1968 IN AVIATION

This is a list of aviation-related events from 1968:

Contents

Events

First flights

Entered service

Events

'January'

★ January 21 - a US Air Force B-52 Stratofortress crashes in the sea near Thule Air Base Greenland, carrying four nuclear weapons.
'March'

★ March 27 - Yuri Gagarin is killed in the crash of a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15
'May'

★ May 5 - a Grumman Gulfstream II becomes the first executive jet to cross the Atlantic
'August'

★ August 13 - Swedish Count Gustav von Rosen defies Nigerian air defences to fly in supplies to the Biafran rebels

★ August 31 - the Rolls-Royce RB.211 is successfully ground-tested
'September'

★ September 11 - Air New Zealand flies T. H. Williams, Sir Charles Kingsford Smith's navigator to Sydney to commemorate the 40th anniversary of their first trans-Tasman flight

★ September 30 - the first Boeing 747 is rolled out
'December'

★ December 24 - Apollo 8 orbits the moon carrying Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders.

First flights

'May'

★ May 25 - Grumman EA-6B Prowler
'June'

★ June 30 - C-5 Galaxy
'July'

★ Nord N 500 (tethered)
'September'

★ September 8 - SEPECAT Jaguar
'November'

★ November 13 - Northrop HL-10
'December'

★ December 3 - Anahuac Tauro ''XB-TAX''

★ December 31 - Tupolev Tu-144

Entered service

'February'

★ Boeing 737 with Lufthansa