Feb. 27, 1920. Army Maj. R.W. “Shorty” Schroeder sets a world altitude record of 33,114 feet in the Packard-LePere LUSAC-11 biplane over McCook Field, Ohio.

June 4, 1920. The Army Reorganization Bill is approved, changing the title from Director to Chief of Air service, and endowing the Army Air Service with 1,514 officers and 16,000 enlisted men.

June 5, 1920. A provision in the Fiscal Year 1921 appropriations bill restricts the Army Air Service to operating from land bases.

1921

Feb. 22, 1921. American transcontinental airmail service begins. The route between San Francisco and Mineola, N.Y., is flown in 14 segments by pilots flying US-built de Havilland DH-4s. The first flight, made mostly in bad weather, takes 33 hours, 20 minutes.

June 8, 1921. The first flight of an Army Air Service pressurized cabin airplane occurs.

July 13–21, 1921. In a series of tests off the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, Army crews from the First Provisional Air Brigade at Langley Field, Va., flying Martin MB-2 bombers, sink three ships, including the captured German battleship Ostfriesland, demonstrating the vulnerability of naval craft to aerial attack.

Aug. 3, 1921. Lt. John A. Macready, flying a Curtiss JN-6 “Jenny” fitted with a 32-gallon hopper tank filled with insecticide dust, performs the world’s first successful aerial crop dusting. The spray system is devised to save a grove of catalpa trees near Troy, Ohio, being devoured by Catalpa Sphinx caterpillars. Flying at 20 to 35 feet back and forth over the trees, Macready spreads the dust completely and all the caterpillars are killed within 46 hours.

Sept. 26, 1921. Sadi Lecointe pushes the recognized absolute speed record past 200 mph, as he hits 205.223 mph in the Nieuport-Delage Sesquiplane at Ville-sauvage, France.

Nov. 12, 1921. Wesley May, with a five-gallon can of gasoline strapped to his back, climbs from the wing of one aircraft to the wing of another in the first “air-to-air” refueling.

1922

March 20, 1922. USS Langley (CV-1), the Navy’s first aircraft carrier, is commissioned in Norfolk, Va. The ship is converted from the collier USS Jupiter.

June–July 1922. Army Air Service Balloon and Airship School established at Scott Field, consolidating balloon and airship training activities previously conducted at Brooks Field, Tex., Langley Field, Va., and Ross Field, Calif.

July 1, 1922. Congress authorizes the conversion of the unfinished battle cruisers Lexington and Saratoga to aircraft carriers.

Sept. 4, 1922. AAS Lt. James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle, flying a deHavilland DH-4B, takes off from Pablo Beach, Fla., and lands at Rockwell Field, San Diego, 21 hours and 20 minutes later, marking the first flight across the US in a single day. Doolittle only makes one refueling stop (at Kelly Field, Tex.) during the 2,163-mile trip.

Oct. 17, 1922. The first aircraft carrier takeoff in US Navy history is made by Navy Lt. V.C. Griffin in a Vought VE-7SF from USS Langley (CV-1), at anchor in the York River in Virginia.

Oct. 18, 1922. Army Brig. Gen. William H. “Billy” Mitchell becomes the first US military pilot to hold the recognized absolute speed record, as he sets a mark of 222.97 mph in the Curtiss R-6 at Selfridge Field, Mich. This is also the first time the world speed record has been certified outside of France.

Oct. 20, 1922. Army Lt. Harold R. Harris becomes the first American pilot to save himself by use of a parachute, bailing out of a Loening PW-2A that had shed its wings in flight over McCook Field, Ohio.

Dec. 18, 1922. Col. Thurman H. Bane makes the first flight of the Army Air Service’s first rotorcraft at McCook Field, Ohio. Bane reaches an altitude of six feet, covers nearly 300 feet, and hovers for one minute and 42 seconds. The 65-foot diameter X-shaped vehicle, developed by George de Bothezat, a Russian immigrant working for the Army, utilizes four six-bladed rotors for lift. Several subsequent tests were all successful, but the Army loses interest in the project.

1923

May 2–3, 1923. Army Lts. Oakley G. Kelly and John A. Macready complete the first nonstop transcontinental flight. The trip from Roosevelt Field, Long Island, N. Y., to Rockwell Field, San Diego, in the Fokker T-2 takes 26 hours, 50 minutes, and 38 seconds and covers 2,520 miles.

Sept. 4, 1923. First flight of the airship USS Shenandoah (ZR-1) is made at NAF Lakehurst, N.J. The airship will make 57 flights in two years before it is destroyed by a storm near Marietta, Ohio.

Sept. 18, 1923. The first mid-air hookup of an airplane to an airship takes place over Langley Field, Va., as a pilot flying a Sperry M-1 Messenger, with its top-wing mounted trapeze, hooks on to a rig suspended below the Goodyear D-3 airship and shuts the engine down. The Messenger, the smallest aircraft ever built for the Army, is intended as a “dispatch rider of the sky,” relaying messages between field commanders. This test is one of several experimental tasks the aircraft would be used to accomplish.

Sept. 28, 1923. At Cowes, on the Isle of Wight, off England’s southern coast, Navy Lt. David Rittenhouse claims the Schneider Cup for the United States for the first time. Flying a Curtiss CR-3, Rittenhouse wins the prestigious seaplane race with an average speed of 177.37 mph.

