List of years in aviation

This is a list of years in aviation.

Table of contents
1 pre-10th century aviation
2 10th - 16th century aviation
3 17th century aviation
4 18th century aviation
5 19th century aviation
6 1900s in aviation
7 1910s in aviation
8 1920s in aviation
9 1930s in aviation
10 1940s in aviation
11 1950s in aviation
12 1960s in aviation
13 1970s in aviation
14 1980s in aviation
15 1990s in aviation
16 2000s in aviation
17 See also

pre-10th century aviation

  • c. 750 BC
  • c. 600 - 400 BC
    • the Chinese started to use kites.
  • c. 400 BC
    • the often-escribed pigeon of the Greek mathematician Archytas of Tarant could have been a kite.
  • c. 220 BC
    • records indicate that the Chinese used kites as rangefinders.
  • c. 875
    • Abbas Ibn Firnas flies a glider built of wood and feathers outside of Córdoba, Spain.

10th - 16th century aviation

  • c. 1000
    • The glider kite is presumed to have gained currency around the Pacific. It was probably manned and used for military, religious and ceremonial reasons.
  • c. 1010
  • 1241
  • c. 1250
    • Roger Bacon writes the first known technical description of flight, describing an ornithopter design in his book Secrets of Art and Nature.
  • 1282
    • Marco Polo reports on manned and ritual kite ascents.
  • 1486 - 1513
    • Leonardo da Vinci designs an ornithopter with control surfaces. Envisions and sketches flying machines such as helicopters. More: Flight-technical and mathematical studies of Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519). In his notes designs for a parachute, a helicopter and an Ornithopter were found as well as notes of studies of airflows and streamlined shapes. Obviously Leonardo was the first who understands mechanics of the bird flight.
  • 1496
    • The Italian Mathematician Giambattista Danti is supposed to have flown from a tower. There are many descriptions of supposed flights and attempts to fly in many countries. In the Middle Ages the ability to fly was attributed by popular belief to saints and witches.
  • c. 1500
    • Hironymus Bosch shows at his triptych "The temptation of the holy Antonius" among other things two fighting airships above a burning town.
  • 1558
    • Giambattista della Porta publishes a theory and a construction manual for a kite.

17th century aviation

  • 1638
  • 1644
  • 1654
    • Physicist and mayor of Magdeburg, Otto von Guericke measures the weight of air and demonstrates his famous Magdeburger Halbkugeln (hemispheres of Magdeburg).Sixteen horses are unable to pull apart two completely airless hemispheres which stick to each other only because of the external air pressure.
  • 1670
    • Jesuit Francesco Lana de Terzi describes in his treatise Prodomo a vacuum-airship-project, considered the first realistic, technical plan for an airship. However, de Terzi wrote: God will never allow that such a machine be built…because everybody realises that no city would be safe from raids…
  • 1678
    • Supposed flight of French locksmith Jacob Besnier with a flapping wing machine
  • 1680
    • Italian physicist Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, the father of biomechanics, showed in his treatise On the movements of animals that the flapping of wings with the muscle power of the human arm can not be successful.
  • 1687

