Chronography of �the aviation industry
Page last
modified 23/3/2022
See also Aviation Companies (airlines,
manufacturers)
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and innovation
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General aviation related,
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Appendix 1 -� Air accidents and disasters
Appendix 3 � Airports
Appendix 4 � Air speed, height,
distance records
19/12/2018, Gatwick Airport was closed this evening following
sightings of a drone over the runway. The airport remained closed for 36 hours
running the travel plans of some 350,000 people.
27/4/2005, The Airbus A380 jet made
its maiden flight from Toulouse, France. It replaced the 747 Jumbo jet as the
world�s ;largest passenger plane.
24/10/2003. Concorde made its last commercial flight, from New
York to London. Commercial flights
had begun on 21/1/1976. Economic conditions meant that many of the plane�s
regular flyers had not been booking over the past two years.
2/7/2002. Steve
Fossett became the first
person to circumnavigate the globe in a hot air balloon on his own without
stopping.
7/11/2001, After a 15-month
break, supersonic flights by Concorde
resumed.
17/10/1998, US Airways placed a record-sized order for 276
Airbus A319s.
8/6/1998, British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott announced plans
for the privatisation of Britain�s Air Traffic Control.
16/1/1998, For safety reasons, Russia closed own over 200
small airlines that had started up since 1992. 315 airlines were pared down to
just 53.
8/9/1997, The Boeing 777-300 was unveiled. It was 77 metres
long, the longest aircraft to date.
2/4/1993, 1st test flight of Fokker 70.
11/1/1993. Richard Branson won a legal victory after British
Airways apologised for a �dirty tricks� campaign against Virgin Atlantic
Airways.
1/9/1991, Boeing ended production of the 707 after 37 years.
18/8/1989, The Qantas Boeing 747-400 Spirit of Australia flew
non-stop from London to Sydney in 19 hours 10 minutes.
27/1/1989, Sir Thomas Octave Sopwith, designer of the World War One
biplane called the Sopwith Camel, died.
9/11/1988, The Pentagon unveiled its new �Stealth� fighter plane, supposedly
invisible to enemy radar. It used radar-absorbent materials and a �faceted�
surface that reflected radar signals at odd angles.
28/3/1988, Roll-out of the new Airbus A320.
23/11/1987, Of the 128 new airlines created in the USA after
deregulation, only 37 were still in business.
23/12/1986, The
aircraft Voyager landed in California, to become the first aircraft to fly
round the world without refuelling.
17/8/1986, Boeing
celebrated the roll-out of its 5,000th airliner.
30/6/1985, The US
hostages from a TWA jet hijacked by two Shi�ite gunmen on 24/6/1985 and
diverted to Beirut, were released, following Syrian intervention.
13/9/1984, US pilot Joe Kittinger
became the first person to fly a hot air balloon across the Atlantic. He took
off from Caribou, Maine, USA, and landed in Montenotte, Italy, 86 hours later,
having flown 3,543 miles.
22/6/1984. The first Virgin Atlantic flight left
Gatwick for New York. The single fare was �99.
9/12/1983, The 1,000th Boeing 737 was produced.
16/2/1982, Roll out of the first A310 aircraft.
15/8/1980, Gerry Breen
arrived at Land�s End, four days after having set off from John O Groats by
hang glider.
1/8/1980. The Air
Show at Oshkosh, Wisconsin opened. It ran till 8/8/1980 and attracted a record
250,000 spectators and 6,000 aircraft.
31/12/1979, In 1979 British airlines flew 47 billion passenger
kilometres; this compares with 6 million passenger kilometres flown in 1936.
20/4/1979, The last Concorde to be built made its maiden flight. Only 16 of the aircraft were ever built; they were too noisy. Even the lawyer
hired to secure landing rights publically admitted �Concorde is noisy as hell�.
13/1/1979, Concorde began a regular service
between Washington DC and Dallas airports.
24/10/1978, US President Jimmy Carter signed the Airlines
Deregulation Act. This allowed commercial airlines to ditch their
unprofitable short haul routes and to compete on the main inter-city routes and
tourist flights.
15/9/1978, Wilhelm Messerschmitt, German aviation engineer and
designer, died aged 80.
17/8/1978. The first crossing of the Atlantic by balloon. The huge black and silver balloon, Double Eagle
II, landed in a wheat field at Miserey, near Paris, 137 hours after leaving Maine.
It was flown by three Americans, Ben Abruzzo, Max Anderson and Larry Newman.
9/12/1977, Concorde
began a short-lived thrice weekly service between London Heathrow and Singapore
via Bahrain. The service was initially suspended on 13/12/1977, after just
three flights, because of complaints from Malaysia about sonic booms over the
Strait of Malacca. On 24/1/1979 the route resumed, with take-offs out to sea
from Singapore avoiding Malaysia. However the route was losing �2 million a
year due to inadequate demand as was permanently withdrawn on 1/11/1980.
22/11/1977, British Airways
began regular commercial services by Concorde
between London and New York
17/10/1977, The US Supreme
Court ruled that Concorde could use
New York�s Kennedy Airport.
25/9/1977. Freddie Lakers�
Skytrain service began between
Gatwick and New York. One way fares London to New York cost �59, against the normal
price of �190; no frills, with food extra.
21/5/1977, Concorde made a
memorial flight from New York to Paris to mark the 50th anniversary of Charles
Lindbergh�s transatlantic flight. Whereas Lindbergh took 33 hours 29
minutes, Concorde completed the flight in 3 hours 44 minutes.
24/5/1976. Concorde made its
first commercial transatlantic flight from London to Washington DC.
21/1/1976. The British
Airways and French Concorde aircraft
made their first commercial flights,
from London to Bahrain and from Paris to Rio de Janeiro. See 9/1/1969 and
24/10/2003.
26/8/1974, Charles Lindbergh, US aviator, the first to
fly across the Atlantic solo non-stop in 1927, died.
26/9/1973,A French Concorde flew non-stop from Washington
to Paris in 3 hours 32 minutes. Now Concorde is out of service the same flight
takes over eight hours.
1972,
British Airways was formed by a merger of BEA and BOAC.
15/11/1972. The RAF museum at Hendon opened.
26/10/1972, Igor Sikorsky, Russian-born US aeronautical engineer
who developed the first successful helicopter in 1939, died in Easton,
Connecticut.
25/11/1971, A hijacker known only as Dan B Cooper parachuted from a
plane over Washington state, USA, with US$200,000. He had earlier demanded the
plane land at Seattle, to swap passengers for a parachute� He bailed out with
the money when the plane was airborne again. The hijacker was never traced, and
apart from a small amount of the money being found years later in the woods,
what happened to him or the money remains a mystery.
13/9/1970. Concorde
landed at Heathrow for the first time, to complaints
about the noise.
21/1/1970, The Boeing
747 Jumbo Jet entered commercial service, see 9/2/1969. It could carry up
to 490 passengers.
10/10/1969, Concorde 001 broke the sound barrier for the first
time during a test flight over Paris.
9/4/1969, Concord�s first trial flight from Bristol to Fairford. See
21/1/1976. The French Concorde made its first flight on 2/3/1969. The
Concorde project had begun in 1962 between the British and French governments to develop a
supersonic aircraft. Sceptics doubted that it was possible to build a passenger
aircraft with over 100 seats that travelled as fast as a military fighter.
However Concorde halved flight times across the Atlantic.
31/3/1969, An airline pilots strike grounded all BOAC
flights.
2/3/1969. The French built Concorde
made its maiden flight from Toulouse Airport. See 9/1/1969.� It was piloted by Andre Turcat, chief test pilot
of Sud Aviation; he got the plane to 300 mph.
9/2/1969, The Boeing
747 Jumbo Jet made its maiden flight. See 21/1/1970.
9/1/1969, Concorde
made its first trial flight from Bristol.
31/12/1968, Russia�s TU144
flew, becoming the world�s first
supersonic aircraft.
11/12/1967. The prototype of the world�s first supersonic
airliner, Concorde, was revealed in
Toulouse, France. It first flew from Bristol on 9/1/1969.
8/2/1966. Freddie Laker formed a cut-price transatlantic
airline.
10/6/1965, A British
European Airways De Havilland jet
airliner flying from Paris to London made the first landing by automatic control.
21/5/1965. Sir Geoffrey de Havilland,
British aircraft designer who was knighted in 1944, died in Stanmore,
Middlesex.
1963, Eurocontrol was established
to co-ordinate plane movememnts over Benelux, France, Germany and the UK.
29/11/1962, France and Britain agreed to develop the �Concorde�
airliner.
19/7/1961, TWA began showing films in the first class lounge
of its long-haul flights.
20/5/1961, The Orient
Express left Paris on its final
journey to Istanbul. The service started in 1883, and was suspended for
World War Two. It used to be the peak of
luxury travel but air travel had now superseded it.
1960, Skywriting,where planes
use contrails to make messages in the sky, was banned in the UK over aviation
safety fears.It remains legal in many other countries.
19/11/1960. The first
VTOL (vertical take off, landing) aircraft made by British Hawker Siddeley,
flew for the first time.
22/2/1960, Britain and
France announced plans to build a supersonic
airliner.
17/11/1959. Two
Scottish airports, Prestwick and Renfrew, became the first to offer duty-free goods in Britain.
1/11/1959, Jet air
services began between London, UK, and Sydney, Australia,
run by BOAC.
10/12/1958, The first domestic jet airliner service within the US began,
operated by National Airlines between New York and Miami.
26/10/1958, Two new air services began this day. The New York
to London route was operated by BOAC, and the New York to Paris route was
operated by Pan Am.
4/10/1958. BOAC, now British Airways, began the first transatlantic jet air service,
with two de Havilland Comet IV jets. Flight
time was a record 6 hours 11 minutes.
1/4/1958, Economy class was introduced on transatlantic air
routes.
19/12/1957. Regular
air services between London and Moscow began.
11/3/1957, Richard Byrd, American aviator and polar
explorer, died.
1/2/1957, The first
turbo-prop airliner, the Bristol
Britannia, entered scheduled service in Britain.
28/9/1956. Death of US air pioneer William Boeing.
13/10/1955, Pan American
Airlines ordered 20 Boeing 707s and 25 Douglas DC-8 jet airliners. This was the start of a major shift by
world airlines into large jet aircraft for long-haul passenger flights.
27/5/1955, The French Caravelle aeroplane made its maiden flight.
26/2/1955, US pilot George Smith made the first ejection from a plane at supersonic speed. He required
surgery for damage to his liver and intestines, leaving him unable to drink
alcohol.
20/11/1954, Clyde Cessna, US aircraft manufacturer, died.
6/9/1954, Rolls Royce
announced that it had developed a new vertical
take off plane; nicknamed the flying bedstead because of its shape.
15/7/1954. The Boeing 707 (or 367-80) made its maiden flight
from Seattle. It could seat 219.
1/4/1954, The US Air
Force Academy was created.
27/8/1953, The De Havilland Comet II made its first test flight.� Later on several crashed, leading to the
discovery of the new problem of metal
fatigue.
3/4/1953, Easter air travel from Britain was up 20% on last
Easter.
5/12/1952, A Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) airliner flew
non-stop over the North Pole from Los Angeles to Copenhagen.
29/7/1952, First non-stop flight by a jet airliner over the
Pacific from Alaska to Japan.
2/5/1952. The first scheduled jet
flight , a Comet airliner, took off from London
for Johannesburg. The 18 � hour BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation)
flight stopped at Rome, Beirut, Khartoum, Entebbe and Livingstone. The flight
by propeller aircraft had previously taken 28 hours.