March 4, 1924. The Army Air Service takes on a new mission: aerial icebreaking. Two Martin bombers and two DH-4s bomb the frozen Platte River at North Bend, Neb., for six hours before the ice clears.

April 6–Sept. 28, 1924. The Army Air Service completes the first circumnavigation of the globe. Four crews in Douglas World Cruisers begin the voyage in Seattle, but only two aircraft and crews (Chicago, with pilot Lt. Lowell Smith and Lt. Leslie Arnold aboard; and New Orleans, with pilot Lt. Erik Nelson and Lt. Jack Harding) complete the 175-day, 27,553-mile, 371-hour, 11-minute trip.
Read Around the World

June 23, 1924. Army Lt. Russell L. Maughan makes the first dawn to dusk flight across the US. Taking off at first light in a Curtiss PW 8 from Mitchel Field, N.Y., Maughan races the sun across the continent and, after five refueling stops, lands in San Francisco 21 hours, 48.5 minutes later. Although he does not actually land before the sunsets, he is credited with the dawn to dusk flight because of the loss of one hour and 20 minutes at McCook Field, Ohio, as his airplane had to be repaired because an over eager mechanic accidentally twisted off a fuel line vent with a wrench that was too large.

Oct. 12–15, 1924. As part of World War I reparations, the German zeppelin LZ-126 is flown from Friedrichshafen, Germany, to NAF Lakehurst, N.J. The Navy will later christen the airship USS Los Angeles (ZR-3).

Oct. 28, 1924. Army Air Service airplanes break up cloud formations at 13,000 feet over Bolling Field, D.C., by “blasting” them with electrified sand.

Dec. 13, 1924. Army Lt. Cliff Finter attached and detached a Sperry Messenger airplane to the TC-3 airship from an altitude of 3,000 feet over Scott Field, Ill.

1925

Jan. 24, 1925. The Navy airship USS Los Angeles (ZR-3), with 25 scientists and astronomers on board, is used to make observations of a solar eclipse.

Feb. 2, 1925. President Calvin Coolidge signs the Kelly Act, authorizing the air transport of mail under contract. This is the first major legislative step toward the creation of a US airline industry.

July 15, 1925. The A. Hamilton Rice Expedition, the first group of explorers to use an airplane, returns to the US. The expedition, which used a Curtiss Seagull floatplane, discovered the headwaters of the Amazon River.

Sept. 11, 1925. Army Lt. James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle loses a coin toss to Navy Lt. Al Williams to be first to fly the Curtiss R3C-1 racer at Garden City, N.Y. The aircraft, which could be fitted either with landing gear or floats, would go on to win both the Pulitzer Trophy and Schneider Cup races the next month.

Oct. 26, 1925. Army Lt. James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle, flying the Curtiss R3C-2 floatplane racer, wins the Schneider Cup race in Baltimore with an average speed of 232.57 mph. This marks back-to-back wins for the United States and the only time the Army had competed in a seaplane race. (Note: The US won the Schneider Cup race in 1923, and the race was not held in 1924.) The next day, Doolittle sets a world seaplane speed record of 245.713 mph over a three-kilometer course.

Dec. 17, 1925. Airpower pioneer Billy Mitchell is found guilty of violating the 96th Article of War (“conduct of a nature to bring discredit on the military service”) and is sentenced to a five-year suspension of rank, pay, and command. Already demoted from brigadier general, Colonel Mitchell decides instead to resign from the Army.
Read "Billy Mitchell: Warrior, Prophet, Martyr," Air Force Magazine, September 1985; The Spirit of Billy Mitchell; and The Real Billy Mitchell

1926

Jan. 8, 1926. The 719,000 cubic-foot semi-rigid RS-1 airship, the largest semi-rigid in the world, makes its maiden flight from Scott Field, Ill.

Jan. 16, 1926. The Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics is founded.

March 16, 1926. Robert H. Goddard launches the world’s first liquid-fueled rocket at Auburn, Mass.

May 20, 1926. President Calvin Coolidge signs the Air Commerce Act, the cornerstone of the federal government’ s regulation of civil aviation. The act charges the Secretary of Commerce with fostering air commerce, licensing pilots, issuing and enforcing air traffic rules, certificating aircraft, establishing airways, and operating and maintaining aids to navigation.

July 2, 1926. US Army Air Service becomes US Army Air Corps as the Air Corps Act of 1926 goes into effect. The act sets a goal of 1,800 serviceable aircraft and 16,650 personnel by Jan. 30, 1932, but the Depression will prevent this goal from being reached.

July 2, 1926. Congress establishes the Distinguished Flying Cross (made retroactive to April 6, 1917).

Dec. 21, 1926–May 2, 1927. In an effort to garner publicity for the newly established Army Air Corps (and to show that the Army was more adept at long distance flight over land or water than the Navy), five Air Corps crews, led by Capt. Ira C. Eaker and Lt. Muir S. Fairchild, make a 22,000-mile goodwill tour of 25 Central and South American countries in Loening OA-1A amphibians. The flight starts at Kelly Field, Tex., and ends at Bolling Field, D.C.
Read “ Eaker’s Pan–American Mission,” Air Force Magazine, September 1986.

1927

May 20–21, 1927. The first solo nonstop transatlantic flight is completed by Charles A. Lindbergh in the Ryan NYP Spirit of St. Louis: New York to Paris in 33 hours, 32 minutes. Lindbergh’s achievements will be recognized by the award of the Distinguished Flying Cross, and by special act of Congress, the Medal of Honor.

May 25,1927. AAC Lt. James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle flies the first successful outside loop.

June 28–29, 1927. AAC Lts. Albert Hegenberger (navigator) and Lester Maitland (pilot) make the first flight from the US mainland to Hawaii. Flying a modified Fokker C-2 nicknamed Bird of Paradise, the duo leaves Oakland, Calif., travel 2,407 miles and arrive at Wheeler Field 25 hours and 50 minutes later. The flight is primarily a demonstration of the Army’s advances in navigation (and also to show up the Navy). Hegenberger and Maitland would later be awarded the Mackay Trophy for 1927.

Sept. 16, 1927. In a staged publicity event, MGM Studios attempts to make the first nonstop flight across the US with an animal on board an aircraft. Noted pilot Martin Jensen was chosen to fly Leo, MGM’s trademark lion, from San Diego, Calif., to New York City for a promotional tour. Man and beast never arrive, however. After a nationwide search and three days of front-page headlines, Jensen and Leo are found unhurt in the Arizona desert. A storm had forced Jensen down, and the Ryan BI monoplane (that had been fitted with a steel cage for Leo) was heavily damaged on landing.

Oct. 12, 1927. Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio, is formally dedicated as the Army Air Corp’s new test center. The citizens of Dayton raise $400,673 to purchase 4,000 acres of land east of the city for the new facility. McCook Field, which had been the center of military aviation research and development for the past 10 years, but which was too small and had no room for expansion, is closed.

Nov. 4, 1927. Using a free balloon, Capt. Hawthorne C. Gray achieves a world record altitude of 42,470 feet, but his death nullifies the record.

Nov. 16, 1927. The US Navy’s second designated aircraft carrier—USS Saratoga (CV-3)—is commissioned. The ship will later be deliberately destroyed during a 1946 atomic bomb test.

1928

Jan. 27, 1928. The Navy airship USS Los Angeles (ZR-3) lands on the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga (CV-3) near Newport, R.I., and resumes its patrol after replenishment.

Feb. 15, 1928. President Calvin Coolidge signs a bill authorizing acceptance of a new site near San Antonio to become the Army Air Corps training center. This center is now Randolph Air Force Base.

March 1–9, 1928. AAC Lt. Burnie R. Dallas and Beckwith Havens make the first transcontinental flight in an amphibious airplane. Total flight time in the Loening Amphibian is 32 hours, 45 minutes.

March 30, 1928. Italian Maj. Mario de Bernardi pushes the recognized absolute speed record past 300 mph, as he hits 318.624 mph in the Macchi M.52R at Venice, Italy.

April 15–21, 1928. Britain George Hubert Wilkins and American Carl B. Eielson, a former AAC lieutenant for whom Eielson AFB, Alaska, is named, fly from Point Barrow, Alaska, across the Arctic Ocean to Spitsbergen, Norway, in a Lockheed Vega. This first west-to-east trip over the top of the world takes only 21 hours of flying, but the duo is delayed by weather. Wilkins was knighted for the exploit.

May 12, 1928. Lt. Julian S. Dexter of the Army Air Corps Reserve completes a 3,000-square-mile aerial mapping assignment over the Florida Everglades. The project takes 65 hours of flying, spread over two months.

May 30–31, 1928. Capt. William E. Kepner and Lt. William O. Eareckson won the National Balloon Elimination Race and the accompanying Paul W. Litchfield Trophy.

June 15, 1928. Lts. Karl S. Axtater and Edward H. White, flying in an Army Air Corps blimp directly over an Illinois Central train, dip down and hand a mailbag to the postal clerk on the train, thus completing the first aircraft-to-train transfer.

June 30, 1928. Capt. William E. Kepner and Lt. William O. Eareckson took first place at the James Gordon Bennett International balloon Race, bringing the Army Air Corps international recognition for its lighter-than-air activities.

Aug. 1, 1928. Airmail rates rise to five cents for the first ounce and 10 cents for each additional ounce.

Sept. 22, 1928. The number of people whose lives have been saved by parachutes exceeds 100 when Lt. Roger V. Williams bails out over San Diego.

Oct. 11–15, 1928. The German Graf Zeppelin (LZ-127) makes the first transoceanic voyage by an airship carrying paying passengers. Graf Zeppelin travels from Friedrichshafen, Germany, to NAF Lakehurst, N.J., in nearly 112 hours, with 20 passengers and a crew of 37.

Nov. 11, 1928. In a Lockheed Vega, Sir George Hubert Wilkins, who was knighted for his previous feat on April 15–21, 1928, and Carl B. Eielson make the first flight over Antarctica.

1929

Jan. 1–7, 1929. Question Mark, a Fokker C-2 commanded by AAC Maj. Carl A. “Tooey” Spaatz, sets an endurance record for a refueled aircraft of 150 hours, 40 minutes, 14 seconds. The crew includes AAC Capt. Ira C. Eaker, Lts. Elwood R. Quesada and Harry Halverson, and Sgt. Roy Hooe.
Read Question Mark

Jan. 23–27, 1929. The aircraft carriers USS Lexington (CV-2) and USS Saratoga (CV-3) participate in fleet exercises attached to opposing forces.

Feb. 10–11, 1929. Evelyn Trout sets a women’s solo flight endurance record of 17 hours, 21 minutes, 37 seconds in the monoplane Golden Eagle.

April 24, 1929. Elinor Smith, 17 years old, sets a women’s solo endurance record of 26 hours, 21 minutes, 32 seconds in a Bellanca CH monoplane at Roosevelt Field, Long Island, N.Y.

May 16, 1929. At the first Academy Award ceremonies in Los Angeles, Calif., the Paramount movie “Wings” wins the Oscar for Best Picture for 1927–28. The World War I flying epic stars Richard Arlen, Buddy Rogers, and Clara Bow. A young Gary Cooper has a minor role.

Sept. 24, 1929. AAC Lt. James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle makes the first blind, all-instrument flight at Mitchel Field, N.Y., in a completely covered cockpit (accompanied by check pilot). He takes off, flies a short distance, and lands.
Read “Flying Blind,” Air Force Magazine, September 1989.

Sept. 30, 1929. At Frankfurt, Germany, Fritz von Opel travels just over a mile in the world’s first flight of a rocket-powered airplane. The Rak-1 tops 85 mph but crashes.

Nov. 23, 1929. After visiting Robert H. Goddard, Charles A. Lindbergh arranges a grant of $50,000 from the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics to support Goddard’s work with rockets.

Nov. 29, 1929. Navy Cmdr. Richard E. Byrd, Bernt Balchen, Army Capt. Ashley McKinley, and Harold June make the first flight over the South Pole. Balchen is the pilot of the Ford Trimotor, Floyd Bennett.

Dec. 31, 1929. The Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics ends its activities.

1930

Jan. 8–29, 1930. Maj. Ralph Royce leads a mass flight of AAC pilots flying Curtiss P-1C Hawks from Selfridge Field, Mich., to Spokane, Wash., and back during severe winter weather to gain experience for flying in the Arctic. Royce is awarded the 1930 Mackay Trophy for the flight.

April 12, 1930. Led by Capt. Hugh Elmendorf, 19 pilots of the 95th Pursuit Squadron set an unofficial world record for altitude formation flying over Mather Field, Calif. The P-12 pilots reach 30,000 feet, shattering the old record of 17,000 feet.

May 3, 1930. Laura Ingalls performs 344 consecutive loops. Shortly afterward, she tries again and does 980. In another flight during 1930, she does 714 barrel rolls, setting a pair of records that few people have cared to challenge.

May 15, 1930. Ellen Church, a registered nurse, becomes the world’s first airline stewardess as she serves sandwiches on a Boeing Air Transport flight between San Francisco and Cheyenne, Wyo. She sits in the jumpseat of the Boeing Model 80A.

June 20, 1930. Randolph Field, Tex., the “West Point of the Air,” is dedicated.

Oct. 25, 1930. Transcontinental commercial air service between New York and Los Angeles begins.

1931

March 10, 1931. Army Air Corps Capt. Ira C. Eaker attempts to set the transcontinental speed record in the Lockheed Y1C-17, a special version of the civilian Vega. Taking off from Long Beach, Calif., Eaker gets as far as Tolu, Ky., before he has to make a forced landing in a field because of air in the fuel lines. Eaker had traveled 1,740 miles at an average speed of 237 mph, which, if he had been able to complete the flight, would have shattered the existing coast-to-coast speed mark.

May 9, 1931. The A-2 leather flight jacket is approved for production.
Read The Jacket That Lives Forever

July 31, 1931. Air Corps Tactical School begins moving from Langley Field in Virginia to Maxwell Field in Alabama to take advantage of more propitious climate and facilities for expansion.

Sept. 4, 1931. AAC Lt. James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle wins the first Bendix Trophy transcontinental race, flying the Laird Super Solution from Los Angeles to Cleveland with an average speed of 223.058 mph. Total flying time is nine hours, 10 minutes. He then flies on to New York to complete a full flight across the continent.

Sept. 26, 1931. The keel of USS Ranger (CV-4), the first aircraft carrier designed and built as such, is laid down at Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock, in Newport News, Va.

Sept. 29, 1931. Flying in the same aircraft that won the last Schneider Cup seaplane race, Royal Air Force Flt. Lt. George Stainforth pushes the recognized absolute speed record past 400 mph as he hits 407.001 mph in the Supermarine S.6b at Lee-on-Solent, England.

Oct. 3–5, 1931. Americans Clyde “Upside Down” Pangborn and Hugh Herndon Jr. make the first nonstop transpacific flight from Japan to America, in a Bellanca monoplane. The trip takes 41 hours, 13 minutes.

Dec. 22, 1931. Maj. Gen. Benjamin D. Foulois takes the oath as Chief of Air Corps.

Dec. 29, 1931. The Grumman XFF-1 prototype makes its first flight at Curtiss Field, Valley Stream, NY. The FF-1, later known as “FiFi” from its designation, is the US Navy’s first aircraft with an air-cooled radial engine, enclosed cockpits, and fully retractable landing gear. It is Grumman’s first aircraft project.

1932

March 20, 1932. Company pilot Les Tower makes the first flight of the Boeing XP-936 (later redesignated XP-26) at Boeing Field in Seattle, Wash. The P 26, nicknamed “Peashooter,” is the first monoplane fighter produced for the Army Air Corps, the first all metal fighter, and the last AAC fighter with an open cockpit.