18th century aviation

  • 1700-1799'
    • The kite is popular during the century.
  • 1709
    • Father Laurenco de Gusmao designs a model hot air balloon and demonstrates it to King John V of Portugal.
  • 1716
    • Well thought-out glider-project of the Swedish scholar Emanuel Swedenborg. Basis for his construction are bird flight and the glider kite.
  • 1738
    • In his Hydrodynamica the Swiss scholar Daniel Bernoulli (1700-1782) formulates the principle of the conservation of energy for gases (Bernoulli's law), the relationship between pressure and velocity in a flow.
  • 1746
    • English military engineer Benjamin Robins (1707-1751) invented a whirling arm apparatus to determine drag.
  • 1766
  • 1772
    • Abbé Desforges unsuccessfully tries to fly an apparatus with a basket and oars made of bird feathers.
  • 1777
    • In St.Louis, the prisoner Dominikus Dufort jumps from a high building with a parachute garment and is rewarded with a spontaneous collection of money.
  • 1781
    • Italian scientist Tiberiua Cavallo, then living in England, sends up soap bubbles filled with oxygen.
  • 1783
    • Sebastian Lenormand does several parachute jumps from the tower of the observatory in Montpellier.
  • 1783
    • June 5, unmanned flight of the Montgolfier brothers hot-air-balloon (Montgolfière) in Vivarais, France. The Montgolfiers demonstrate a hot air balloon in public, at Annonay.
    • August 27, flight of an unmanned experimental hydrogen-balloon in Paris (built by Professor Charles and the brothers Roberts).
    • September 19, the Montgolfiers launch a sheep, duck, and rooster in a hot-air balloon in a demonstration for King Louis XVI of France. The balloon rises some 500 m (1,700 ft) and returns the animals unharmed to the ground.
    • October 15, Pilâtre de Rozier and Marquis d'Arlandes rise into the air in a Montgolfière tethered to the ground in Paris. Pilâtre de Rozier becomes the first human passenger in a hot-air balloon, rising 26 m (84 ft).
    • November 21, in a flight lasting 25 minutes, de Rozier and d'Arlandes take the first untethered ride in a Montgolfière in Paris, the first human passengers carried in free flight by a hot-air balloon.
    • December 1, Charles and his assistant Robert make the first flight in a hydrogen-filled balloon (Charliere). On his second flight, Charles reached an altitude of 2,700 m over Vivarais.
    • Charles launches the first hydrogen-filled balloon. It flies 25 km (15 miles) from Paris to Gonesse and is destroyed by frightened peasants.
    • Charles and Ainé Roberts become the first to fly in a hydogen-filled balloon. They travel from Paris to Nesles, a distance of 43 km (27 miles).
  • 1784
    • Jean-Pierre Blanchard fits a hand-powered propeller to a balloon, the first recorded means of propulsion carried aloft.
    • Pilâtre de Rozier and the chemist Proust rise with a Montgolfière up to 4,000 m.
    • September 19, the brothers Robert and Colin Hullin take a balloon ride over 186 km from Paris to Beuvry.
    • Jean Baptiste Meusnier makes an oblong balloon to explore unknown areas, with an airscrew driven by muscle power.
  • 1785
    • July 1, Jean-Pierre Blanchard and the American meteorologist John Jeffries cross the English Channel from Dover to Guines in an aircraft.
    • June 15, Pilâtre de Rozier and Jules Romain become the first known aeronautical fatalities when their balloon crashes during an attempt to cross the English Channel.
    • Richard Crosbie makes several unsuccessful attempts to cross the Irish Channel in a helium-filled balloon.
  • 1793
  • 1794
  • 1797
    • October 22, André-Jacques Garnerin jumps from a balloon from 6,500 feet over Monceau Park in Paris in a 23-foot-diameter parachute made of white canvas with a basket attached. He was declared "official French aeronaut of the state".
  • 1799
    • Englishman Sir George Cayley (1773-1857) sketched a glider with a rudder unit and an elevator unit. His manuscript is considered to be the starting point of the scientific research on heavier than air flying machines. It was Cayley who helped to sort out the confusion of that time. …"He knew more than any of his predecessors … and successors up to the end of the 19th century." - Orville Wright. Even so his ideas did not affect further development very much.