2/2/1952, The De
Havilland Comet went into service as the world�s first passenger jet.
22/1/1952, The De
Havilland Comet became the first jet
aircraft to receive a Certificate of Airworthiness.
8/11/1950. The first ever combat
between jet fighters took place when, in the Korean War, a US F86 shot down
a Soviet MIG 15.
22/9/1950, The first non-stop jet flight was made between the
UK and the USA. World War Two pilot Colonel David Schilling made the crossing in a
F-84 Thunderjet fighter, taking 10 hours 1 minute.
7/7/1950, The first Farnborough
Air Show took place.
17/5/1950, Transcontinental and Western Air (TWA) was renamed
Trans World Airlines.
31/3/1950, Garuda Indonesia was established as a joint
venture with KLM, the Netherlands national airline, and began with a
fleet of 27 airplanes. In 1954, Garuda would become a fully Indonesian
business.
8/3/1950. The last Lancaster
bomber left RAF service.
4/9/1949, Britain�s
largest ever aircraft, the 130-ton 8-engined, made its first flight.
27/7/1949, The world�s first
jet-propelled airliner built in the UK, the Bristol Brabazon De
Havilland DH 106 Comet, flew at Hatfield.
13/5/1949, Britain flew its first jet bomber, the Canberra, from Warton airfield, Canberra.
16/6/1948, The first
airline hijack took place.� A gang of
Chinese
bandits took over a Cathay Pacific flying boat, Miss Macao, on a
scheduled flight to Hong Kong. The crew fought back and the aircraft crashed,
killing everyone except the hijack gang leader. Foul play was at first not
suspected, until salvagers recovered the bullet-ridden plane. Police then
placed an informer next to Wong yu Man�s hospital bed with a tape
recorder and recorded conversations between them.
30/1/1948. The US aviator Orville Wright, younger of the
two Wright brothers, died.
1947, The air
journey from London to Australia took 4 days, down from ten in 1938. Overnight
stops were at Cairo, Karachi, Kolkata and Singapore, with two day stops at
Tripoli and Darwin.
24/6/1947, US pilot Kenneth Arnold, flying over Mount Ranier,
Washington State, filed the first report of flying saucers; he reported seeing
nine flying disc-shaped objects.
21/4/1947, The world�s first duty-free airport shop opened,
at Shannon Airport, Ireland.
24/7/1946, Aircraft fitter Benny Lynch tested the first
British ejector seat. Bailing out 8,000 feet above Chalgrove, Oxfordshire, he
landed safely in the back yard of pub, and was recovered later from the bar.
1/7/1946. British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) began transatlantic flights
between London and New York, in 19 � hours
1/1/1946, Test flights began at an airfield west of London,
called Heathrow, to be developed as
a major civilian airport.
12/7/1944, The RAF
became the first air force to use jet aircraft in operational service.
30/7/1943, In Sweden, the Saab 21 became the first aircraft to fly with the modern
explosives-powered ejector seat.
18/7/1942, Germany tested its first military jet aircraft, the Messerschmitt Me262A.
13/1/1942, The first
escape by emergency ejection seat from an aircraft. The German pilot
ejected at 7,875 feet due to heavy icing, over Rechlin, Germany, and landed
safely.
15/5/1941. In the UK, the first
aircraft with a jet engine, invented by Frank Whittle, flew from
Cranwell.
2/4/1941, Germany tested the world�s first aircraft ejector seat, powered by
compressed air.
15/9/1940, The Battle
of Britain ended with victory to the Allies.� 1,733 German planes were destroyed as against
915 lost by the RAF. It began on 8/8/1940. Both sides were short, not of planes
but of trained pilots. With bailed-out British pilots returning to the
airfields and bailed-out German pilots going into POW camps, the RAF slowly
gained the upper hand. The Nazis had given up hope of achieving air superiority
and invading Britain. The RAF had also destroyed much of the shipping that was
to carry German troops to England. The Luftwaffe, under Goering, also erred in
switching their attacks from RAF airfields and radar stations to British cities
on 7/9/1940 in revenge for an RAF raid on Berlin (25/8/1940).� Had
the attacks on RAF airfields continued, the Luftwaffe might just have defeated
the RAF.
25/8/1940. First British air raid on Berlin.
23/8/1940. The Blitz on London began.
8/8/1940. Battle of Britain began.
31/7/1940. Hitler gave orders for a massive air offence
against Britain
2/7/1940. The first daylight bombing raid on London.
13/11/1939. The first German bombs fell on Britain, on the
Shetlands. There were no casualties.
19/9/1939. Britain's RAF began leaflet raids on Germany.
27/8/1939, The
world�s first jet-propelled aeroplane, the Heinkel 178, engines
designed by Dr
Von Ohain, made its first flight at Marienehe, northern Germany.
24/8/1939, Germany tested the first turbojet aircraft, at Rostock. A longer flight took place on
27/8/1939.
4/8/1939, A British transatlantic air mail service was
inaugurated by BOAC between Southampton and Montreal / New York.� Two flying boats maintained a weekly service.
War halted the service
in September 1939.
27/6/1939, The first
transatlantic air service began.� Pan
American Airways flying boat Yankee Clipper flew between Botwood,
Newfoundland, and Southampton, UK, seating 19 passengers on the 18 � hour
flight. The fare was �140 return, for luxurious accommodation including
separate passenger cabins, ladies dressing rooms, a recreation lounge, sleeping
berths and a bridal suite.
1938, The air journey from
London to Australia now took ten days (12 in 1935).
31/12/1938, The first
pressurised airlined to enter commercial service, the Boeing 307
Stratoliner, made its maiden flight (see 7/5/1937). Pressurisation meant the
aircraft could avoid bad weather by flying above it.
14/9/1938, The largest
rigid airship ever built, the 803 foot German Graf Zeppelin II,
made her maiden flight.� She was
dismantled in April 1940.
2/7/1937, Aviatrix Amelia Earhart disappeared on a flight from
New Guinea to Howland Island.
9/5/1937, Walter Mittelholzer, Swiss aviation pioneer,
died in a crash.
7/5/1937, The first practical
pressurised aircraft cabin was used, by Lockheed. See 31/12/1938.
12/4/1937, A test-bed run of the world�s first aircraft jet
engine took place, at Cranwell, UK.
1936, Air Despatch
became the first UK airline to introduce air hostesses. They not only had to
cook meals and mix cocktails, but also type letters for businessmen during the
flight.
6/6/1936. The German airship
Hindenburg crossed the Atlantic in
46 hours.
15/5/1936. Amy Johnson arrived in England after a
record-breaking 12 day, 15 hour flight from London to Cape Town and back.
5/3/1936. The Spitfire
fighter plane made its first flight from Eastleigh Aerodrome, near Southampton.
It was flown by Captain J Summers. The RAF wanted a counter to the German Messerschmitt 109.
4/3/1936, The airship LZ 129 Hindenburg had its first
flight.
11/11/1935, US balloonists Anderson
and Stevens reached 74,000 feet.
28/7/1935, The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bomber made its
first flight at Seattle.
13/4/1935. London to
Australia air service began. The route was operated by Imperial Airways and QANTAS.
The service took 12 days, 31 stops, and involved 4 different aircraft. There
was also a train journey from Paris to Brindisi included.
5/4/1934, Joan Meakin became the first female glider
pilot to fly over the English Channel.
3/2/1934, The first regular transatlantic mail service was
begun by Deutsche Lufthansa between Berlin and Buenos Aires via Stuttgart,
Seville, Bathurst and Natal.
9/12/1933. London to
Singapore air service began.
7/6/1933, A Dornier Do J �Wal� flying boat, the Monsun,
crossed the South Atlantic (with a stopover on the steamboat Westfalen) and
landed in the sea off Natal, Brazil.
3/4/1933. Two British planes became the first to fly over Mount Everest.
8/2/1933, First Boeing 247 made its maiden flight.
6/2/1933, Gayford and Nicholetts began a non-stop flight from England to Africa.
21/7/1932, A Dornier Do J �Wal� (whale) took off from Sylt on
a� three week trip around the world,
during which its pilot Wolfgang von Gronau flew 60,000 km.
27/4/1932. The Imperial Airways London to Cape Town air
service was inaugurated.
5/10/1931, Clyde Pangborn and Hugh Herndon Jr. completed the
first nonstop flight across the Pacific Ocean, making a controlled crash
landing near Wenatchee, Washington 41 hours after taking off from Misawa,
Japan.
8/8/1931, The US airship Akron
was launched by Mrs
Hoover.
27/5/1931, Professor Auguste Picard became the first
man to reach the stratosphere.� He
ascended 9 � miles in a balloon from Augsburg, Germany.
25/10/1930, Transcontinental and Western Air (TWA) began a
coast to coast service across the USA.
22/8/1930. The remains of the Swedish aeronaut, Andree,
were discovered on White Island.
1/8/1930. The airship R101
arrived in Montreal after a flight of 79 hours from Cardington, Bedfordshire.
28/7/1930, The airship R101
began its maiden flight across the Atlantic.
24/5/1930, Amy Johnson arrived in Australia, completing
her historic solo flight from Croydon, England. She took off on 5/5/1930.
18/5/1930, The airship LZ127 Graf Zeppelin crossed the
Atlantic.
15/5/1930, Registered nurse Ellen Church became the world�s first air hostess, on a United
Airlines flight from Oakland California to Cheyenne, Wyoming. She had written
hersself to the airline suggesting that young ladies like herself be employed
as cabin attendants. Ellen was taken on and charged with training 7
others, who had to be under 5 ft 4 inches high, weigh under 8 stone 2 lb, and
be registered nurses aged under 25. They were paid US$ 125 a month for 100
hours flying in an unheated unpressurised aircraft; they also carried
passengers baggage, cleaned the interior of the plane, and assisted the pilot
and mechanic to push the plane in and out of the hangar. In flight they served
standard meals of fried chicken, fruit cocktail and bread rolls, and tea or
coffee. The total flight, with four intermediate stops, was scheduled as 18
hours but generally took nearer 24 hours. The pilots, and especially their
wives, did not welcome the new employees at first. However the passengers
appreciated the service and they stayed on.
1929, US commercial airlines
flew 30 million miles and carried 180,000 passengers, a rise from 6 million
miles and 37,000 passengers during 1927.
29/11/1929. US Admiral Richard Byrd, with pilot Bernt Balchen,
became the first to fly over the South
Pole.
14/10/1929, The R101 airship went on
its first trials above London from its Cardington hangar in Bedfordshire.� The
airship was 732 feet long and held 5 million cubic feet of hydrogen; power was
from 5 diesel engines.
25/9/1929, Jimmy Doolittle, champion US aviator,
performed the first �blind flight�, taking off, flying a set course and landing
again all under a fabric hood so he couldn�t see outside the plane.
12/9/1929, KLM airlines now instituted a regular,
fortnightly, service between Amsterdam and Jakarta. The 9,500 mile route
included 18 stops, including Istanbul, Baghdad, Karachi, Calcutta (Kolkata) and
Bangkok.
7/7/1929, Transcontinental Air Transport Company began the
first coast to coast air service in the USA. The company soon became Trans World Airlines (TWA).
4/9/1929, The German
airship Graf Zeppelin completed its 20-day round the world trip from
Friedrichshafen on the shore of lake Constance via Tokyo, Los Angeles, and
Lakehurst.
14/6/1929, Journalist Arthur Schrieber became the first stowaway on
na transatlantic flight.
30/3/1929, The first
commercial air service between London and Karachi began.
17/2/1929, The first in-flight movie was shown, on an
internal flight in the USA.
