January 27

What happened on January 27 in aviation and space history.

• January 27, 1959

  First flight of the Convair 880

  First flight — The Convair 880 flew for the first time on 1959-01-27.

• January 27, 1967

  Apollo 1 fire

  Accident — On 27 January 1967 a cabin fire during a launch rehearsal test at Cape Kennedy Air Force Station Launch Complex 34 killed the three crew members of Apollo 1: Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger B. Chaffee. The mission, initially designated AS-204, had been due to launch on 21 February 1967 as the first crewed low Earth orbital test of the Apollo command and service module. The command module was destroyed, and NASA later made the name Apollo 1 official in the crew's honour.

• January 27, 1994

  JAST program office chartered, the administrative origin of the F-35

  Institutional — The U.S. Department of Defense signed the founding charter of the Joint Advanced Strike Technology (JAST) program office, tasked with maturing the airframe, sensor and weapons technologies that would underpin a future tactical fighter common to the Air Force, the Navy and the Marine Corps. That remit became, about eighteen months later, the programme renamed Joint Strike Fighter, and from it the F-35 Lightning II. The office also took in the work of the earlier ASTOVL and CALF efforts, which had been exploring a supersonic replacement for the Harrier.