19th century aviation

  • 1803
    • July 18, Etienne Gaspar Robertson and Lhoest climb from Hamburg (Germany) up to 7,280 m.
    • October 3-4, Frenchman André-Jaques Garnerin covered a distance of 395 km from Paris to Clausen with his Montgolfière.
  • 1804
    • Sir George Cayley builds a model glider with moveable control surfaces.
    • August/September, experiments by physicists Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac and Jean Baptiste Biot disproved the theory that the earth's pull decreases with height.
    • J. Kaiserer suggested making a Montgolfière manoeuverable with the help of tame eagles.
  • 1807
    • Jakob Degen, a watchmaker from Vienna, experimented with an apparatus with valve-flap, flapping wings
  • 1808
    • Degen tried to combine a Montgolfiere with the flapping wings.
  • 1809
    • Degen propels a hydrogen-filled balloon by flapping large ornithopter-style wings.
    • September, Sir George Cayley published his seminal paper On Aerial Navigation, setting out for the first time the scientific principles of heavier-than-air flight.
  • 1811
    • May 31, Albrecht Ludwig Berblinger, the "tailor of Ulm" (Germany) crashes in his apparatus, a copy of Degen's, into the Danube. It was presumably a workable hang glider.
  • 1812
    • July 19, lamp gas usedto fill a Montgolfière (Green).
  • 1836
    • November 7-8, flight of a Montgolfière covering 722 km from London to Weilburg, passing through Green, Holland and Mason.
  • 1837
    • Robert Cocking jumps from a balloon at a height of 2,000 m (6,600 ft) to demonstrate a parachute of his own design, and is killed in the attempt.
  • 1838
    • The American John Wise introduces the ripping panel which is still used today. The panel solved the problem of the Montgolfiere dragging along the ground at landing and needing to be stopped with the help of anchors.
  • 1839
    • Charles Green and the astronomer Spencer Rush climb up to 7,900 m in a free balloon.
  • 1842
    • November, English engineer William Samuel Henson makes the first complete draft of a power driven aeroplane with steam engine drive. The patent follows the works of Cayley. The English House of Commons rejects the motion for the formation of a "Aerial Transport Company" with great laughter
  • 1848
    • William Henson and John Stringfellow build a steam powered model aircraft, with a wingspan of 10 ft (3.5 m) which successfully flies a distance of 40 m before crashing into a wall. This was the world's first heavier-than-air powered flight.
  • 1849
    • July 12 and July 25, balloons (Montgolfières) are used for bombardment for the first time, with Austrians bombing Venice.
    • Sir George Cayley launches a 10-year old boy in a small glider being towed by a team of people running down a hill. This is the first known flight by a person in a heavier-than-air machine, though is not as recognised as the 1853 flight.
    • October 7, Frenchman Francisque Arban flies over the Alps in a free balloon (Marseille-Subini near by Turin).
  • 1852
    • September 24, English engineer Henri Giffard flies 27 km (17 miles) in a steam-powered dirigible, reaching a speed of about 10 km/h.
    • Formation of the first society for promoting aerial navigation (Societe Aeostatique de France).
  • 1853
    • Late June or early July: Sir George Cayley's coachman successfully flies a glider, designed by his employer, a distance of roughly 423 ft (130 m) across Brompton Dale in Yorkshire, becoming the world's first (uncontrolled) adult aeroplane pilot.
  • 1855
    • Joseph Pline is the first person to use the word "aeroplane" in a paper proposing a gas filled dirigible glider with propellers.
  • 1857
    • Félix Du Temple flies clockwork and steam-powered model aircraft, the first sustained powered flights by heavier-than-air machines.
    • French brothers du Temple de la Croix apply after successful attempts with models for a patent for a power-driven aeroplane.
    • French Captain Jean Marie Le Bries makes attempts to fly after he studying albatros flight. It is said that his attempts were successful. A photographic picture gives evidence of his flying apparatus.
  • 1858
    • French airman Nadar takes the first aerial photographs.
  • 1859
    • July 1 and 2, John Wise and three companions complete a Montgolfière flight over a distance of 1,292 km (St. Louis - Henderson, USA).
  • 1861
    • First telegraph message is sent from the air, by Thaddeus Lowe in the balloon Enterprise.
    • The American Army Balloon Corps is formed under Lowe's command, for observation and artillery direction. Balloons would see major use in the U.S. Civil War over the next four years.
    • The USS George Washington Parke Curtiss becomes the first warship dedicated to air operations, transporting and towing reconnaissance balloons along the Potomac River.
  • 1862
    • September 5, after a dramatic take-off, aeronaut Coxwell and English physicist Glaisher reach 9,000 m.
  • 1864
    • Outbreak of the Paraguayan War between Paraguay and Brazil. Brazilian forces made much use of balloon reconnaissance over the next six years.
  • 1865
    • Jules Verne describes in his novel The Journey to the Moon the launch of a rocket from Cape Kennedy, from where many years later U. S. space flights actually start.
    • The Frenchman d'Esterno writes in his book About the flight of birds, "Gliding seems to be characteristic for heavy birds; there are no odds which are stacked against that humans can not do the same at fair wind."
    • French artist and farmer Louise Pierre Mouillard makes a successful attempt to fly. After years of studies about bird flight he publishes his book L'Empire de l'Air in 1881. He thinks that imitation of gliding and soaring flight of birds is possible, but not the imitation of the flapping of wings.
  • 1867
    • Henry Giffard installs a huge captive balloon for 20 passengers at the World Exposition in Paris.
  • 1868
    • M.Boulton applies for an English patent for the use of a wing flap.
    • First exhibition of aviation in London's Crystal Palace.
  • 1870
    • Balloons are used by the French to transport letters and passengers out of besieged Paris during the Franco-Prussian War. Between September and the following January, 66 flights carried 110 passengers and up to three million letters out of Paris.
  • 1871
    • The Englishmen Wenham and Browning do air flow experiments in a wind tunnel.
  • 1872
    • German engineer Paul Haenlein flies a dirigible with an internal combustion engine on a tether in Vienna, the first use of such an engine to power an aircraft.
    • February 2, French navy-engineer Dupuy de Lome achieves 9 to 11 km/h with his muscle powered airship.
    • December 13, Paul Haenlein tests the first airship with a gas engine in Brünn, achieving 19 km/h. The tests were stopped because of a shortage of money.
  • 1874
    • July 5, Belgian Vincent de Groof is killed in an accident as he tries to do a flight using flapping wings.
    • September 20, Du Temple builds a steam-powered monoplane which achieves a short hop after gaining speed by rolling down a ramp. It carries a human passenger whose identity is no longer known.
  • 1875
    • Englishman Thomas Moy tests a tethered power driven aeroplane with steam engine drive and a wing span of 4 m.
    • April 15, the scientific flight of the montgolfiere "Zenith" up to 8,000 m ends in the death of two aeronauts and the deafness of Gaston Tissandier.
  • 1876
    • Frenchmen Penaud and Gauchot apply for a patent for a power-driven aeroplane with a device for drawing in the undercarriage, and wings with upward dihedral and a stick control.
  • 1877
    • First flight of a steam-driven model helicopter (Forlanini).
  • 1878
    • Charles F. Ritchel publicly demonstrates of his hand-powered, one-man rigid airship, and eventually sells five of them.
  • 1879
    • The British Army gains its first balloon, the Pioneer.
    • Frenchman Victor Tatin builds a power-driven model aeroplane with airscrews and a compressed air motor, successfully flying off the ground.
  • 1880
    • Aleksandr Mozhaiski patents a steam-powered aircraft
    • Karl Wölfert and Ernst Baumgarten attempt to fly a powered dirigible in free flight, but crash.
    • Balloons are used in British military maneuvers for the first time at Aldershot
  • 1881
    • The Russian Alexander Fjodorowitsch Moshaiski gains a patent for a power driven aeroplane with a steam engine.
  • 1882
    • Wölfert unsuccessfully tests a balloon powered by a hand-cranked propeller
    • The Berlin-based "German Society for Promoting Aviation" publishes a magazine, the "Zeitschrift für Luftschiffahrt" (Magazine of Aviation).
  • 1883
    • The first electric-powered flight is made by Gaston Tissandier who fits a Siemens electric motor to a dirigible. Airships with electric engines (Tissandier brothers, Renard and Krebs).
    • German Gottlieb Daimler invents the fast moving internal combustion engine, which is suitable for aviation because of its good power to weight ratio.
  • 1884
    • Mozhaiski finishes his monoplane (span 14 m, or 46 ft). It makes a short hop after running down a launch ramp.
    • August 9, the first fully controllable free-flight is made in a French Army dirigible La France by Charles Renard and Arthur Krebs. The electric-powered flight covers 8 km (5 miles) in 23 minutes. It was the first full circle flight with landing on the starting point.
    • British Army balloons are taken on the expedition to Bechuanaland in South Africa.
    • Englishman Horatio F.Philipps has a patent issued for caved profiles of wings.
  • 1885
    • The Prussian Airship Arm (Preussische Luftschiffer Abteilung) becomes a permanent unit of the army.
    • British Army balloons are taken to Sudan by the expeditionary force headed there.
  • 1886
    • John J. Montgomery makes a controlled heavier-than-air flight. His first two gliders did not include flight controls but his third featured aileron prototypes.
    • September 12 and September 13|13]], Frenchmen Hervé and Alluard achieve a Montgolfiere flight over 24 hours.
  • 1888
    • Wölfert flies a petrol powered dirigible at Seelburg. The engine was built by Gottlieb Daimler.
  • 1889
    • Percival Spencer makes a successful parachute jump from a balloon at Drumcondra, Ireland
    • Percy Pilcher builds a human-carrying glider, the Hawk, and begins development of a light internal combustion engine.