15/10/1928. The German
airship Graf Zeppelin, captained by Hugo Eckener, completed its first transatlantic flight.� It flew from Friedrichshafen, Germany, to
Lakehurst in New York.
11/10/1928, The LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin departed Friedrichshafen
with 20 passengers and 40 crew, bound for the United States.
18/9/1928, The airship LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin entered service.
18/6/1928. Roald Amundsen, Norwegian explorer who was the
first to reach the South Pole in 1911, was lost in the North Sea after a flying
accident..
15/6/1928. A race
between a train and a plane from London to Edinburgh was won by the train,
the �Flying Scotsman�.
8/6/1928, Charles Kingsford-Smith and Captain Ulm
completed the first flight across the
Pacific, landing at Brisbane, Australia.�
They had taken off from Oakland, California, and flew via Hawaii and
Fiji in their plane, the Southern Cross.
15/5/1928. Australia began the flying doctor service. It began at Cloncurry, Queensland; the first
doctor was Dr
Vincent Welsh.
10/1/1928. Aviators Hood and Moncrieff were lost whilst attempting the
first flight across the Tasman Sea, from Australia to New Zealand.
14/10/1927, Dieudonne Costas and Joseph Le Brix became the first
persons to fly an airplane across the South Atlantic Ocean, and the first to
make an east-to-west transatlantic crossing, departing Saint-Louis, Senegal and
arriving in Port Natal, Brazil 21 hours and 15 minutes later, at 11:40 pm local
time.
1/5/1927, The first
airline cooked meals were served, from a galley aboard the Imperial Airways
Silver Ewing London to Paris flights. The galley could serve up to 18 passengers.
8/1/1927. The first
scheduled flight from London to Delhi arrived in India.
26/9/1926, Two Lufthansa Junker planes completed a round trip
from Berlin to Beijing and back, having departed on 24/7/1926.
11/6/1926, Maiden flight of the Ford 4AT trimotor plane.
12/5/1926. Roald Amundsen flew in the airship
Norge over the North Pole. They had left Spitsbergen on 11/5 and landed on
14/5/1926 at Teller, Alaska.
9/5/1926, Richard Byrd, American explorer, made the first flight over the North Pole,
with pilot Floyd
Bennett.
1/5/1926, Lufthansa began one of the world�s first passenger
night routes, from Berlin to Konigsberg, using radio beacons.
13/4/1925, Henry Ford set up the USA�s first aerial freight
service, running between Detroit and Chicago.
6/4/1925. The first in-flight movie was shown; The Lost World.
28/9/1924, Lieutenants Smith and Nelson, in US Army
Douglas airplanes, completed the first
circumnavigation of the globe.� They flew a
total of 26,103 miles, with 57 stops.
22/8/1923, Maiden flight of the Witteman-Lewis� XNBL-1. This long-range bomber was then the
world�s largest plane.
15/7/1923, Regular passenger flights between Moscow and Gorki
(Nizhniy-Novgorod), 420 km, began.
3/5/1923, The first nonstop flight across the USA was
completed, after 27 hours in the air, when John McCready and Oakley Kelly
landed in California.
13/2/1923, Charles �Chuck� Yeager, American pilot, first to fly at supersonic speed, was
born.
28/11/1922. First skywriting achieved.
20/10/1922, Lieutenant Harold Harris became the first
person to avoid death by usng a parachute in a real emergency.
5/9/1922, American aviator James Doolittle made the first coast to coast flight across the USA,
taking 21 hours 19 minutes.
6/8/1922, Freddie Laker, British airline operator, was
born.
2/4/1922, Jack Sanderson became the world�s first airline steward, on the London-Paris route.
1/12/1921, The US
Navy airship Goodyear became the
first such craft to fly using helium
gas. This was much safer than hydrogen; however the gas was then only found
within the US, and for military reasons its use was denied to other countries.
Use of hydrogen in 1937 caused the Hindenburg
airship disaster in 1937, and finally doomed airships as a means of transport.
3/8/1921, The first
aerial crop spraying took place at Troy Ohio, to clear a catalpa grove
infested with leaf caterpillars. Powdered arsenate of lead was sprayed over the
trees. 99% of the insects were killed.
14/4/1921. Air
services between London and Amsterdam
resumed.
19/3/1921. Daily air service between Paris and London resumed.
18/2/1921. The first helicopter flew, designed in
France by Etienne
Oemichen.
3/1/1921, The airships R 36
and R 37 were built; they were capable of carrying 50 passengers.
1920, Early passenger
flights could be severely hampered by low cloud and headwinds. If the cloud base was at 200
feet they had to fly at 150 feet, sometimes following railway lines along
valleys for navigation. Cross Channel flights might be at an altitude as low as
40 feet. Headinds could slow the plane up so much it was overtaken by buses on
the ground.
20/12/1920, Maiden flight of the Bleriot-Spad 33 airliner.
3/7/1920. The first RAF air display took place at Hendon.
1/7/1920, Germany
surrendered her largest airship, the L-71 to Britain.
20/5/1920. Charles Lindbergh took off on the first transatlantic solo flight.
5/2/1920, The Royal
Air Force College at Cranwell
opened to the first batch of apprentices.
4/2/1920, Aviators Pierre van Ryneveld and C J Quinton took off from Brooklands airfield
on the first flight
from London to Cape Town, South Africa.
18/12/1919, Death of British aviation expert Sir John Alcock
in a flying accident, six months after his pioneering transatlantic flight with
Sir Arthur Brown.
12/11/1919. Captain Ross Smith, his brother, and two
others began the first flight from Britain to Australia.
They arrived in Port Darwin, Australia, on 10/12/1919, winning a �10,000 prize
from the Australian government for doing this.
11/10/1919. The first
airline meals were served, on a Handley-Page flight from London to Paris.
They were pre-packed lunch boxes priced at 3 shillings (15p).
1/9/1919, The first
intercontinental air service began, from Toulouse to Barcelona
and Tangier.� Services were extended to Casablanca in April 1920.
8/1919, In Britain it became legal
for aircraft to take up to 4 passengers, and up to 500 people a day went on �joyride trips� (see 1912), lasting 15
minutes over and around Blackpool. The experience of flying was thrilling but
evidently safe, and many began to see the benefits of air transport as a mode
of travel.
25/8/1919. Air service
between London (Hounslow) and Paris (Le Bourget) inaugurated. This was the
first international scheduled air service from Britain. The single fare was �21
for the 2 � hour journey, compared to the cost of rail and boat at �3 8s 5d. By
1/1/1920 three British companies were operating regular daily air services
across The Channel, to Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam, for passengers, freight,
and mail.
7/8/1919, Captain Ernest Hoy made the first successful
flight over the Canadian Rockies.
14/7/1919, Britain legalised passenger flights to and from
the Continent. The very next day an executive from Pilkington Glass, who had
missed the boat train, arranged to pay �50 for a one-off flight from Hendon,
London, to Le Bourget, Paris.
13/7/1919, The British
airship R34 arrived back in Pulham, Norfolk, having made the first transatlantic aerial round trip;
she set out from East Fortune, Scotland, on 2/7/1919.
6/7/1919. The British airship R34 became the first to cross
the Atlantic, flying from Edinburgh to New York in 108 hours. She
had set out from East Fortune, near Edinburgh, on 2/7/1919. She set off from
Long Island on 9/7/1919 on the return journey, arriving in Pulham, Norfolk, on
13/7/1919.
27/5/1919. Lieutenant Commander Read and a crew of five,
flying a Curtiss NC 4 seaplane, arrived in Lisbon via The Azores to complete the first flight across the Atlantic.� They had left Trepassy, Newfoundland, on
16/5/1919.
26/5/1919, North Sea
Aerial Navigation Co inaugurated passenger
flights between Hartlepool and Hull. In June further routes began, between Hull, Leeds and Hounslow (for London),
and Scarborough, Leeds, Harrogate.
Businesspeople liked the new fast link between London and the North.
25/5/1919, Pilots Hanker and Grieve were rescued, 1370 km
west of Ireland, having failed to fly the Atlantic.
10/5/1919, The first
airline in Britain started. It flew the 50 miles between Alexander Park, Manchester, and Blackpool
in a 2-seater single engine Avro biplane. Services lasted until 30/9/1919, and
cost �2 2s single or �4 4s return..
15/4/1919, Passenger
air services on a route between Berlin,
Hanover and Rotthausen began, also Berlin
to Warnemunde.
16/3/1919, Wireless telephone now enabled one plane pilot to
talk to another in mid-flight.
14/3/1919, Passenger air services between Berlin and Hamburg began. On 15/3/1919 a service from Berlin via Brunswick and
Hanover to Gelsenkirchen began. In June 1919 these services had to be curtailed
due to lack of fuel.
6/2/1919, The first
regular passenger air service. Planes flew from Berlin to Weimar,
carrying mainly mail and newspapers, but some passengers also.
1/1/1919, The early aviation industries in
the USA and Europe began to develop in very different directions, after World
War One. In the
US there was a powerful railway lobby, but no equivalent air industry lobby.
However US cities were much further apart than European ones. Therefore the US
railways kept the passenger transport market, and US airlines concentrated on
the postal delivery sector. Sometimes, US railways had fire beacons placed
along their length by night to guide the aircraft. US airlines only got into
the passenger market in the mid to late 1920s. By contrast, in Europe the
railways had been severely damaged by the War, and European airlines ran
comparatively short hop routes between cities, as well as carrying mail.
Development
of air mail
14/3/1936, An air service from London to Hong Kong was
inaugurated.
8/12/1934, The London to Australia airmail service was
inaugurated.
20/1/1932. The first airmail service between London
and Cape Town.
4/4/1931, The first airmail left Croydon aerodrome
for Australia.
14/4/1929. The first
air mail from India arrived at Croydon.
1/7/1924, Inauguration of the first regular
transcontinental air mail service in the USA.
15/9/1920. New air mail services began in Europe, from
Copenhagen to Amsterdam, London, and Hamburg.
3/3/1919, The first intetrnational airmail service
began, from Seattle to Vancouver, by Boeing.
15/5/1918, The US
inaugurated the world�s first
regular air mail service between New York and Washington. The US
Navy operated the service, for the US Post Office.
10/11/1911, The
first regular civil airmail service began between Hounslow (London) and Paris.
Mail was surcharged at 2s 6d an ounce, of which the airline received 2s. The
high price deterred customers, and an average of only 46 letters a day were
carried.
9/9/1911, The
first experimental airmail service in Britain began, operating between
Hendon aerodrome and Windsor, 19 miles . The service was discontinued on
26/9/1911.
1/7/1859. The first
mail was transported by balloon. John Wise
and three others piloted their machine the 812 miles between St Louis,
Missouri, and Henderson, New York State, in 19 hours and 40 minutes.
21/4/1918, Manfred von Richtofen, the �Red Baron�,
German World War One air ace, was shot down and died in his famous red
tri-plane behind British lines.
1/4/1918. The Royal Air Force was formed, by
amalgamating the Royal Flying Corps
and the Royal Naval Air Service.� Lord Rothermere at the Air Ministry in The
Strand, London, was in charge.
1917, The earliest experiments, by Germany, with the
use of �barrage balloons�. These were hydrogen-filled balloons whose
function was to hoist cables up to 3,000 metres high in the sky to disable
enemy planes flying low. Several such balloons provided a �barrage� of cables
to protect cities; hieghts above 3,000 metres wree impractical due to the weight
of the cable. Bomber planes could target less accurately if fliyng high, and
the cables could force planes into areas where they could be targeted by
anti-aircraft fire.
13/12/1917, The first German airline was founded. Known
initially as Deutsche Luft Reederie, it was the forerunner of Lufthansa.