Aug. 25, 1932. Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to complete a nonstop transcontinental flight, Los Angeles to New York City.

Nov. 19, 1932. National monument to Wilbur and Orville Wright is dedicated at Kitty Hawk, N.C.

1933

April 4, 1933. The Navy dirigible USS Akron (ZRS-4) hits the sea during a training flight off the East Coast and breaks up. Of a crew of nearly 80, only three survive. Among the casualties is Rear Adm. William A. Moffett, head of the Navy’s Bureau of Aeronautics.

April 24, 1933. The Grumman XJF-1 amphibian prototype flies for the first time at Farmingdale, Long Island, N.Y. Later officially nicknamed Duck, the JF/J2F series served a number of roles with the Navy, Marines, and Coast Guard during World War II. A number of J2F-6s were transferred to the US Air Force and redesignated OA-12 after the war for air-sea rescue duties.

July 15–22, 1933. Famed aviator Wiley Post, flying the Lockheed Vega Winnie Mae, becomes the first person to fly around the world solo. The 15,596-mile flight takes seven days, 18 hours, 49 minutes, 30 seconds at an average speed of 134.5 mph.

Sept. 4, 1933. Jimmy Wedell sets a world landplane speed record of 304.98 mph in the Wedell-Williams racer over Glenview, Ill.

May 1, 1934. Navy Lt. Frank Akers makes a blind landing in a Berliner-Joyce OJ-2 at College Park, Md., in a demonstration of a system intended for aircraft carrier use. In subsequent flights, he makes takeoffs and landings between NAS Anacostia, D.C., and College Park under a hood without assistance.

May 19, 1934. The first flight of the Ant-20 Maxim Gorki, at this time the world’s largest aircraft, is made in the Soviet Union. The aircraft was designed by Andrei Tupolev.

June 1, 1934. Army Air Corps airmail operations are terminated.

June 4, 1934. The Navy’s USS Ranger aircraft carrier is commissioned at Norfolk, Va.

June 7, 1934. The Cincinnati Reds become the first major league baseball team to fly commercially, as all but six members of the team fly to (and later from) Chicago for a three-game series with the Cubs. The other six players are hesitant to fly and take the train.

June 18, 1934. Boeing begins company-funded design work on the Model 299, which will become the B-17.

July 18, 1934. AAC Lt. Col. Henry H. “Hap” Arnold leads a flight of 10 Martin B-10 bombers on a six-day photographic mapping mission to Alaska.

July 19, 1934. Under the command of Lt. Col. H.H. “Hap” Arnold, 10 crews flying Martin B-10s leave Bolling Field, D.C., to prove the feasibility of sending an aerial force to Alaska in an emergency and to provide training for personnel flying across isolated and uninhabited areas. The crews arrive in Fairbanks on July 24. Over the next few weeks, numerous exploratory flights are made, including mapping 23,000 square miles in only three days. The crews leave Fairbanks on Aug. 16 and return to Bolling Field on Aug. 20. Arnold would later be awarded the 1934 Mackay Trophy for leading the flight.

Dec. 31, 1934. Helen Richey, flying a Ford Trimotor from Washington, D.C., to Detroit, becomes the first woman in the US to pilot an airmail transport aircraft on a regular schedule.

1935

Feb. 12, 1935. The Navy airship USS Macon (ZRS-5) crashes off the California coast with two fatalities out of a crew of 83. This loss effectively ends the Navy’s rigid airship program.

March 1, 1935. General Headquarters (GHQ) Air Force is created at Langley Field, Va. It is a compromise for those seeking a completely independent Air Force and the War Department’s General Staff, which wants to retain control of what is thought of as an auxiliary to the ground forces.
Read The Influence of Frank Andrews

March 9, 1935. Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering announces the existence of the Luftwaffe in an interview with London Daily Mail correspondent Ward Price. This statement implies a gross violation of the Versailles Treaty, which prohibits Germany from having an air force.

March 21, 1935. Company pilot Bill Wheatley, with chief engineer I.M. “Mac” Laddon as a passenger, makes the first flight of the Consolidated XP3Y-1, the forerunner to the Catalina patrol bomber/rescue aircraft, at NAS Anacostia, D.C. The “P-Boat” would be produced for more than 10 years and would become the most numerous, (3,200+ including more than 300 for the Army Air Forces) and quite possibly, the most famous flying boat ever.

April 1, 1935. Contract test pilot Eddie Allen, on loan from Boeing, makes the first flight of the North American NA-16, the prototype of the AT-6 Texan and BC-1 trainer, at Dandalk, Md. Nearly every Army Air Forces pilot, a majority of British, Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand pilots, and thousands of US Navy aviators in World War II would train in the AT-6.

July 28, 1935. Company test pilot Les Tower and crew make the first flight of the Boeing Model 299, the prototype of the B-17 bomber, at Seattle. The airplane was given the nickname “Flying Fortress” by the newspapers, and the name was trademarked by Boeing prior to the type’s first flight. The B-17 was the first truly modern bomber. Read “ The Fabulous Fortress,” Air Force Magazine, July 1985.

Aug. 15, 1935. Famed Pilot Wiley Post and humorist Will Rogers are killed in a crash of the hybrid Lockheed Orion-Explorer shortly after takeoff near Point Barrow, Alaska.

Aug. 20, 1935. The Boeing Model 299, the prototype of the B-17 Flying Fortress, is flown to Wright Field, Ohio, for its official tests, flying 2,100 miles nonstop in nine hours. The Model 299 would crash on Oct. 30 when a gust lock is inadvertently left on the elevators and airplane goes out of control on takeoff. Read When the Fortress Went Down

Sept. 15, 1935. Alexander P. deSeversky sets a recognized class for record speed over a three-kilometer course (piston engined amphibians) of 230.41 mph in a Seversky N3PB at Detroit.

Sept. 17, 1935. The TC-14 airship makes its maiden flight from Scott Field, Ill. Assembled at Scott Field, the TC-14 was then the largest non-rigid airship in the world and the largest ever constructed in the US.

Nov. 6, 1935. The Hawker F.36/34, the prototype of the Hurricane, makes its first flight. It is the first Royal Air Force monoplane fighter and the first to exceed 300 mph. During the Battle of Britain in 1940, Hurricane pilots would carry the brunt of the fighting.

Nov. 11, 1935. In a joint National Geographic–Army Air Corps stratosphere project, Capts. Albert W. Stevens and Orvil A. Anderson soar to 72,395 feet enclosed in the gondola the Explorer II, surpassing all previous altitude records.

Dec. 17, 1935. Company pilot Carl Cover, along with Fred Stineman (copilot), and Frank Collbohm (flight engineer) make the first flight of the Douglas Sleeper Transport, the first of 10,654 DC-3s and derivatives Douglas will build between 1935 and 1947 takes place at Clover Field, Santa Monica, Calif. The US military will use the military version, the C-47, in three wars. A number of civilian and foreign “Gooney Birds” were still in use in the late 1990s.
Read “ The Grand Old Gooney Bird,” Air Force Magazine, December 1985.

1936

Feb. 19, 1936. Airpower advocate Billy Mitchell dies in New York City at the age of 57. He is buried in Milwaukee, Wis.

March 5, 1936. Vicker’s chief test pilot “Mutt” Summers makes the first flight of the Supermarine Type 300 from Eastleigh Airport in Hampshire, England. The brainchild of designer R.J. Mitchell, this prototype is the first of 18,298 Merlin-powered Spitfires of all marks to be built by 1945.

June 15, 1936. The Vickers Wellington medium bomber prototype makes its first flight at Brooklands, England. With its unique geodetic structure and cloth covering, the Wellington (or “Wimpy” as crews came to call it) was fairly lightweight for a bomber but was quite strong. It later serves in several other roles, including aerial detonation of sea mines. More than 11,400 aircraft will be built, forming the backbone of the Royal Air Force’s Bomber Command for the first two years of World War II.

Sept. 4, 1936. Louise Thaden and Blanche Noyes become the first women to win the Bendix Trophy transcontinental race from New York to Los Angeles in a Beech Model 17 Staggerwing with an average speed of 165.346 mph. Total flying time is 14 hours, 55 minutes.

Dec. 21, 1936. The prototype of the Junkers Ju-88 V1 medium bomber makes its first flight at Dessau, Germany. In production at the beginning of World War II, the aircraft, which was modified for a wide variety of uses ranging from reconnaissance to night fighter to serving as an unmanned cruise missile, was still in production in 1945.

1937

Jan. 15, 1937. Company pilot James N. Peyton makes the first flight of the Beech Model 18A, the progenitor of the AT-7 Navigator navigation trainer, the AT-11 Kansas bombardier trainer, the C-45 Expeditor utility transport that would be in service until 1963, and F-2, the Army Air Forces’ first specialized mapping and photo reconnaissance aircraft.

April 12, 1937. Frank Whittle bench-tests the first practical jet engine in laboratories at Cambridge University in England.

May 6, 1937. The German dirigible Hindenburg (LZ-129) burns while mooring at Lakehurst, N.J., killing 36 people.

May 21, 1937. Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan leave from San Francisco in a Lockheed Electra on a round-the-world flight that ends on July 2, 1937, when they disappear in the Pacific.

June 30, 1937. Maj. Gen. Oscar Westover, the Chief of the Army Air Corps, is forced to terminate the AAC’s lighter-than-air balloon program because Congress did not provide sufficient funding. Three weeks later, the Navy agrees to accept the transfer of the Air Corps’ lighter-than-air assets.

July 20, 1937. First shoulder sleeve insignia authorized for an independent American air unit—for GHQ Air Force.

Aug. 23, 1937. The first completely automatic landing of an aircraft occurs at Dayton, Ohio. A Fokker C-14B parasol wing transport flown by Capt. George V. Holloman takes off from Wright Field, and after its automatic equipment is switched on, it turns toward Patterson Field, gradually descends, and then lands without any assistance from the human pilot or from the ground using a ground radio system that consists of five transmitting beacons. Capt. Carl J. Crane, the system’s inventor, and Holloman are later awarded the Mackay Trophy.

Sept. 1, 1937. Army Air Corps lst Lt. Benjamin Kelsey makes the first flight of the Bell XFM-1 Airacuda multiplace fighter at Buffalo, N.Y. Both the airplane and the concept prove to be dismal failures. The Airacuda turns out to be a maintenance nightmare, and the multiplace fighter concept is just not practical.

Sept. 2, 1937. The Grumman XF4F-2 monoplane fighter makes its first flight at Bethpage, Long Island, NY. Officially nicknamed Wildcat in 1941, the F4F series would become the US Navy’s most important fighter in the first half of World War II.

Oct. 15, 1937. The Boeing XB-15 makes its first flight at Boeing Field in Seattle, under the control of test pilot Eddie Allen.

1938

Feb. 17, 1938. Six Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses, under the command of AAC Lt. Col. Robert Olds, leave Miami, Fla., on a goodwill flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina. The return trip to Langley Field, Va., is the longest nonstop flight in Army Air Corps history.

April 6, 1938. Company pilot James Taylor makes the first flight of the Bell XP-39 Airacobra at Wright Field, Ohio. Nearly 4,800 Lend-Lease P-39s will be used to particularly good effect by Soviet pilots to destroy German tanks.

April 22, 1938. World War I ace Edward V. Rickenbacker buys a majority stake in Eastern Air Lines from North American Aviation for $3.5 million. That sum would roughly cover the cost of a single engine for a Boeing 757 today.

May 15, 1938. US Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes refuses to allow inert helium to be exported to Germany for use in zeppelins. Ickes feels that the gas might be diverted to military purposes.

July 10–14, 1938. Howard Hughes, Harry H.P. Conner, Army Lt. Thomas Thurlow, Richard Stoddard, and Ed Lund set a round-the-world flight record of three days, 19 hours, eight minutes, 10 seconds in a Lockheed Model 14 Super Electra passenger aircraft. The crew travels 14,791 miles.

July 17–18, 1938. Ostensibly aiming for California, Douglas “Wrong-Way” Corrigan, flying a Curtiss Robin, lands in Dublin, Ireland, after a nonstop 28-hour flight from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Aug. 22, 1938. The Civil Aeronautics Act goes into effect. The Civil Aeronautics Authority will now coordinate all nonmilitary aviation. (The Federal Aviation Act, which created the Federal Aviation Administration, will be passed Aug. 15, 1958.)

Sept. 29, 1938. Brig. Gen. Henry H. “Hap” Arnold is named Chief of Army Air Corps, succeeding Maj. Gen. Oscar Westover, who was killed in an airplane crash Sept. 21.

Oct. 14, 1938. Company test pilot Edward Elliott makes the first flight of the Curtiss XP-40 at Buffalo, N.Y. Almost 14,000 P-40s will be built before production ends in 1944.

Oct. 26, 1938. Company test pilot Johnny Cable makes the first flight of the Douglas Model 7B, the prototype of what would become the A-20 Havoc, at El Segundo, Calif. The A-20 would eventually become the Army Air Force’s most produced attack aircraft and would be used in every theater of World War II.

Dec. 12, 1938. At the Nakajima factory near Ota, the Ki-43 Hayabusa (Peregrine Falcon) fighter rolls out. It flies for the first time a few weeks later. Given the Allied code name ‘Oscar,’ the Ki-43 was the Japanese Army’s workhorse fighter, serving on all fronts until near the end of World War II. Late in the war, many Ki-46s were modified as kamikaze aircraft.

Dec. 31, 1938. The Boeing Model 307 Stratoliner, the first passenger airplane to have a pressurized cabin, makes its first flight.

1939

Jan. 12, 1939. President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivers a special message to Congress calling for strengthening the Army Air Corps. Congress then authorizes $300 million for 5,500 new airplanes.

Jan. 27, 1939. AAC 1st Lt. Benjamin Kelsey makes the first flight of the Lockheed XP-38 at March Field, Calif.

Feb. 4, 1939. The experimental Boeing XB-15 bomber is flown from Langley Field, Va., on an Air Corps mercy flight to Chile. Loaded with medical supplies for earthquake victims, the crew lands at Santiago only 50 hours after leaving Langley, including two refueling stops in Panama and Peru.

Feb. 10, 1939. Company test pilot Paul Balfour makes the first flight of the North American NA-40, the prototype of the B-25 Mitchell medium bomber, at Inglewood, Calif.

Feb. 11, 1939. AAC Lt. Ben Kelsey attempts to break the transcontinental speed record in the Lockheed XP-38 Lightning prototype, even though it has less than five hours of flight time . Flying from March Field, Calif., he records ground speeds of 420 mph and takes only seven hours to reach New York, but crashes on approach to Mitchel Field. The flight, however, convinces the Army Air Corps to order the type into production.

March 5, 1939. Using a hook trailing from their Stinson Reliant, Norman Rintoul, and Victor Yesulantes demonstrate a nonstop airmail system by picking a mail sack off a pole in Coatesville, Pa.

March 30, 1939. Flugkapitan Hans Dieterle sets a world speed record of 463.82 mph in the Heinkel He-100V-8. The flight is made at Oranienburg, Germany.

April 1, 1939. The prototype for the Mitsubishi A6M1 Reisen, or “Zero Fighter” (Allied code name “Zeke”) makes its first flight at Kagamigahara, Japan. The Zero would serve with distinction from Pearl Harbor until the end of the war and is probably Japan’s most famous World War II aircraft. Almost 10,500 were built.

April 3, 1939. President Roosevelt signs the National Defense Act of 1940, which authorizes a $300 million budget and 6,000 airplanes for the Army Air Corps and increases personnel to 3,203 officers and 45,000 enlisted troops.

April 26, 1939. Flugkapitan Fritz Wendel sets the last recognized absolute speed record before World War II as he pilots the Messerschmitt Bf-209V-1 to a speed of 469.224 mph at Augsburg, Germany.

May 20, 1939. Regularly scheduled trans–Atlantic passenger and airmail service begins.

June 20, 1939. The German Heinkel He-176, the first aircraft to have a throttle-controlled liquid-fuel rocket engine, makes its first flight at Peenemunde with Flugkapitan Erich Warsitz at the controls.

Aug. 27, 1939. The first jet-powered aircraft, the Heinkel He-178, makes its first flight. Flugkapitan Erich Warsitz is the pilot. Read The Jet Generations

Sept. 1, 1939. At 4:34 a.m., German Lt. Bruno Dilley leads three Junkers Ju-87 Stuka dive bombers in an attack against the Dirschau Bridge. The German invasion of Poland, the first act of World War II, begins six minutes later.
Read “ The Stuka Story,” Air Force Magazine, May 1987.

Sept. 2, 1939. “Nothing Will Stop the Air Corps Now,” the new official Army Air Corps song, is performed in public for the first time at the annual Cleveland Air Races. The song’s author, Robert Crawford, does the singing. In 1938, Liberty Magazine had sponsored a contest for a spirited, enduring musical composition to become the service’s official song. A committee of Army Air Corps wives selected Crawford’s composition from the 757 submitted. (On July 30, 1971, the first page of the score that Crawford submitted for the contest was carried to the moon by the Apollo 15 crew.)

Oct. 8, 1939. A Lockheed Hudson crew from the Royal Air Force’s No. 224 Squadron shoots down a German Do-18 flying boat. This is the first victory recorded by an American-built aircraft in World War II.

Oct. 13, 1939. Evelyn Pinchert Kilgore becomes the first woman to be issued a Civil Aeronautics Authority instructor’s certificate.

Dec. 29, 1939. The prototype Consolidated XB-24 Liberator makes a 17-minute first flight from Lindbergh Field in San Diego, with company pilot Bill Wheatley at the controls. More than 18,100 B-24s will be built in the next 5.5 years, making for the largest military production run in US history.

Dec. 30, 1939. The Ilyushin Bsh-2, the prototype of the Il-2 Shturmovik (“armed attacker’), makes its first flight. A durable, highly armed ground attack/tankbuster aircraft that could absorb considerable punishment, the Soviet Union would produce nearly 1,200 copies of the Il-2 a month during most of World War II. Total production will top 36,000 aircraft, making it the most produced aircraft of all time. Soviet dictator Josef Stalin said the Il-2 was “as essential to the Soviet Army as air and bread.”

1940

Feb. 21, 1940. Henry A.H. Boot and John T. Randall, working at the University of Birmingham, England, create the first practical magnetron. The magnetron, a resonant-cavity microwave generator, is vital in the development of airborne radar.

March 26, 1940. Boeing company pilot Eddie Allen, on loan to Curtiss Wright, makes the first flight of the CW-20T company demonstrator at St. Louis. The CW-20 is the prototype for the C-46 Commando transport, the largest and heaviest twin engine aircraft to see service with the Army Air Forces. It also will see action in the Korean War and the early stages of the Vietnam conflict.

May 16, 1940. President Roosevelt calls for 50,000 military airplanes a year.

July 10, 1940. The Luftwaffe attacks British shipping in the English Channel docks in South Wales. These actions are the first in what will become the Battle of Britain.

Aug. 13–Oct. 5, 1940. Against overwhelming odds, Royal Air Force pilots fend off the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain and ward off German invasion of the British Isles. The Luftwaffe loses 1,733 aircraft and crews.
Read Their Finest Hour

Sept. 17, 1940. Adolf Hitler announces that Operation Sea Lion, the German invasion of Great Britain, “has been postponed indefinitely.” This effectively marks the end of the Battle of Britain, although fighting would continue.

Oct. 8, 1940. The Royal Air Force announces formation of the first Eagle Squadron, a Fighter Command unit to consist of volunteer pilots from the US.

Oct. 26, 1940. Company pilot Vance Breese makes the first flight of the North American NA-73, the prototype for the P-51 Mustang, at Inglewood, Calif. During World War II, P-51 pilots would record more than half of the air-to-air victories in Europe, and the aircraft would serve as long-range bomber escort in the Pacific.

Nov. 25, 1940. Company test pilot William K. “Ken” Ebel makes the first flight of the Martin B-26 Marauder medium bomber (there was no prototype) at the company’s Middle River, Md., plant. Although development difficulties would plague the aircraft, the B-26 would go to have distinguished career in World War II.

Nov. 25, 1940. The prototype for the deHavilland D.H. 98 Mosquito, developed in just 11 months, flies for the first time at Hatfield, England. A fighter version flies on May 15, 1941, followed by a reconnaissance version on June 10, 1941. The Mosquito, made primarily of a plywood and balsa laminate, was very fast (nearly 400 mph for the fighter and bomber versions; 425 mph for the recce version), very maneuverable, with long range. It would see action all over the world, including with USAAF units in Europe.

Dec. 31, 1940. The prototype of the H8K four-engine, long range reconnaissance flying boat is completed at the Kawanishi factory near Osaka, Japan. It flies for the first time several weeks later. Given the Allied code name “Emily,” the H8K was massive (124 foot wingspan, 92 foot length, and 30 foot height), heavily armed, maneuverable, and fast (approximately 290 mph). Allied pilots would come to regard it as one of the hardest Japanese aircraft to shoot down.