    • Otto Lilienthal publishes in his book Der Vogelflug als Grundlage der Fliegekunst (Bird Flight as the Basis of Aviation) measurements on wings, so called polar diagrams, which are the concept of description of artificial wings even today. The book gives a reference for the advantages of the arched wing.
  • 1890s
  • 1890
    • October 9, Clement Ader reportedlyachieved powered, uncontrolled, low, heavier-than-air flight in the aeroplane "Eole".
  • 1891
    • Otto Lilienthal flies over 25 metres. He begins a series of glider flights, attempting to develop a practical ornithopter. Although he did not achieve this goal, he became the first person to make repeatable, controlled flights in a series of heavier-than-air devices. First controlled glider flights in excess of 300m. Performs the first well-documented and photographed flights. Breaks his spine on the 2500th flight. Leaves influential notebooks.
  • 1892
    • Clément Ader is contracted by the French War Ministry to build an aircraft to be used as a bomber.
    • Austria's army gains a permanent air corps, the Kaiserlich und Königliche Militäräronautische Ansalt ("Imperial and Royal Military Aeronautical Group")
    • Horatio Phillips built a steam-powered aircraft at Harrow which was tethered to the centre of a circular track. It successfully left the ground, even when carrying 32 kg (72 lb) of ballast. (Some sources list 1893)
  • 1893
    • Lawrence Hargrave demonstrates a human-carrying glider in Australia at an aeronautical congress in Sydney. It is based on the box kite, an invention of Hargrave's. It becomes an example for several scientific kites and aeroplane constructions.
    • First experiments of the Englishman Philipps with a 50-wing-plane.
  • 1894
    • Czeslaw Tanski successfully flies powered models in Poland and begins work on full-size gliders.
    • Railway engineer Octave Chanute publishes Progress in Flying Machines, describing the research completed so far into flight. Chanute's book. a summary of many articles published in the "American Engineer and Railroad Journal", is a comprehensive account on the stage of development worldwide on the way to the aeroplane.
    • American Hiram Maxim launches an enormous biplane (wingspan 32 m, 105 ft) propelled by two steam engines. It makes a short hop after running down a length of railway track.
    • November, Lawrence Hargrave demonstrates stable flight with a tethered box kite.
    • December 4, German meteorologist Berson climbs up with an airship to 9,155 m.
    • Maxim's large aircraft is damaged in roll tests which showed the possibility og achieving take-off. After that he stopped his experiments, which had already cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars.
    • Otto Lilienthal goes with his "Normal-apparatus" in the first serial production of an aeroplane. With different aeroplane constructions he covers distances up to 250 metres.
  • 1895
    • Percy Pilcher makes his first successful flight in a glider named Bat.
  • 1896
    • May 6, Samuel Langley successfully flies steam-powered model aircraft from a houseboat on the Potomac over 1 km distance.
    • August 9 Otto Lilienthal crashes during a routine flight in the hills of Stölln and dies next day because of a spinal injury.
    • From June, Octave Chanute organises a flyer camp at Lake Michigan. Tested was a Lilienthal-glider (reconstruction) and a biplane built by Chanute, which was the basis for the further development of flight technique
    • David Schwarz's rigid airship makes its first flight at Tempelhof field, but crashes.
    • Germans August Parseval and Bartsch Sigsfeld invent the kite balloon for observations in strong winds.
  • 1897
    • Salomon Andrée attempts an Arctic expedition by balloon. He and two companions crash within three days but manage to survive for several months in the pack ice. Their remains are later discovered on White Island.
    • June 11, S. A. Andrée, N. Strindberg and K. Fraenkel fly from Spitzbergen in a free balloon on an expedition to the North Pole. They were found dead in 1930. It was possible to develop the located film material.
    • June 12, Friedrich Hermann Wölfert and his mechanic are killed in an accident when their airship powered by petrol caught fire at a demonstration at the Tempelhof field.
    • Ader makes short hops in his steam-powered Avion III. The Army is not impressed and withdraws his funding.
    • The first flight in a rigid airship is made by Ernst Jägels, flying an all-aluminium craft designed by David Schwarz and built by Carl Berg. It is damaged beyond repair while landing.
  • 1899
    • The Wright brothers begin experimenting with wing-warping as a means of controlling an aircraft.
    • Samuel Cody begins experiments with kites big enough to lift a person
    • Percy Pilcher flies various gliders and is close to completing a powered machine when he is tragically killed when his glider crashes at Stanford Hall, England after a tail strut fails. The flight was intended as a display of powered flight, but when the engine was not ready in time, Pilcher used a team of horses to pull the glider into the air.

1900s in aviation

  • 1900
  • 1901
    • Royal Aero Club founded.
    • Alberto Santos-Dumont flies his airship Number 6 from the Parc Saint Cloud around the Eiffel Tower and back in under 30 minutes.
    • July 31, German meteorologists Berson and Süring climb to 10,800 m in a free balloon.
    • August 14, German-American Gustav Weißkopf reportedly achieves the first stable engine flight over a half a mile in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The flight is disputed, and did not effect development of engine flight.
    • October 19, Brazilian Alberto Santos-Dumont flies airship "Nr. 6" from St. Cloud, around the Eiffel Tower and back to his starting point within 30 minutes to win the Deutsch-Award, and 100,000 Francs.
    • The seaplane of the Austrian W. Kress is destroyed at take-off.
    • First flights of a power-driven model aeroplane with a petrol engine (Prof. Langley, USA).
    • The Wright brothers optimise their wing design with the help of wind tunnel measurements.
  • 1902
  • 1903
  • 1904
    • The Wrights ask for patents for their flying machine in Germany and France.
    • September 20, Wright's Flyer 2 flies the first complete circle by an aeroplane. Some flights made without catapult or headwind assisted takeoff.
  • 1905
    • Wilbur Wright flies for 38 minutes and 24.2 miles (39 km).
    • In Santa Clara (California) Daniel Maloney flies for 20 minutes with a glider after he started from a montgolfiere at 1,220 metres height. He crashed in a later flight.
    • October 14, in Paris, foundation of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), which is still active today .
    • The engineer Léger's helicopter lifts a person vertically into the air in Monaco.
  • 1906
    • March, Traian Vuia makes a short powered flight without headwind or catapult assisted takeoff. Not launched from a height.
    • October, Alberto Santos-Dumont makes a powered flight without headwind or catapult assisted takeoff. Not launched from a height. Generally recognized as first to fly an aircraft in Europe.
    • "Swabia-drive" of the Zeppelin-airship LZ III. The airship flies 350 km in eight hours.
    • First Gordon-Bennett free balloon race. Initially the race was open for all aircraft, but only balloons managed to cover great distances.
  • 1907
    • Robert Esnault-Pelterie becomes first pilot to fly using a control stick.
  • 1908
    • The United States Army announces plans to buy flying machines.
    • May, first heavy-than-air passenger carrying flight. Wilbur Wright flew Charles W. Furnas for a distance of 2.5 miles in a Wright Model B.
    • September, Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge became the first person killed in a powered airplane and the first military aviation casualty when Wilbur Wright crashed his two-passenger plane during military tests at Fort Myer in Virginia.
    • September 9, Orville Wright flies 1 hour 3 minutes and 15 seconds.
    • October 5, the Zeppelin-airship LZ IV destroyed by fire at Echterdingen.
    • October 14, Henry Farman makes the first cross-country flight in a power-driven aeroplane, from Bouy to Reims (27 km) in 20 minutes.
    • October 18, Wilbur Wright climbs to 115 metres above Auvours.
    • December 31, Wilbur Wright flies 2 hours and 20 minutes at Auvours.
  • 1909
    • John A.D. McCurdy flys the Silver Dart, the first controlled powered flight in Canada and the British Empire.
    • July 25, Louis Bleriot crosses the English Channel, Calais to Dover, in his successful power-driven aeroplane "Blériot XI".
    • July-October International Exhibition of Aviation in Frankfurt/M (ILA - regularly in Berlin in our times).
    • November 16, foundation of the first air transport company in the world, the DELAG (German Aviation Company).

1910s in aviation

  • 1910
    • Frederick Baldwin and John A.D. McCurdy, using a Curtiss biplane, are the first pilots to send radio messages to the ground.
    • January 7, Frenchman Hubert Latham is the first pilot to climb to 1000 metres.
    • March 28, Henry Fabre flies the first successful seaplane.
    • First night flights.
    • Races between aeroplanes and cars are only won by racing cars.
    • March 14, Louis Paulhan flies 146 km in a straight route from Orleans to Trois.
    • July 9, Frenchman Léon Morane sets a new speed record of 106 km/h.
    • August, first international aviation meeting is held at Reims in France.
    • September 23, the Peruvian Geo Chavez flies the Blériot-monoplane over the Alps from Brig (Switzerland) to Domodossola (Italy) reaching a height of 2200 metres, but was killed in a crash landing.
    • October, Romanian inventor Henri Coanda (1886-1972), constructed the first prototype thermojet.
    • Hugo Junkers gets a patent for his thick wing/all-wing type aeroplane.
    • Harriet Quimby, the first licensed female pilot in the United States, becomes the first woman to fly the English Channel.
  • 1911
    • Andre Beaumont beats Roland Garros in the Paris to Rome air race.
    • Calbraith Perry Rodgers becomes the first person to fly coast-to-coast across the USA in the Vin Fiz Flyer, taking 49 days, and experiencing several crashes en-route.
    • April 12, Pierre Prier flies nonstop from London to Paris in less than 4 hours.
    • July, first commercial cargo carried by an aircraft, a case of electric lamps, from Shoreham to Hove in England.
    • October, first aircraft used in war, a Bleriot monoplane, flies from Tripoli to Azizia to spy on Turkish positions.
    • October 24, Orville Wright soars in a glider 9 minutes and 45 seconds over dunes near Kitty Hawk (North Carolina).
  • 1912
    • March, Albert Berry does the first parachute jump out of an aeroplane in St. Louis (USA).
    • April 13, King George V approves the Royal Flying Corps, the UK's first Air Force.
    • June 19, the RFC's Central Flying School opened at Upavon, Wiltshire.
    • First all-metal aircraft flies, the Tubavion monoplane built by Ponche and Primard in France.
  • 1913
    • China receives its first air fleet, 12 aircraft designed by French plane maker Rene Cuadron
    • First air strike ever. Mexican pilot Gustavo Salinas Camilla and Frenchman Didier Masson, attacked land and naval federal forces for rebels led by Pancho Villa.
    • April 24, O. Gilbert flies 825 km from Villacoublay to Vitoria (8 hours and 23 minutes).
    • September 1, Frenchman Adolphe Pégoud does the first upside-down flight.
    • September 9, Prevost reaches 204 km/h with the "Deperdussin-racing aeroplane".
    • December 11, first flight of the Russian large aeroplane "Ilja Murometz" (4 engines, 4.5 t lift off mass, 2 crew members, 10 passengers).
    • December 13 - 14, German balloonist Hugo Kaulen stays aloft for 87 hours. This record lasted until 1935.
  • 1914
    • 1914 to 1918 First World War. Aviation changes war in a twofold way. The aeroplane turns the sky into a new battle field where about 20,000 flyers, most of them trained pilots die. Aircraft eliminate the distinction between frontline and hinterland, with the civilian population far behind the frontline also becoming a target.
    • The St. Petersburg/Tampa Airboat Line starts services, becoming the first airline to provide services. A.C. Pheil is the first airline passenger.
    • Germany builds a 1200 plane air force at start of WW1. First aerial combats.
    • February 8-10, Berliner, Haase and Nikolai fly 3053 km in their free balloon from Bitterfeld to Perm. This record lasted until 1950.
    • July 10-11, German Reinhold Böhm flies his Albatros-biplane 24 hours and 12 minutes without refueling and nonstopr. This one-man-flight record lasted until1927.
  • 1915
    • Aerobatic ace Adolphe Pegoud dies from hemorrage after landing his plane successfully.
    • August 12, Flight Commander Charles Edmonds, flying a Short 184 seaplane from HMS Ben-my-Chree made the first ever aerial torpedo attack, launching a 14 inch (356 mm) torpedo which hit a Turkish ship in the Dardanelles.
    • July 25, Captain Lanoe Hawker of the RFC wins first Victoria Cross for aerial combat, over France.
  • 1916
  • 1917
  • 1918
    • April 21, von Richthofen, more commonly known as the Red Baron, was killed when shot down by Canadian, Captain A. Roy Brown, flying a Sopwith Camel.
  • 1919

1920s in aviation

1930s in aviation

1940s in aviation

1950s in aviation

  • 1950
  • 1951
  • 1952
    • The British state airline BOAC introduced into service the first jet airliner the De Havilland Comet.
    • The first non-stop, unrefuelled flight from England to Australia was completed by an English Electric Canberra bomber in under 24 hours.
  • 1953
  • 1954
    • Last operational flight by a RAF Spitfire, a photo-reconnaissance sortie against bandits in Malaya, April 1.
  • 1955
    • George F. Smith becomes the first man to survive a supersonic ejection from a North American F100 Super Sabre travelling (Mach 1.05).
  • 1956
    • The Bell X2 research aircraft is flown by Captain Iven C. Kincheloe to an altitude of 38,466 metres (126,200 feet).
  • 1957
    • Three Boeing B52 Stratofortresses make the world's first round the world, non-stop flight by turbojet-powered aircraft. The flight is completed in 45 hours 19 minutes, with an average speed of 859kph (534mph).
  • 1958
  • 1959

1960s in aviation

  • 1960
    • Major Robert White of the United States Air Force (USAF), pilots the North American X15 research aircraft to an altitude of 41,600 metres (136,500 feet)
  • 1961
    • First known manned space flight by Yuri Gagarin, once around the planet within 108 minutes.
  • 1962
  • 1963
    • Joe Walker increases the height record for the North American X15A to 106,010 metres (347,800 feet).
  • 1964
    • Maiden flight of the Kestrel, forerunner of the Harrier, March 7
    • First ever automatic blind landing by a passenger aircraft when a BOAC Hawker-Siddeley Trident landed in dense fog, November 4
  • 1965
    • A Sikorsky SH3A Sea King makes the first non-stop helicopter flight across North America. distance travelled is 3,405 kilometres (2,116 miles).
  • 1966
  • 1967
    • Air speed record of 4,534 mph (Mach 6.1) is established by the North American X-15 research aircraft.
  • 1968
    • Apollo 8 orbits the moon with Borman, Lovell and Anders.
  • 1969
    • The RAF's No 1 Sqn became the first operational fixed wing VTOL squadron in the world, July.
    • Boeing 747 is unveiled. At the time the largest passenger carrying aircraft ever built and one which was to revolutionise commercial air travel.
    • The Concorde supersonic aircraft makes its first test flight, at Bristol, England. March 2.
    • July: Neil Armstrong is the first man to walk on the moon.

1970s in aviation

  • 1970
    • Two Sikorsky HH53C helicopters complete a non-stop transpacific flight of 14,484 kilometres (9,000 miles) using in-flight refuelling.
  • 1971
  • 1972
    • The Cessna aircraft company announces the completion of the company's 100,000th aircraft, the first company in the world to achieve this figure.
  • 1973
  • 1974
    • A SR-71 Blackbird crossed the Atlantic Ocean in less than two hours.
    • British Airways formed as a result of merger.
  • 1975
    • A specially modified McDonnell Douglas F15 Eagle sets a time to climb record of 3 minutes 27 seconds from standstill on the runway to a height of 30,000 metres (98,425 feet).
  • 1976
  • 1977
    • August: Gossamer Condor became the first human-powered aeroplane, flying a figure-8 course to demonstrate sustained, controlled flight.
  • 1978
    • McDonnell Douglas delivers its 5,000th McDonnell Douglas F4 Phantom aircraft, twenty years after the first flight of the prototype.
  • 1979
    • Production of the A4 Skyhawk ends after 26 years, with the delivery of the 2,690th and final aircraft to the United States Marine Corps (USMC).

1980s in aviation

1990s in aviation

  • 1990
    • The first of two new Air Force Ones, VIP variants of the Boeing 747-200, for the use of the United States President and his staff, are delivered.
  • 1991
    • Pan American World Airlines (Pan-Am) stops flying after 73 years. The company is unable to continue because of financial difficulties.
  • 1992
    • Flt Lt Nicky Smith, graduated from 89 Course at Shawbury to become the RAF's first female helicopter pilot, October 16.
  • 1993
    • The 1,000th Boeing 747 comes off the production line 26 years after the first 747 was built.
  • 1994
    • Flt Lt Jo Salter posted to 617 Sqn (Tornado GR1Bs), the RAF's first female fast jet pilot, August.
  • 1995
    • A Concorde sets a new speed record for a round-the-world flight. It returns to JFK International Airport in New York after a journey lasting 31 hours 27 minutes, passing through Toulouse, Dubai, Bangkok, Guam, Honolulu and Acapulco.
  • 1996
  • 1997
    • The Boeing 777-300 is rolled out. At 73 metres (242 feet) it is the longest airliner ever built.
  • 1998
    • The unmanned Ryan RQ4A Global Hawk flies for the first time.
  • 1999
    • Hot air balloon 'Breitling Orbiter 3' completes the first non-stop, round the world balloon flight. This sets a new distance record for any type of aircraft of 40,804 kilometres (25,360 miles).
Fear of the Y2K computer bug and possible in-flight consequences for those planes flying during the night of December 31, 1999 and the early morning of January 1, 2000, spreads around the airline industry.

2000s in aviation

See also

List of Aircraft | Aircraft Manufacturers | Aircraft Engines | Aircraft Engine Manufacturers
Airlines | Air Forces | Aircraft Weapons | Missiles | Years in Aviation 




      		
      










      		
    

  




  
    

      












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