The first
air raids, 1911-1917
20/10/1917.
4 Zeppelins were shot down over France
after raids on the UK.
1/10/1917. Air raids on London.
20/8/1917, Over 100 killed in an air raid on Thanet
and Sheppey.
7/7/1917. Air raids on London and Margate killed 97 and injured 193.
25/5/1917. Air raid on Folkestone.
8/3/1917. Graf von Zeppelin, German airship pioneer, died in Charlottenburg,
near Berlin.
1/10/1916. A Zeppelin
was brought down at Potters Bar, Hertfordshire.
3/9/1916. The first Zeppelin
was shot down, by Captain Leefe Robinson, at Cuffley,
Hertfordshire, using the newly-invented Pomeroy incendiary bullets.
1/4/1916, A German Zeppelin
airship dropped its bombs on Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire.
19/3/1916. German seaplane raids on Deal, Dover, Margate,
and Ramsgate.
31/1/1916. Zeppelin
raids on Shrewsbury
killed 59 persons.
29/1/1916. Zeppelins
bombed Paris
for the first time.
7/6/1915, The
British air force downed a German Zeppelin. Sub-Lieutenant
Warneford took his aircraft over the airship and dropped six
20-pound bombs, one of which hit its target. For this Warneford was awarded the
Victoria Cross.
27/5/1915. Zeppelin
raid on Southend,
Essex.
26/5/1915. The first Zeppelin
raids on London.
A ton of bombs was dropped from one airship, killing 7 and injuring 15.
17/5/1915. Zeppelin
raid on Ramsgate,
Kent.
10/5/1915. Zeppelin
raid on Southend,
Essex.
30/4/1915. Zeppelin
air raids on Ipswich
and Bury St
Edmunds.
14/4/1915. Zeppelin air raid on Lowestoft and Maldon, Essex.
20/3/1915. German air raid
on Deal,
Kent.
21/2/1915. German air raid
on Essex.
11/2/1915. British
seaplanes and airplanes bombarded Bruges and Ostend.
15/1/1915. German Zeppelin airships dropped bombs on villages
in Norfolk, killing five people. Great Yarmouth was bombed.
29/12/1914, The first Zeppelin appeared over the British coast.
9/12/1914, The
first warship built as an aircraft carrier was commissioned. HMS Ark Royal, originally designed as a
merchant ship, but acquired by The Admiralty whilst under construction at
Blyth, was launched in September 1914.
4/10/1914, The
first bomb was dropped on London.
23/9/1914. British
aviators bombed the Zeppelin shed at Dusseldorf.
1/11/1911. The world�s first air raid. The Italian, Lt Guilio Gavotti, took off from Tripoli and
dropped a 2 kg bomb on the Turks at Ain Zara, Tripolitania; he then dropped
three more such bombs on Turkish troops at Tagiura. A second air raid on Ain
Zara three days later brought a strong protest from the Turks that the Italians
were contravening the Geneva Convention, and considerable world-wide discussion ensued on the ethics of air
bombardment.
28/5/1916, The
Sopwith triplane, the first triplane fighter to enter military service, was
introduced by the British.
12/12/1915. In Germany, Hugo Junkers built the first all-metal aeroplane.�
The Junkers J1 first flew at Dessau.
18/7/1915, Katherine Stinson became the first woman to
loop the loop
14/7/1915, Lawrence Hargrave, aviation pioneer, died.
6/7/1915, Sir Lawrence Hargrave, aviation pioneer, died.
11/12/1914, The Royal Flying Corps adopted the roundel now used
by the RAF.
24/9/1914, First use
of radio in an aircraft in warfare, during the First Battle of the Aisne.
19/8/1914, First use
of aerial reconnaissance by Britain in warfare. Captain Philip Joubert de la Ferte
and Lt
Gilbert Mapplebeck flew over Nivelle and Genappe, to ascertain the
positions of Belgian troops and German cavalry.
23/6/1914, Britain�s Royal Air Force was formed.
1/1/1914, The USA�s first regular passenger air service
began. Passengers were carried, on at a time, twenty miles across Tampa Bay
between St Petersburg and Tampa, Florida, for US$ 5, saving a 36 mile road trip
around the Bay. The service was discontinued after 4 months.
1/9/1913, Louis Bleriot performed his first loop the loop.
27/8/1913, Russian Air Service Lieutenant Pyotr
Nikolaevich was arrested in Kiev for looping the loop, the first aviator to accomplish this.
20/8/1913. Adolphe Pegond baled out of a plane at 700 feet, becoming
the first person to parachute from a plane.
13/5/1913, The
Russians first flew the biggest aircraft to date. Designed by Sikorsky, with a
92-foot wingspan, the Bolshoi offered
luxurious civilian transport, with armchairs, sofas and ample vodka. It was
also the first plane to be fitted with a toilet.
1912, The world�s first
aeronautical library was established by French engineer AG Eiffel,
designer of the 1889 Eiffel Tower in Paris. The library at Auteuil was
dedicated to the study of aerodynamics and air currents.
1912, Early commercial aircraft encouraged a practice known as �joyriding�. People would make their way
out of town to a nearby airfield, to be taken up and flown a few times around
the area. The joyriders had to sign a disclaimer against any liability resulting
from injuries if the plane crashed. However several of those who experienced
�joyriding; wanted to then fly a plane themselves, some becoming wartime pilots
after 1914. See 8/1919.
19/9/1912, The first
scheduled international airline service began, when Count Zeppelin�s airships started a regular service between Hamburg, Germany, and
Copenhagen, Denmark, and on to Malmo, Sweden.
30/5/1912, Wilbur Wright, older of
the two Wright Brothers who invented the
airplane, died aged 45� of typhoid fever
at Dayton, Ohio. Wilbur had become ill on
4/5/1912 while on a business trip to Boston. On 17/12/1903 Wilbur became the second man to pilot an airplane, after his
brother Orville made the first flight.
8/5/1912, Pilot Lieutenant
Samson, flying a Short S38, made the first
ever take off from a moving ship.�
The HMS Hibernia, off Weymouth, was moving at 10 knots.
13/4/1912, In Britain the Royal Flying Corps, forerunner of
the Royal Air Force, was formed.
1/3/1912, The first
parachute jump from a moving plane was made, over Missouri, USA, by Albert Berry.
He jumped at 1500 feet over Jefferson Barracks, St Louis.
10/1/1912, The first
flying boat, designed by Glenn Curtis, made its maiden voyage at
Hammondsport, New York.
31/10/1911, J.J. Montgomery, 55, American aeronautical
engineer, died in a plane crash
23/10/1911. First
aerial reconnaissance in warfare.
The Italian Captain Piazza, during the Italian Turkish war of 1910-11, took
off from Tripoli and flew over Turkish troops camped at Aziza.
3/8/1911. Aeroplanes
were put to military use, when Italian planes reconnoitred the Turkish
lines near Tripoli.
25/5/1911, Britain passed the Aerial Navigation Act, giving
powers to ban hostile flights.
12/5/1911. Display of military aviation at Hendon.
4/7/1911, The first
air cargo was delivered; a box of Osram lamps.
4/5/1911, Britain�s first airship was wrecked at Aldershot.
18/2/1911. The first
official airmail flight. Henri Pecquet flew a load of 6,000 letters and
cards 5 miles from Allahabad, India, to Naini Junction, where they were transferred
to the railway.
26/1/1911, Glenn H Curtis flew the first successful
seaplane.
18/1/1911. US pilot Eugene Ely, in a Curtiss aircraft, made the first landing on the deck of a
ship; the cruiser Pennsylvania in San Francisco Bay.
14/11/1910. Pilot Eugene Ely, in a Curtiss biplane, made the first take-off from a ship,
the US light cruiser Birmingham, at anchor in Chesapeake Bay.
9/6/1910, The first
trials of aircraft reconnaissance. During a record-breaking2 � hour, 145
km, flight from Camp de Chalons, Mourmelon, to Vincennes, Captain Marconnet, squeezed
between the pilot and the engine, took aerial photographs of the territory
below.
4/6/1910, Christopher Cockerell, who invented the
amphibious hovercraft, was born in Cambridge.
18/5/1910. The first Air Traffic Conference opened in Paris.
28/3/1910. The first seaplane took off, from near
Marseilles. Called the Hydravion, it was designed by Frenchman Henri Fabre.
It flew 1,650 feet.
18/3/1910, Harry Houdini
made the first successful flight in Australia.
10/3/1910. The world�s first night aeroplane flight was made, in
Argentina by Aubrun.
1909, First use of the term �fuselage�
(French, spindle) for the main body of an aoircraft to which the wings and tail
are attached.
31/12/1909, Henry Ferguson
made the first aeroplane flight from Irish soil, at Hillsborough near Belfast.
18/12/1909, Albert
Kimmerling became the first pilot in South Africa.
16/10/1909, The first commercial
airline began. Count Zeppelin�s Deutsche
Luftschiffahrt Aktiengesellschaft, or Delag, flew airships between the
major German cities.
30/9/1906, The first international hot air balloon race
began from Paris.
1/8/1909. The US military accepted
its first heavier-than-air flying machine, built by the Wright Brothers,
on 2/8/1909.
25/7/1909. Louis Bleriot
became the first man to fly across the English Channel.� He flew from Les Barques near Calais to
Northfall Meadow near Dover Castle, covering 26 miles in 43 minutes.�
Aged 37, born on 1/7/1872 in Cambrai, France, Bleriot won �1,000 for his
flight, in a plane designed by himself, a prize awarded by the Daily Mail for
the first person to perform this feat. Bleriot died in August 1936.� The
British now realised that the Channel was less of a defensive barrier than it
used to be.
20/6/1909. The German Army adopted the Zeppelin as its first
air arm.
28/4/1909, The Aerial League of Australia held its first meeting.
5/4/1909, The Aerial
League of the British Empire was founded, to promote British superiority in the air.
19/3/1909, Britain�s first international aircraft exhibition
opened.
24/12/1908, In Paris, President Armand Fallieres opened the first international aviation show.
21/10/1908. Over
London the suffragettes made the first ever leaflet raid, hiring an airship and
throwing out leaflets demanding �Votes for Women!�.
14/8/1908, An airship blew up
over London, killing one person.
21/3/1908, Frenchman Henri Farman piloted the world�s first passenger flight, over Paris.
8/1/1908, Count Von Zeppelin announced plans to build an airship capable of
carrying 100 people.
13/11/1907, In
France, Mr
Paul Cornu built a prototype helicopter,
or �direct lifter� as he called it. It rose 4 feet into the air and stayed
there for 60 seconds.
10/9/1907, Britain�s first military airship flew successfully at Farnborough.
1/7/1907, The US
established the world�s first air force.� The aeronautical division of the US Army�s
Signal Office was set up under the command of Captain Chandler. The force
consisted of one officer, one NCO, and one enlisted man. It had one aircraft, which
had to be capable of flying for one hour at 36 mph. The biplane was delivered
to Fort Meyer, Virginia, for test flights in August 1908. It crashed in
September 1908 and a new Wright Flyer was ordered. This was delivered on
2/8/1909. By 1914 the US air force had
just 6 planes.
1/6/1907, Sir Frank Whittle, inventor of jet propulsion, was born in Coventry.
30/3/1907, The first commercially produced aircraft was
delivered to its purchaser, marking the start
of the world�s aviation industry. Paris sculptor Leon Delagrange ordered the
biplane from Voisin Freres, Billancourt, France.
11/11/1906, The first balloon crossing of the Alps. A balloon
piloted by Murillo
and Cresti
lifted off from Milan and passed over Mont Blanc, highest peak of the Alps.
7/7/1906, Britain�s first hot air balloon race.
3/3/1906, The first trials of an aeroplane with tyres took
place at Montesson, Seine et Marne, France.
27/2/1906, Samuel Langley, aviation pioneer, died (born
22/8/1834).
30/11/1905, The Aero Club of America was formed in New York
City.
11/2/1905, 11 Frenchmen
landed in Crystal Palace from a hot air
balloon after crossing the Channel.
Inception
of heavier-than-air flight
20/9/1904. The US Army rejected heavier than air
flying machines.
25/5/1905, Europe�s first flight by a heavier-than-air
machine.
17/12/1903. The Wright
Brothers made the first
successful controlled heavier-than-air flight. The flight, over the
sand dunes at Kill Devil Hill, near Kittyhawk, North Carolina, lasted for 12
seconds at a height of 8 to 12 feet and an air speed of 30 to 35 mph. The
flight was 120 foot long. Three subsequent flights were made, the longest being
59 seconds and 852 foot long, before their craft was damaged by a sudden gust
of wind.
7/10/1903, In the
US, Professor
Samuel Langley attempted to fly a heavier-than-air machine, but
failed.
23/3/1903, US patent no. 821393 was filed for the
first aeroplane. The patent was filed by Orville Wright (1871-1948), and his brother Wilbur Wright
(1867-1912). They tried to sell the aeroplane but without a demonstration
flight people were sceptical of the notion that heavier-than-air machines could
fly.
12/11/1903, The Lebaudy
brothers made a fully controlled dirigible flight, navigating 37
miles from Moisson to Paris.
1/7/1903, The aviator Amy Johnson was born in Hull.
22/9/1902. The earliest British airship, 75 foot long, built by Stanley Spencer, made its
maiden flight of 30 miles from Crystal Palace, London.
23/10/1901, Alberto Santos Dumont, Brazilian aviator (see 19/10/1906) collected a
prize for the first officially-observed powered flight in Europe. He flew his
airship from St Cloud to the Eiffel Tower and back, taking 30 minutes.
20/10/1901, The Aero Club of the United Kingdom was founded in
London.
19/10/1901, Brazilian aviator
Alberto Santos
Dumont circumnavigated the Eiffel Tower in his airship, winning an
aviation prize, see 23/10/1901.
30/6/1901, Herr Berson and Professor Suring set a new
balloon altitude record of 35,435 feet.
15/2/1901, The Aero Club of Belgium was founded.
2/7/1900. The first Zeppelin airship made its maiden flight from a floating hangar on
Lake Constance, Germany. It had been invented by Count Zeppelin, aged 62, who had
retired from the army 10 years ago. Zeppelin had made balloon ascents as a
military observer during the American Civil War. Powered by a 16 hp engine, the
airship had a top speed of 20 mph; it attained a height of 1,000 feet.
25/4/1900, The British Army in South Africa used balloon
observers to direct fire on Boer positions.
7/10/1898, Aero club de France was established, to represent
the country�s fliers.
26/6/1898, Wilhelm Messerschmitt,
German aviation engineer and designer, was born in Frankfurt.
24/7/1897, Amelia Earhart,
aviator, was born in Atchison, Kansas.
9/2/1897, Sir Charles Kingsford Smith,
Australian aviator, was born.
20/4/1896, Wop May, aviator, was born.
6/11/1892, The aviator Sir John Alcock was born in Manchester. In
1919 he made the first transatlantic flight, with Sir Arthur Whitten-Brown.
6/4/1890, Birth of Anthony Fokker, Dutch aircraft manufacturer
(died 1939).
25/5/1889, Igor Sikorsky, American engineer who pioneered
the helicopter, was born in Kiev.
25/10/1888,
Richard Byrd,
US naval officer and polar explorer, was born in Winchester, Virginia. In 1926
he became the first person to fly over the North Pole.
12/8/1888,
An airship designed by the German, Karl Woelfort, was tested with a Daimler
petrol engine. The invention of a light yet powerful engine, along with the
invention in 1886 of a method of mass producing the lightweight metal aluminium
(using electrolysis) meant that practical steerable airships, or dirigibles,
were now possible.
18/1/1888. Birth of aviation pioneer Sir Thomas Sopwith.
26/9/1887, Barnes Wallis, inventor of the bouncing bomb
used in World War Two, and inventor and designer of aircraft, was born.
23/7/1886, Birth of Sir Arthur Brown, future co-pilot in the first
ever trans-Atlantic flight.
21/1/1885, Umberto Nobile, airship designer, was born.
9/8/1884, Charles Renard and Arthur Krebs made a controlled
circular flight in an airship around Chalais-Meudon. The trip lasted 25
minutes, as average 13 mph. However the heavy batteries required, at 704 lbs,
meant the airship was not a practical venture.
27/7/1882, Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, British aircraft
designer and manufacturer, born in Woburn, Buckinghamshire.
11/5/1881, Theodore von Karman, Hungarian physicist, was
born in Budapest. He developed the science of aerodynamics and applied it to
aircraft wings.
5/12/1879, Clyde Cessna, American aircraft manufacturer, was
born in Hawthorne, Iowa.
31/7/1879, Richard Cowen and Charles Page made the first
balloon flight in Canada.
23/7/1878, The British Army flew its first balloon at
Woolwich, London. It cost �71 to build, out of an allocated �150; the first
British Government military aviation budget.
29/6/1877, Italian professor Enrico Forlanini tested a
steam-powered helicopter at Alexandria.
18/6/1877, Samuel Archer King made a 2-hour airmail
flight of 26 miles between Nashville and Gallatin in his balloon.
13/12/1872, Haenlein fitted
the first internal combustion engine to an airship. However the craft only made
a tethered display and further development was shelved for lack of funds.
1/7/1872, Louis Bleriot, French aviation pioneer, was
born.
19/8/1871. Orville Wright, American aviation pioneer, was
born in Dayton, Ohio, the younger of two brothers.
18/8/1871, French pioneer Alphonse Penaud achieved a 13
second flight in his glider.
28/1/1871. Starving and surrounded by Prussian troops, Paris surrendered to Germany. During the
5-month siege, balloons were used to maintain contact with the rest of France. The Prussians tried to shoot the balloons down, so
the French switched to night flights.
23/9/1870, The
French defenders, surrounded and under siege in Paris, succeeded in sending a
balloon out with 227 pounds of mail. It passed over and beyond Prussian lines,
giving news to the French provisional Government at Tours.
The balloon was piloted by James Durouf.
16/4/1867. The American aviation pioneer, Wilbur Wright, was born. He was
the elder of the two brothers.
12/1/1866, The Aeronautical Society of Great Britain was
formed. The only means of flying was then by balloon.
18/10/1863. A French
photographer called Nadar took the first aerial photographs from his balloon, The Giant.
However the trip ended with Nadar breaking his leg, near Hanover.
1/10/1861, The US
Army formed a Balloon Corps. It had 50 men, 7 balloons, and was commended by
Chief Aeronaut Thaddeus
Lowe.
18/6/1861, Thaddeus Lowe sent the
world�s first aerial telegram. Using apparatus hoisted up in a tethered
balloon, he sent his dispatch to President Lincoln.
1/2/1858, Englishman William Dean made the first balloon ascent in
Australia, flying for seven miles over Melbourne.
2/5/1857, The
French inventor Felix
du Temple patented designs for an aircraft with a retractable
undercarriage.
1853, The first manned
heavier-than-air flight took place. Sir George Cayley, aged 80, who had written on
the topic of heavier-tha-aor flight in 1809 in his paper �On Aerial Navigation�,
glided 500 yards across a valley.
25/9/1852, The Mechanic�s Magazine published the plans
of a heavier-than-air glider capable of carrying a person.
24/9/1852, The first airship
made its maiden flight from the Hippodrome, Paris, travelling 17 miles to Trappes
at 8 mph. It was piloted by Henri Giffard. However the craft could only
travel in calm weather.
22/8/1848, The world�s first aerial bombing
raid was carried out by the Austrians against the
defenders of Venice. Unmanned hot air balloons with 30 pound bombs were sent
across; they caused little damage but much bemusement.
8/7/1838, Count Zeppelin, German builder of airships, was born in Constance.
7/11/1836, The hot air
balloon Nassau, lifted by 85,000
cubic feet of coal gas, took off from London�s Vauxhall Gardens with three
passengers. They flew over Liege and Coblenz, and landed 18 hours later in the
Nassau region. Coal gas was a cheaper lifting gas than hydrogen.
22/8/1834, Samuel Langley, aviation pioneer, was born
(died 27/2/1906).
7/7/1819, The widow
of Blanchard,
who had continued his aviation career after he died of a heart attack, herself
died in a ballooning accident. Her craft was ignited by a stray firework during
a display at the Tivoli Gardens, Paris.
2/3/1819, Henry Coxwell,
English balloonist, was born (died 5/1/1900).
22/6/1817. Windham Sadler crossed the St George�s Channel by balloon.
7/3/1809, Jean Pierre Blanchard, French balloonist, who was the first person to
cross the English Channel by air, died at La Haye during practice jumps from a
balloon.
3/5/1808. The first duel to
be fought from two hot air balloons was held over Paris; one combatant was shot
dead.
22/10/1797. Andre-Jacques Garnerin, 28, made a
parachute descent, from 2,230 feet, from a hot air balloon. He
jumped over the Parc Monceau, Paris. This was not the first parachute jump, but
Garnerin had improved the device so as to enable descents from a greater height
then ever before.
26/6/1794, The French
defeated the Austrians at the Battle of Fleurus. Balloon reconnaissance of the
enemy was used by the French, from a tethered balloon, for the first time.
2/4/1794, The
French military formed a company of Aerostiers for military observation from
tethered hot air balloons.
15/9/1784, The first
hydrogen balloon ascent from London was made.
9/1/1793, Jean Pierre Blanchard made the first
ascent in a balloon in America, near Woodbury, New Jersey.
19/1/1785, The first balloon
ascent in Ireland was made, from Ranelagh Gardens, Dublin.
7/1/1785. Jean-Pierre Blanchard, and his sponsor, the American Dr John Jefferies,
made the first hot air balloon crossing of the English Channel from Dover to
Calais.
4/10/1784, First balloon flight made in Britain.
1/12/1783, Jacques Charles flew a
28-foot diameter hydrogen balloon made of silk, coated with rubber to make it
airtight. It flew 27 miles from its start in Paris.
21/11/1783. Man�s first free flight was made by Jean De Rosier and the Marquis D�Arlandes in the hot air balloon, the Montgolfier They travelled five miles
in 25 minutes, reaching a height of 500 feet before landing safely near the
Luxembourg Wood. On 4/6/1783 they had constructed an unmanned prototype, based
on the ideas of the 14th century Augustinian monk, Albert of Saxony,
and the 17th century priest, Francesco de Luna. On 17/10/1783
Pilatre de Rozier rose 84 feet in a hot air balloon before it reached the end
of its tether. On 1/12/1783 the Montgolfier�s rivals Charles, and Robert
ascended in a hydrogen balloon. On 27/8/1783 Jacques Alexandre Cesar Charles,
a member of the French Academy of Science, had launched a prototype hydrogen
balloon.
15/10/1783, Francois Pilatre de Rozier made the
world�s manned first flight, in a tethered balloon.
17/9/1783, In France, King Louis XVI
watched as two French papermakers, Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier, sent a
large hot air balloon into the sky with a sheep, a rooster and a duck on board.
The balloon reached 1500 feet and landed a mile away; the rooster was killed ut
the sheep and duck survived unharmed.
27/8/1783, Jacques Cesar Charles, a rival hot air balloon maker to Montgolfier who
preferred hydrogen to hot air, launched his balloon. It drifted 15 miles from
Paris to Gonesse where it was hacked to pieces by frightened peasants; it
expired with much hissing.
5/6/1783, The Montgolfier
Brothers flew the first hot
air balloon. Unmanned, it ascended to 2,000 metres and remained there for
ten minutes.
26/8/1740. Joseph-Michel Montgolfier, pioneer balloonist, was born in
Annonay, France. He and his brother got the idea for hot air balloons by
filling paper bags with smoke from a fire and watching them rise to the ceiling.
1720, Swiss
scientist Daniel
Bernoulli doscivered that flowing air xraetes low pressude � a key
principle of aviation today.
8/8/1709, Father de Gusmao
demonstrated a model hot air balloon indoors in the palace of King John V
of Portugal. It rose 12 foot and threatened the expensive curtains with its
firebox. Servants shot the contraption down.�
Most balloon demonstrations after that took place outdoors.
3/1/1496, Leonardo da Vinci unsuccessfully tested a
flying machine.
Appendix 1
� Air accidents and disasters
21/3/2022, A China Eastern Airlines
Boeing 737 fell steeply out of the sky near Guangzhou killing all 132 on board.
The reason for the steep descent and crash into a mountain was initially
unknown.
8/1/2020, An airliner with 176 people on board crashed with
no survivors shortly after taking off from Tehran on a flight to Ukraine. The
plane blew up in mid-air, sparking speculation that it had been hit by a
missile. The incident, early in the morning whilst still dark, coincided with a
limited Iranian missile strike against US bases in Iraq, in a low-key revenge
attack for the assassination of Qassem Soleimani on 3/1/2020.
5/5/2019, 41 people died when a plane made an emergency
landing at Moscow Airport, and the back of the plane scraped the runway,
causing the fuel tanks to catch fire.
10/3/2019, A Boeing 737 Max airliner crashed shortly after
take-off in Ethiopia, killing all 157 people on board. This was the second such
plane to crash within a few months after a similar plane plunged into the sea
12 minutes after taking off from Indonesia. The rest of these planes were
grounded worldwide.
18/5/2016, An EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo crashed in
the Mediterranean north west of the Nile Delta.
31/10/2015, A Russian plane disintegrated in mid-air shortly
after taking off from Sharm el Sheikh airport, Egypt, on a flight back to St
Petersburg. All 224 people on board were killed.
24/3/2015, A Germanwings plane, flying from Spain to Germany,
crashed into the Alps, killing all 320 on board. It appeared that the co-pilot,
having spiked the pilot�s coffee with a diuretic to ensure he left the cockpit
for the toilet, then locked him out of the cabin and deliberately crashed the
plane into the mountains at speed.
28/12/2014, An Air Asia flight crashed into the Java Sea off
Borneo, killing all 162 people on board. It had climbed too steeply and then
stalled.
24/7/2014, An Air Algerie flight en route from Burkina Faso
to Algiers crashed in the Sahara Desert; it was initially uncertain whether
sandstorms or terrorist activity was the cause.
8/3/2014, A Malaysia Airlines flight from Malaysia to China vanished over the South China
Sea. Initial suspicions that it had crashed gave way to reports that its
tracking systems had been deliberately switched off and it had flown on for
hours afterwards, possibly as far as Kazakhstan, or had gone down in the
southern Indian Ocean. The fate of the plane remained unknown by end August
2014; by which time UK� 28.5 million had been spent on searching the seabed for
it. In September 2014 a new search initiative began, across an area of ocean of
1.1 million square kilometres west of Australia, at a further cost of UK� 29.4
million.
1/6/2009, Air France flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris
crashed in the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 288 on board.
15/1/2009, The �Miracle
on the Hudson� occurred when US Airline flight 1549 hit birds just after
takeoff from New York. Both the plane�s engines were knocked out and with
insufficient height to glide to any airstrip the pilot Captain Sullenberger put the
aeroplane down flawlessly on the River Hudson. All 155 passengers and crew
survived.
14/8/2005, A Cypriot airliner crashed
into a hill near Athens, killing all 121 on board.
12/2/2002, An Iranian airliner
crashed, killing 117.
2/10/2001, Swissair declared itself bankrupt.
25/7/2000. An Air France
Concorde exploded and crashed into a hotel near Paris shortly after taking off from Charles De Gaulle
airport, bound for New York, killing all 109 people on board, and 5 on the
ground. A piece of metal on the runway caused a tyre on Concorde to burst, and
rubber fragments punctured a fuel tank in the wing of the aircraft. Fuel
streamed into the left engines, robbing them of power. However it was too late
for the pilot to abort the takeoff and he attempted to take the aircraft to
another nearby airport. A 200 foot long tongue of flame poured from the wing,
and after 2 minutes the aircraft crashed into a hotel at Gonesse near Orly
Airport, at which the pilot was attempting to land. 4 more died on the ground.
It was nearly a year before tests were completed allowing Concorde to fly
again, and in 2003 Concorde ceased flying due to lack of demand for its fast
but expensive flights, in a time of economic slowdown.
22/12/1999, A Korean Air Boeing 747 cargo plane crashed
shortly after taking off from London Stansted Airport.
31/10/1999, EgyptAir flight 990 from
New York to Cairo crashed into the Atlantic Ocean 97 km south of Nantucket
Island, killing all 217 on board.
2/9/1998, Swissair flight 111, flying from New York to Geneva, crashed into the Atlantic, killing all 229 on board.
16/2/1998, A China Airlines plane crashed into a
residential area near Chiang Kai Shek Airport, killing all 196 on board and 6
on the ground.
23/11/1996, Ethiopian Airlines flight 9061 from Addis
Ababa to Nairobi, Kenya, was hijacked by 3 Ethiopian men and ordered to fly to
Australia. It ran out of fuel and crashed into the Indian ocean off the Comoros
islands. 123 of the 175 on board died.
18/7/1996, A TWA jet exploded at New York, killing all
230 people on board.
6/2/1996, A Dominican Alas Nacionales Boeing 757-225 crashed after take-off into
the Atlantic Ocean off the Dominican republic, killing 189 passengers.
27/1/1993, A DC-3 crashed in Kinshasa,
killing 12.
1/12/1992, Two C-141B Starlifters collided in Montana and
crashed, 13 died.
4/10/1992. An Israeli El Al
cargo plane crashed into a block of flats in Amsterdam shortly
after take-off, killing 75 people.
24/2/1989, A cargo door fell off a Boeing 747 over the
Pacific, killing 51.
8/2/1989, An Independent Air Boeing 707 crashed into Santa
Maria Mountain in the Azores, killing 144 passengers.
9/1/1989. A British Midland Boeing 737 fell short of the
runway at East Midlands Airport and ended up on the M.1 motorway, near
Kegworth. 47 died in the 12 week old aircraft, 15 seconds away from landing at
the airport. Reports suggested the pilot shut down the wrong, good, starboard,
engine after being warned of an engine failure. Witnesses saw the port engine
on fire.
22/8/1985, 34 died at Manchester
Airport when a Boeing 737 burst into flames on the runway.
12/8/1985, In
Japan� a Japan Airlines Boeing 747 on a
domestic flight crashed into a mountain, killing 520 people.
23/6/1985, An Air India jet broke up in mid air off Ireland,
killing all 239 on board.
23/7/1984, An Air Canada Boeing 767 ran out of fuel halfway
between Montreal and Edmonton. A mistake had been made in fuelling after a
switch from gallons to litres. The pilot, a gliding enthusiast, succeeded in
safely gliding the plane to a disused military base at Gimli; the plane was
dubbed the Gimli Glider.
13/1/1982, An Air Florida jet crashed into the frozen Potomac
River near the White House, killing 78.
28/11/1979, A sight-seeing flight took off from Auckland, New
Zealand, to fly over Amtarctica. Howver there was low cloud and fog. Because of
proximity to the SouthMagnetic Pole cpompasses were unreliable, so the flight
navigation relied on grid co-ordinated programmed into the plane�s compuyer,
but these had been incorrectly entered. They thought they were over the coast
of mainland Antarctica but were actually looking down at the coast of Ross
Island. The flight crew obtained permission to fly lower, below the cloud, and
at 12.49pm slammed into Mont Erebus at 480 kph. There would have been no
warning a sthe cloud and ice-covered mountain were visually indistinguishable, and
the altimeter gave no alarm until the last second.
25/5/1979, A DC-10
airliner crashed at Chicago Airport, killing 273.
1/1/1978, An Air India Boeing 77
crashed into the sea off India, killing all 213 people on board.
27/3/1977. Two jumbo jets collided on the ground at the single
airstrip of Tenerife Airport, in the fog, killing 582 people. The collision
between the KLM and the Pan Am, craft was the worst air disaster ever to date.
3/3/1974,
A Turkish Airlines DC10 crashed into a wood near Paris, killing all 344 people
on board.
4/6/1973. A Soviet version
of Concorde crashed at the Paris Air Show. All six crew, and 27 spectators,
were killed. Sabotage was suspected.
5/3/1973, 68
people died when two Spanish airliners collided over France, during a French
air traffic controllers strike.
29/12/1972, Survivors of a Uruguayan plane crash in the Andes admitted to eating
the bodies of their fello0w passengers to stay alive.
18/6/1972, A BEA Trident airliner crashed at Staines, west
London, killing 118.
21/2/1970, Swiss airliner
crashed near Baden, killing 47 passengers. Palestinian terrorists claimed
responsibility.
4/6/1967, British Midland flight G-ALHG crashed in Hopes
Carr, Stockport, Manchester, killing 72 passengers and crew.
20/4/1967, A Swiss Global Air Britannia airliner was hit by
lightning and crashed at Nicosia Airport, Cyprus, killing 126.
4/2/1966, A Japanese airliner crashed into Tokyo Bay,
killing 133 people.
24/1/1966, An Air India Boeing 707 crashed into Mont Blanc,
killing all 117 passengers on board.
31/3/1965, An Iberia airliner crashed into the Mediterranean
Sea as it was approaching Tangier, Morocco on a flight from Malaga. 50 of the
53 people on board were killed, but three passengers were rescued.
3/6/1962, An Air France Boeing 707, flying from Orly, Paris to Atlanta, Georgia,
crashed on take-off, killing 130.
15/2/1961, Sabena flight 548 crashed in Belgium, killing 73.
17/3/1957. 22 were killed and several houses demolished when a
British European Airways turbo-prop
airliner crashed at Manchester�s Ringway Airport. Failure of one wing flap
to deploy on landing was blamed; if only one wing flap deployed, the aircraft
would flip over on landing, as was seen by witnesses.
30/6/1956, Two planes collided over the Grand Canyon, killing
all 128 aboard both planes.
11/1/1954, A British Comet jet airliner crashed into the
Mediterranean near Elba.� The newly
discovered phenomenon of metal fatigue was to blame.
2/5/1953, A BOAC Comet airliner crashed near Calcutta. Experts
asked why the wings came off in mid air.
28/7/1945, A B-25 bomber crashed into the 78th
floor of the Empire State Building, killing the 3 crew and 11 passengers.
6/5/1937. In Lakehurst, New Jersey, the German
Zeppelin airship Hindenburg exploded in a ball of flame as it came in to land. 13 of 36 passengers and 22 of the 61 crew died,
out of the 97 aboard.� Survivors jumped
out of the airship as it plunged 20 metres to ground from its mooring tower.
