August 27

What happened on August 27 in aviation and space history.

• August 27, 1939

  First turbojet-powered flight (Heinkel He 178)

  First flight — On 27 August 1939 German test pilot Erich Warsitz took the Heinkel He 178 into the air, the world's first aircraft to fly on the thrust of a turbojet engine. Warsitz had already made the first flight of a liquid-fuelled rocket-powered aeroplane, the He 176, on 20 June of the same year. The He 178 opened the jet age that would dominate military and commercial aviation for the rest of the century.