In 1955, Yvonne van den Dool became the first woman to hold a Senior Commercial Pilot's Licence in South Africa.
She remained the only female pilot to do so for the next 17 years.
Born in Johannesburg in 1930, van den Dool began flying at the age of 19 and was forced to work for free, and to take on dangerous missions her male peers didn’t want, to achieve her dreams.
The primitive helicopter – a twin-rotor craft powered by a 24-horsepower engine – only lifted Cornu about 1.5m off the ground, holding him there for 20 seconds at Coquainvilliers, near Lisieux in France.
But that was enough for Cornu to take his place in the history books as the first man to successfully fly a rotary wing aircraft.
Two-hundred and twenty years ago today, on 22 October 1797, pioneering balloonist André-Jacques Garnerin became the modern world's first successful parachutist.
Born on 31 January 1769 in Paris, France, Garnerin reportedly first came up with the concept of a parachute whilst a prisoner in a Hungarian prison during the French Revolution – he was looking for a means of escape.
French aviators Dieudonné Costes and co-pilot Joseph Le Brix became the first pilots to fly across the South Atlantic Ocean 90 years ago, on 14-15 October 1927.
They set off on 14 October 1927 from Saint-Louis, Senegal and flew more than 3,300km to Port Natal in Brazil.
The pair were flying a Breguet XIX GR and the flight took 18 hours and covered 3,380km. The flight was part of a round-the-world expedition that started in Paris on 10 October1927. They completed the trip on 14 April 1928 after travelling a total of 57,000km.
Chuck Yeager became the first man to break the sound barrier 70-years ago today, 14 October 2017. He made the historic flight on 14 October 1947 flying an X-1 at Mach 1.07 at an altitude of 45,000ft (13,700m).
Aged just 24-years old at the time this achievement, the American pilot served as a private and mechanic in the US Army Air Force before enlisting in pilot training. Upon graduating, he became a P-51 fighter pilot.
On this day in history: Felix Baumgartner jumped from the edge of Space setting three FAI world records in the process.
Felix Baumgartner, an Austrian skydiver and pilot, set three major FAI world records on 14 October 2012, when he jumped from a balloon that had taken him to the edge of Space.
Baumgartner, who was 43 at the time of the record, set world records for free-fall distance and speed, as well as altitude.
The three FAI world records he set were:
