Wikipedia:
1966 in aviation
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1966:
Events
- Puerto Rican International Airlines begin services.
January
- January 17 - a B-52 Stratofortress collides with a KC-135 Stratotanker during aerial refueling near Palomares, Spain. Seven crewmembers are killed in the crash, and two of the B-52's nuclear weapons rupture, scattering radioactive material over the countryside. One bomb lands intact near the town, and another is lost at sea. It is later recovered intact 5 miles (8 km) offshore.
- January 24 - An Air India Boeing 707 jet crashes on Mont Blanc, on the border between France and Italy, killing 117.
February
- February 8 - Freddie Laker founds Laker Airways
March
May
- Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21s start to appear in the skies over Vietnam
- May 23 to May 26 - Round-the-world demonstration flight by a new Learjet 24 to exhibit its capabilities; flight time was 50 hours and 20 minutes.
June
- The Indian Air Force begins re-arming to replace losses from the previous year's skirmishes with Pakistan
- June 7 - Robert and Joan Wallick set a round-the-world flight record
- June 8 - one of the
XB-70 Valkyrie prototypes is destroyed in a mid-air collision with a F-104 Starfighter chase plane - June 20 - Sheila Scott completes a solo round-the-world flight
- June 29 - The U.S. Air Force bombs Hanoi for the first time
July
- July 1 - U.S. Navy aircraft from USS Constellation and USS Hancock sink three North Vietnamese torpedo boats
September
- September 9 - the Concorde's Rolls-Royce Olympus engine begins flight tests underneath an Avro Vulcan bomber
- September 24 - Marina Solovyeva sets a new women's airspeed record of 2,044 km/h (1,270 mph) in the Mikoyan-Gurevich Ye-76
November
- November 1 - Air Canada begins the first North American air services to the Soviet Union
- November 18 - Captain William J. Knight flies the North American X-15 to a record speed of Mach 6.33 (4,250 mph, 6,840 km/h)
December
- December 6 - the West German Luftwaffe grounds its fleet of F-104s to investigate continuing accidents with the type.
First flights
January
February
- February 23 - Dornier Do 28 D-INTL
March
- March 5 - Lockheed D-21 Drone
- March 17 - Bell X-22
- March 18 - Wassmer WA-50
April
- April 12 - Pilatus PC-7
- April 29 - Neiva Universal (PP-ZTW)
July
August
- August 2 - Sukhoi Su-17 prototype Su-7IG
- August 12 - Learjet 25
- August 31 - Hawker Siddeley Harrier
October
November
December
Entered service
January
- January 7 - SR-71 Blackbird with the US Air Force
- January 20 - Short Belfast with No. 53 Squadron RAF
July
September
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