The official cause of the explosion was St Elmos Fire, but the flammable silver
paint used to coat the airship also contributed. Fire devoured the canvas skin
of the aircraft in just over 30 seconds as the 16 bags of hydrogen gas inside
ignited. The Hindenburg had first flown in March 1936. Travelling twice as fast
as an ocean liner, airships were considered the height of luxury.
12/2/1935, The airship Macon crashed in America.
10/10/1933, The first proven case of sabotage of a
commercial airline flight. A United Airlines Boeing 247 exploded
between Cleveland and Chicago, killing 7.
4/4/1933, The American helium-filled airship Abron
crashed into the sea off New Jersey during a violent storm.
5/10/1930. The 777-foot long British airship R101
crashed at the edge of a wood near Beauvais, France during a storm, killing 48
people, out of 54 passengers and crew.
The airship hit a hill and exploded.� It
was captained by Flight Lieutenant Irwin, on a flight from Cardington,
Bedfordshire, to India. UK Air Minister Lord Thompson was on board, and may have
contributed to the disaster with his large amount of luggage, equivalent to the
weight of about 24 people. Britain abandoned all airship construction.
7/4/1922, The first collision between airliners. A
Farman Goliath operated by French airline Grands Express flew into the path of
a Daimler Airways DH 18 over Foix, northern France.
24/8/1921. An R38 airship crashed into the Humber
at Hull, killing 44 of the 49 crew and passengers.
14/12/1920, The first aeroplane disaster. A Handley page
Continental Air Services flight from Cricklewood Aerodrome, London, to Paris
crashed into the back of a newly built house at 6, Basinghill, The Ridgeway,
and fell in flames in the garden. 4 of the 6 passengers managed to jump clear
and escaped major injury; the other 2 passengers and 2 crew were killed.
17/9/1908. The first plane
crash fatality occurred when a passenger of Orville Wright died.� The fatality was Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge, of
the US signal corps, and the accident happened near Fort Meyer, Virginia, when
a propeller broke in mid-flight and the plane plunged 150 foot to the ground.
13/7/1901, Brazilian aviator Santos Dumont circled the Eiffel
Tower, Paris, in his dirigible, but later crashed at Boulogne.
Appendix 3
� Airports
31/10/2020, Berlin-Brandenburg
Airport Willy Brandt finally opened, 9 years late and 3 billion Euros over
budget. The planned opening date had been 31/10/2011. It finally became
operational in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, when very few people were
flying anywhere. Tegel Airport., north of Berlin, was closed immediately, and
Schonefeld Airport, close by, became a 5th Terminal for the new
facility.
27/3/2008, The new British Airways Terminal Five at London Heathrow opened.� The
baggage system collapsed and many flights were delayed, cancelled, or left
without baggage.
28/4/2005, Robin Hood
Airport, Doncaster, opened,on the site of RAF Finningley which had closed
in 1996.
8/10/1998, Oslo�s new Gardermoen Airport opened, replacing the smaller Fornebu
Airport.
28/2/1995, Denver International
Airport opened. 23 miles from Denver city centre, it covered 53 square
miles, cost US$ 4.9 billion, and replaced the 65-year-old Stapleton Airport.
1/10/1992, Pittsburgh�s new International Airport opened.
1991, The new Terminal at
Stansted Airport, Essex, designed by Norman Foster, opened.
1987, Galway Airport, Ireland,
opened.
26/10/1987. The City
Airport in the London
Docklands opened for short landing and take-off aircraft.
1986,
Ireland
West Airport Knock was opened, after a long campaign by Monsignor James Horan
to facilitate visits by pilgrims to the nearby Knock shrine.
12/4/1986, Heathrow
Airport, London, opened its fourth terminal.
5/6/1985, The UK Government approved Stanstead as London�s third airport site.
1983, George Best Belfast City Airport began commercial operations, as
Belfast Airport; it was renamed in honour of footballer George Best in 5/2006.
It had originally opened in 1938 as Belfast Harbour Airport, becoming RAF
Belfast during World War Two.
14/11/1983, The world�s
largest airport opened near Riyadh. The King Khalid International Airport
covered 86 square miles of desert and cost �2.1 billion.
9/6/1978, Prince
Charles opened new terminal facilities at Gatwick Airport.
21/5/1978, Despite four years of protests, Tokyo�s
new second airport at Narita opened.
12/4/1975, French President Valery Giscard d�Estaing opened the new airport at
Lyons-Satolas.
1974, Humberside Airport opened, then known as Kirmington Airport
(formerly RAF Kirmington opened 1941, abandoned 1945).
18/7/1974, The Maplin Project, which would have created a seaport and airport combined
the size of Rotterdam off the Essex coast, was scrapped.
8/3/1974, Charles de Gaulle airport at Paris
was opened.
13/1/1974, The world�s
largest airport opened, at Dallas,
Texas, USA.
26/4/1971, The British government announced its intention to
build a third London airport at Foulness.
1968, The Roskill Commission was set up to decide the possible site for London�s
third airport. It reported back in January 1971 favouring Cublington,
Buckinghamshire; Professor Buchanan dissented in favour of Foulness, on
environmental grouds,
12/5/1967, The British Government chose Stansted as the site for London�s third airport. Protestors won
another enquiry, scheduled for February 1968. Maplin then seemed to be favoured as the site of London�s third
airport, but see 18/7/1974.
1966, GlasgowAirport opened, replacing Renfrew Airport. It was renamed
Glasgow International Airport in 12989.
1/4/1966, The newly-created British
Airports Authority took responsibility for London�s� Gatwick, Stansted and
Heathrow Airports.
1965, East Midlands Airport, Leicestershire, opened,
24/3/1964, Stanstead, Essex, was provisionally chosen
as the site of London�s third airport. It had originally been constructed
by the US Army in 1942 as a bomber base.
1963,
Dundee Airport opened.
10/1961,
Cork International Airport, Ireland, opened.
30/9/1959, London�s
Croydon Airport closed. The last flight was to Rotterdam.
23/4/1959, Britain�s
first heliport opened, on the River Thames in London.
9/6/1958. Gatwick
Airport was opened by Queen
Elizabeth II. (see 6/6/1936). The new facilities cost �7 million.
1957, Occasional commercial
flights now departed from Stanstead, which was mainly a military airport for US
bombers.
1957, The present Bristol Airport opened; originally
called Bristol Lulsgate, name changed in 3/1997.
2/4/1957, Brasilia Airport opened.
16/12/1955, The new terminal buildings at London Heathrow were completed.
1954, Lydd Airport, Kent, opened.
20/7/1954. The expansion of Gatwick Airport was approved by a public committee.
1952, Cardiff
Airport began commercial flights, to Dublin. It had originally been built as a base
to train Spitfire pilots during World War Two. The runway was extended in
1986, facilitating more flights.
24/9/1952, The new control tower at
Luton airport, 15.9 metres high, was opened.
1948, Kirkwall Airport, Orkneys, opened.
31/7/1948, Idlewild
Airport, New York, opened (4,900 acres).
1947, Inverness Airport opened.
31/5/1946, Heathrow
was officially opened as London Airport.
13/11/1944. Croydon aerodrome, London, resumed civilian
flights. The first flight was to Belfast via Liverpool.
5/1944, Construction work began on London�s Heathrow Airport.
1942, Shannon Airport, Ireland, was established.
The forst scheduled commercial flight took off from here in 10/1945. Until the
mid-1960s many transatlantic flights from the USA
to Europe stopped to refuel at Shannon.
8/7/1939. Birmingham Airport was officially opened by the Duke of Kent.
In 1929 Birmingham City Council decided the city should have an airport, and in
1933 a site at Elmdon, 8 miles from the city centre, was chosen. After the
opening in 1939 services to Croydon, Glasgow, Liverpool, Ryde, Manchester, and
Southampton began. However just 2 months after opening the airport was
requisitioned by the Air Ministry as World War Two began. In July 1946 civilian
flights resumed from Birmingham and 1949 saw its first overseas flight, to
Paris. In the 1950s flights began to Zurich, Dusseldorf, Palma, and Amsterdam.
By the early 1970s the terminal was suffering from congestion as over one
million passengers used the airport each year. The main runway was extended,
and there was further expansion when the National Exhibition Centre opened in
1974. Concorde landed there in 1981 and the Queen opened a new passenger
terminal in 1984. In 1999, 7 million passengers used the airport.
1940,
Dublin Airport (originally
Collinstown Airport) saw its inaugural flight; the terminal buildings were
completed in 1941.
15/10/1939, New York
Municipal Airport, 558 acres (later renamed LaGuardia Airport) was formally
dedicated in New York. Nearly 100,000 people turned out to watch almost 60
military aircraft perform a flypast.
16/7/1938, Luton Airport, Bedfordshire, was
opened.
6/1938,
Manchester Airport (originally known
as Ringway Airport) opened.
1937,
Belfast City Airport opened.
1936,
Coventry Airport opened.
1936,
Bromma Airport, Stockholm�s first land airport, opened. The lack of flat ground
in Scandinavia
had meant most early air servces were seaplanes. Bromma Airport was blasted out
of the rock, and so needed paved runways.
13/6/1936, Shoreham
Airport opened.
6/6/1936. Gatwick
Airport opened. It was reopened as an international airport on 9/6/1958.
5/1/1935, New York�s Municipal Airport 2 opened. It was the
predecessor of La Guardia Airport.
1933, Wick Airport opened.
1/7/1933, Speke
aerodrome, Liverpool, opened.
1932, Southampton Airport opened.
1931, Leeds-Bradford Airport opened.
1930, Bristol�s first airport
opened at Whitchurch, south of the city. See 1957.
1930, Shoreham Airport, Sussex, opened.
22/4/1929, Britain�s first municipal airport opened, at Chat Moss, Manchester.
2/5/1928. Croydon Airport officially opened.
30/1/1928, Croydon
Aerodrome began operations, see 29/3/1920 and 2/5/1928.
15/2/1924, The
world�s first �control tower� was inaugurated at le Bourget Airport, Paris. A
tower with a commanding view of the airport now enabled aircraft movements to
be directed by an officer with binoculars.
29/3/1920, Croydon
was designated as London�s official airport, and Hounslow abandoned, see
30/1/1928.
1917, Belfast
International Airport opened as Aldergrove Royal Flyting Corps training
site. Civilian flights started in 1933 to Glasgow. Flights ti London began in
1934 from nearby Nutts Corner Airfield.
26/3/1910, Plans for
Aeropolis, an aerodrome at le Bourget, Paris, were announced.
19/12/1908, Port Aviation, the world�s first aerodrome, wad
completed, 12 miles from Paris.
Appendix 4
- Air speed, height, distance records
4)a) Altitude
records
4) b) Speed
records
4)c)
Straight-distance records
4)d) Time
duration records (single-leg)
7/7/1981, The first crossing of the
English Channel by a solar-powered aircraft, Solar Challenger.
12/6/1979, The American Bryan Allen
made the first man-powered flight across the English Channel.
He pedalled his Gossamer Albatross from Folkestone to Cap Gris Nez in 2 hours
50 minutes.
26/8/1952, A
Canberra bomber returned to
Aldergrove Airport, Northern Ireland, having completed the first transatlantic return trip in a single
day, taking 7 hours 59 minutes.
21/2/1951. A
British bomber aircraft crossed the
Atlantic in a record 4 hours 40 minutes.
24/10/1937, New
Zealand aviator Jean Batten broke
the record for flying from Australia to Britain, taking 5 days 18 hours and 18 minutes.
6/11/1935. The
RAF�s first monoplane fighter, the Hawker Hurricane, made its maiden flight. It
was the fastest fighter aircraft in the world, with a top speed of 325 mph at
20,000 feet.
