World Aviation in 1984

12 January
The United States Marine Corps (USMC) receives its first McDonnell Douglas/British Aerospace (BAe) AV8B Harrier II.

7 February
The first un-tethered space-walk is achieved by Captain Bruce McCandless. He leaves the Challenger Space Shuttle 164 miles above Hawaii, wearing a jet powered 'manned manoeuvring unit' back-pack that he had helped to design and 'walkes' 300 feet and back without a safety line.

1 March
Braniff begins to operate a domestic airline services in the United States after a two year gap caused by bankruptcy.

2 July
Escadron de Chasse (EC) ½ at Dijon is the first unit to become operational with the Dassault-Breguet Mirage 2000.

25 July
Cosmonaut Flight Engineer Svetlana Savitskaya becomes the first woman to make a space-walk. She is also the first woman to go into space on two occasions.

14 September
High-altitude parachute jumper, ex-United States Air Force (USAF) Colonel Joe Kittenger begins the first solo, non-stop balloon flight across the Atlantic. Kittenger's flight takes two days.

2 October
Soviet Space vehicle Soyuz T10B lands after setting a new space endurance record of 237 days.

5 October
Boeing sells its 5,000th airliner.

20 November
Briton Julian Nott sets altitude, distance and duration world records for the pressurised balloon class.

14 December
The future of aircraft design may be about to change as the Grumman X29 forward swept-wing advanced-technology demonstrator starts its test programme.