramstein Air Base near Kaiserslautern, West Germany. Three aircraft of the Italian Air Force display team collided during their display, crashing to the ground in front of a crowd of about 300,000 people. There were 70 fatalities, and 346 spectators sustained serious injuries in the resulting explosion and fire. Hundreds more had minor injuries. At the time, it was the deadliest air show accident in history until a 2002 crash at the Sknyliv air show that killed 77.
Hermes was a proposed spaceplane designed by the French Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES) in 1975, and later by the European Space Agency (ESA). It was superficially similar to the American Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar and the larger Space Shuttle.
The Boeing Model 247 is an early American airliner, and one of the first such aircraft to incorporate advances such as all-metal semimonocoque construction, a fully cantilevered wing, and retractable landing gear. Other advanced features included control surface trim tabs, an autopilot and de-icing boots for the wings and tailplane. The 247 first flew on February 8, 1933, and entered service later that year.
Otto Wilhelm Fischer was an Austrian film and theatre actor, a leading man of West German cinema during the Wirtschaftswunder era of the 1950s and 1960s.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1952:
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1968.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1972.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1974. 1974 had been deemed as “the single worst year in airline history” although this has since been surpassed.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1977.
The Boeing C-97 Stratofreighter is a long-range heavy military cargo aircraft developed from the B-29 and B-50 bombers. Design work began in 1942, the first of three prototype XC-97s flew on 9 November 1944 and the first of six service-test YC-97s flew on 11 March 1947. All nine were based on the 24ST alloy structure and Wright R-3350 engines of the B-29, but with a larger-diameter fuselage upper lobe and they had the B-29 vertical tail with the gunner's position blanked off. The first of three heavily revised YC-97A incorporating the re-engineered wing, taller vertical tail and larger Pratt & Whitney R-4360 engines of the B-50 bomber, flew on 28 January 1948 and was the basis of the subsequent sole YC-97B, all production C-97s, KC-97s and civilian Stratocruiser aircraft. Between 1944 and 1958, 888 C-97s in several versions were built, 811 being KC-97 tankers. C-97s served in the Berlin Airlift, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Some aircraft served as flying command posts for the Strategic Air Command, while others were modified for use in Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadrons (ARRS).
Tasman Empire Airways Limited (1940–1965), better known by its acronym TEAL, is the former name of Air New Zealand.
Heinrich Wilhelm "Heinz" Rühmann was a German film actor who appeared in over 100 films between 1926 and 1993. He is one of the most famous and popular German actors of the 20th century, and is considered a German film legend. Rühmann is best known for playing the part of a comic ordinary citizen in film comedies such as Three from the Filling Station and The Punch Bowl. During his later years, he was also a respected character actor in films such as The Captain from Köpenick and It Happened in Broad Daylight. His only English-speaking movie was the 1965 Ship of Fools.
Lufthansa Flight 181, a Boeing 737-230C jet airliner named Landshut, was hijacked on 13 October 1977 by four militants of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine while en route from Palma de Mallorca, Spain, to Frankfurt am Main, West Germany. The hijacking aimed to secure the release of eleven notorious Red Army Faction leaders held in West German prisons and two Palestinians held in Turkey. This event was part of the so-called German Autumn, intended to increase pressure on the West German government. The hijackers diverted the flight to several locations before ending in Mogadishu, Somalia, where the crisis concluded in the early morning hours of 18 October 1977 under the cover of darkness. The West German counter-terrorism unit GSG 9, with ground support from the Somali Armed Forces, stormed the aircraft, rescuing all 87 passengers and four crew members. The captain of the flight was killed by the hijackers earlier in the ordeal.
Paul Victor Ernst Dahlke was a German stage and film actor.
Various real-world aircraft have long made significant appearances in fictional works, including books, films, toys, TV programs, video games, and other media.
Events in the year 1926 in Germany.
British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) was the British state-owned airline created in 1939 by the merger of Imperial Airways and British Airways Ltd. It continued operating overseas services throughout World War II. After the passing of the Civil Aviation Act 1946, European and South American services passed to two further state-owned airlines, British European Airways (BEA) and British South American Airways (BSAA). BOAC absorbed BSAA in 1949, but BEA continued to operate British domestic and European routes for the next quarter century. The Civil Aviation Act 1971 merged BOAC and BEA, effective 31 March 1974, forming today's British Airways.