20/10/1934. An air race began at Mildenhall,
Suffolk, at 6.30am.
A prize of �10,000 and a �500 gold cup went to the fastest flight to Australia.
It was won by the Briton, Mr T Campbell-Black and Mr C W Scott, who flew a De
Havilland Comet to Australia in 2 days,
22 hours, and 58 minutes.
22/7/1933. Wiley Post, 34, completed the first solo
round the world flight. He also sliced 21 hours off the previous record for a
round the world flight of 8 days 15
hours 51 minutes he achieved with his navigator Harold Gatty.
27/4/1932. Mr C W Scott flew from Lympne, Kent, to Darwin,
northern Australia, in 8 days, 20 hours, 47 minutes.
28/3/1932. Mr J A Mollison flew from England to Cape Town in 4 days, 17 hours, 19 minutes,
beating the previous record by 15 hours, 18 minutes.
30/12/1931. Mr Fielder, a British pilot, flew from London to Algiers in a day.
9/11/1931. A C Butler set a new speed record for
flying from England to Port Darwin, in 9 days, 2 hours, 29 minutes.
5/11/1931. Miss Peggy Salaman and Mr Gordon Stone set a new record
in aviation, flying from England to the Cape, South Africa, in 5 days, 6 hours,
40 minutes.
3/9/1930, The first non-stop flight from Paris
to New York was made by Dieudonne Costes and Maurice Bellonte.
10/7/1929, Charles Kingsford Smith and his crew arrived
in Eng;land having flown from Australia in the record time of 12 days, 21 hours
and 18 minutes.
22/2/1928. Mr Bert Hinkler arrived in Port Darwin, having
set a record time for the flight from England, 15 � days.
15/6/1927, The
flight from Amsterdam to Jakarta now took 15 days (see 10/1924) each way.
21/5/1927. Charles A Lindbergh completed the first solo Atlantic flight. He took off from Roosevelt
Field, Long Island, flew his monoplane Spirit of St Louis for 33 �
hours, and landed at Le Bourget airfield, Paris. Landing in Paris, he won the
US$ 25,000 prize for the first
solo flight across the Atlantic.
1/10/1926, Alan Cobham made a round the world flight in 58
days.
10/1924, The first scheduled flight from Amsterdam to
Jakarta took off; it took 55 days to cover the 9,500 miles. Actual flying time
was 127 hours; average speed 75 mph. See 15/6/1927.
10/12/1919, British aviators Ross and Keith Smith completed a 135-hour
flight from England to Australia.
23/9/1910, First crossing of the Alps by aeroplane.
4)a) Altitude
7/5/1958, HC Johnson, USA, set a new aviation altitude
record of 91,244 feet.
28/8/1957, M Randrup
and W Shirley (UK) set a new aviation altitude record of 70,308 feet.
4/5/1953, W Gibb, UK, set a new aviation altitude record
of 63,668 feet.
23/3/1948, J Cunningham, UK, set a new aviation altitude
record of 59,445 feet.
8/5/1937, M Pezzi, Italy, set a new aviation altitude
record of 51,361 feet.
14/8/1936, G Detre, France,
set a new aviation altitude record of 48,698 feet.
4/6/1930, A Soucek, USA, set a new aviation altitude
record of 43,166 feet.
5/9/1923, Sadi Lecointe, France, set a new aviation
altitude record of 35,242 feet.
27/2/1920, RW Schroeder, USA, set a new aviation altitude
record of 33,114 feet.
Height
of Mount Everest, 29,031 feet
28/12/1913, G Legagneux, France, set a new aviation
altitude record of 20,079 feet.
11/12/1912, R Garros,
France, set a new aviation record of 18,406 feet.
Height of Mont Blanc (highest point in Europe), 15,771 feet
9/8/1911, Captain Felix, France, set a new aviation
record of 10,466 feet.
8/7/1911, M Loridan, France, set a new aviation altitude
record of 10.,423 feet.
8/12/1910, G Legagneux, France, set a new aviation
altitude record of 10,171 feet.
31/10/1910, R Johnston, USA, set a new aviation altitude
record of 9,711 feet.
11/8/1910. Mr Drexel set a new aviation altitude record, reaching 6,750 feet in a Bleriot monoplane.
9/7/1910, Walter Brookins set a� new aviation altitude record of 6,175 feet. By flying over a mile high, he won a prize of
US$ 5,000.
7/7/1910, H Latham, France set a new aviation altitude
record of 4,540 feet.
Height of Ben Nevis (highest pont in UK), 4,413 feet
7/1/1910. H
Latham,
France, set a new aviation altitude record of 3,281 feet.
1/12/1909, H Latham,
France, set a new aviation altitude record of 1,486 feet.
18/10/1909, Comte de
Lambert, France, set a new aviation altitude record of 984 feet.
29/8/1909, H Latham, France, set a
new aviation altitude record of 509 feet.
18/12/1908, Wilbur Wright became the first man to attain the height of 360 feet in a plane.
4)b) Speed
3/10/1967, US Air Force pilot Major Peter Knight flew a
rocket-powered research aircraft at 4,534 mph (7,254 kph).
4/8/1960, NASA test pilot Joseph A. Walker became the fastest man in history
as he flew an X-15 at a speed of 2,196 miles per hour, breaking a record set in
1956 by Milburn Apt, who had been killed
while flying an X-2. However
this was not done under the rules governing international speed record attempts.
15/12/1959, JW Rogers, USA, set a
new aviation speed record of 1,525.95 mph.
16/5/1958, W Irwin, USA, set a new aviation speed record of 1,404.09 mph.
10/3/1956, JP Twiss, UK, set a new aviation speed record
of 1,132.14 mph.
29/10/1953, FK Everest, USA, set a new aviation speed
record of 755.15 mph.
3/10/1953, JB Verdin, USA, set a new aviation speed
record of 752.94 mph.
25/9/1953, MJ Lithgow, UK, set a new aviation speed
record of 735.70 mph.
16/7/1953, A new world air
speed record, of 716 mph
or 1,152 kph was set by an F16 Sabre fighter plane.
19/11/1952, JS Nash, USA, set a new aviation speed record
of 698.50 mph.
15/9/1948, R Johnson, USA, set a new aviation speed
record of 670.98 mph.
6/9/1948, John Derry, piloting a De Havilland DH 108, in
a dive, became the first pilot to fly at
supersonic speed in Britain.
14/10/1947. The first supersonic flight
was made, by Charles
Yeager of California.� Major
Charles Yeager was taken to 30,000 feet from Edwards Air Base, Muroc,
California, in a Bell X-1, underneath a B-29 Superfortress plane, and released.
He flew at 670mph, (Mach 1.05),
held for several seconds, then landed at Edwards Air Base again.
20/8/1947, TF Caldwell, USA, set a new aviation speed
record of 640.74 mph.
7/9/1946, EM Donaldson, UK, set a new aviation speed
record of 615.78 mph.
1/9/1946. The jet aircraft Meteor EE549 reached the
record speed of 616 mph.
7/11/1945, The jet
aircraft Meteor EE454 reached the record speed of 606 mph.
26/4/1939, F Wendell, Germany, set a new aviation speed
record of 469.22 mph.
30/3/1939, H Dieterle, Germany, set a new aviation speed
record of 463.92 mph.
10/4/1933. A world air
speed record of 424 mph
was set by Francesco
Agello.
16/1/1930. The airship R100
reached 81 � mph in a trial flight.
12/9/1929, AH Orlebar, UK, set a new aviation speed
record of 357.75 mph.
10/9/1929. A British seaplane reached a record speed of
355.8 mph.
4/11/1927, M de Bernardi, Italy, set a new aviation speed
record of 297.83 mph.
13/11/1926, In Italy, Mario de Bernardi set a new seaplane speed
record of 246 mph.
29/3/1923, RL Maughan, USA, set a new aviation speed
record of 236.59 mph.
15/2/1923, Sadi Lecointe, France, set a new aviation
speed record of 233.03 mph.
1/1/1923, A French pilot set a new air speed record
of 217 mph.
26/9/1921, Sadi Lecointe,
France, set a new aviation speed record of 205.24 mph.
4/11/1920, R de Romanet, France, set a new aviation speed
record of 192.02 mph.
20/10/1920, Sadi Lecointre, France, set a new aviation
speed record of 187.99 mph.
9/10/1920, R de Romanet, France, set a new aviation speed
record of 181.87 mph.
13/7/1912, J Vedrines, France, set a new
aviation speed record of 106.12 mph.
12/6/1911, A Leblanc, France, set a new aviation speed
record of 77.68 mph.
23/4/1910, H Latham, France, set a new aviation speed
record of 48.21 mph.
24/8/1909, Bleriot set a new aviation speed record of 46.18 mph.
23/8/1909, G Curtiss, USA, set a new aviation speed
record of 43.38 mph.
12/11/1906, A Santos-Dumas of France set an aviation speed
record of 25.65 mph.
4)c)
Straight-distance records
2/3/1949. A
crew of US Air Force personnel completed the first non-stop round the world flight, refuelling four times
mid-air, taking 94 hours. See 21/5/1927, first transatlantic flight. The
flight captain was James Gallagher, flying the US Air Force B50 �Lucky
Lady�.
29/7/1931, R N Boardman, USA, set a new aviation distance
record of 5,011 miles.
14/7/1925, Captain Girier of France set a new aviation
flight length record of 2,930 miles.
15/6/1919. John Alcock and Arthur Brown completed the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic. It took them 16 hours, 12
minutes, to fly from Lester�s Field, St John�s Newfoundland, to
Derrygimla Bog, near Clifden, Ireland. They were both knighted for this
achievement.
7/3/1912. Henri Semiet made the first non-stop
flight from London to Paris, taking three hours.
18/12/1910. Mr Tom Sopwith won a �4,000 aviation prize by flying from Eastchurch, Sheppey, to
Beaumont, Belgium. He covered the 177 miles in 3 � hours.
28/4/1910. M Paulham
flew from London to Manchester, winning the
Daily Mail prize of �10,000 for the first person to accomplish this.
30/12/1909, The first
aeroplane flight of over 100 miles
was made.
13/9/1906, Brazilian
aviator Alberto
Santos Dumont made the first flight in Europe. His canvas and bamboo
biplane stayed airborne for a 7 metre flight, on
the outskirts of Paris.
6/5/1896, In the US, Samuel Pierpoint Langley succeeded in flying a glider 3,300 feet (one kilometre).
9/10/1890, Clement Ader,
Frenchman, flew his monoplane, the Ecole,
165 feet. However it was not a truly sustained
or controllable flight.
4)d) Time duration records (single leg)
25/3/2018, The first non-stop commercial flight from
Australia to London took place, taking 17 hours (see 1935, 1938, 1947).
4/3/1976, First non-stop flight of a Japan Airlines jumbo
jet from Tokyo to New York. The jet covered the 10,000km in 11 hours 30
minutes.
26/4/1929. The first non-stop flight from
England to India
of 4,130 miles in 50 hours 37 minutes was made by two RAF officers. They
were Squadron leader A G Jones-Williams and Flight Lieutenant N H Jenkins.
2/6/1910. Mr C S Rolls flew from Dover to
Calais and back without landing in France, taking 90 minutes for the whole return
journey.
31/12/1908, Wilbur Wright set a new aeroplane flight duration time of 2 hours 20 minutes.
16/10/1908, The
first powered aeroplane flight in
Britain, at Farnborough, piloted by the American Samuel Franklin Cody. He flew
1,390 feet in 27 seconds.
5/10/1905. Orville Wright became the first man to fly an aircraft for 38 minutes. He flew in a 24.5 mile
circular course at Dayton, Ohio.