| 1910 January -- The Wright Company rents space from the Speedwell Motorcar plant in Dayton, Ohio and begins to manufacture airplanes. January 10 to 20 — The first great air meet in the United States takes place in San Diego, California. January 17 -- The Wright Company hires A. Roy Knabeshue to put together an exhibition flying team, the "Wright-Fliers." Knabeshue begins to scour the country for candidates. Spring -- Zeppelin airships, which first flew in 1900, begin the first regularly scheduled air passenger service. Between 1910 and 1914, this service carries over 35,000 passengers between German cities without a single mishap. Orville Wright is one of those passengers. March 8 — Baroness de Laroche becomes the first woman pilot to be granted a license to fly. March 10 -- French pilot Emil Aubrun makes the first night flights. March 24 -- Orville Wright and Charlie Taylor arrive in Montgomery, AL with five students and an airplane in tow. They open a flight school at a location that will become Maxwell Air Force Base. The Wright's first civilian students are Walter Brookins, Arch Hoxsey, A. L. Welsh, Spencer Crane, and J. W. Davis. Only Brookins, Hoxsey, and Welsh made it as pilots. March 28 -- Henri Fabre makes the first successful take-off from water in a seaplane that he designed and built. April 27 to 28 -- Louis Paulhan, flying a Farman, wins the first great air race, from London to Manchester in England. This race impresses many, including Wilbur Wright, who predicts for the first time in print that airplanes with one day cross the Atlantic Ocean. May 10 -- Orville Wright leaves Walter Brookins in charge of the flight school in Montgomery, AL and returns to Dayton to train students at Huffman Prairie, now refurbished with a larger hangar. Among his students are Frank Coffyn, Ralph Johnstone, Phil O. Parmalee, J. Clifford Turpin, Howard Gill, and Leonard Bonney. All of these men became pilots for the Wright-Fliers. May 29 -- Glenn Curtiss flies 151 miles from Albany to New York, NY on the first cross-country flight in America. Summer -- The Wright Brothers introduce what will become their most popular airplane, the Wright Model B. Like their earlier craft, the Model B is a pusher biplane with wing-warping. But is has a conventional tail and a wheeled undercarriage. June 2 -- C.S. Rolls, flying a Wright Model A, makes the first round-trip flight over the English Channel and back again. June 30 -- Glenn Curtiss makes the first bombing runs from an airplane, dropping dummy bombs over Lake Keuka near Hammondsport, NY. August -- Lieutenant Jacob Fickel fires a Springfield rifle from an airplane piloted by Glenn Curtiss at a target on the ground over Sheepshead Bay Speedway, Brooklyn, New York. He scores one hit. It is the first time a gun is fired from an aircraft. August 27 -- Radio is used for the first time to communicate with a pilot in the air. James McCurdy, flying a Curtiss biplane, receives and sends messages on a Horton wireless set over Sheepshead Bay, New York. September 2 -- Blanche Stuart Scott becomes the first American woman to solo an airplane. She was taught to fly by Glenn Curtiss, although she never received a license. September 11 -- Robert Loraine crosses the Irish Sea from Wales to Ireland in a Farman biplane. September 23 -- Georges Chavez crosses the Alps in a Bleriot monoplane. October 2 --- An Antoinette monoplane collides with a Farman biplane over Milan, Italy in the first mid-air collision. Both pilots survive. October 22 to 30 -- The first international air meet in America gets underway at Belmont, NY. The Wrights bring a special airplane -- the Wright Model R, dubbed the "Baby Grand" -- to win the speed contest. During speed trials, it flies a 70 mph and is the favorite to win the race. But it crashes before the competition begins. It is an end to the Wrights' perceived technological superiority in the air. November 7 -- Phil Parmalee flies the world's first air-freight shipment -- a bolt of cloth -- from Dayton to Columbus, Ohio in a Wright Model B. The cloth is delivered to Morehouse-Martens Department Store, where it is cut up into swatches and sold as souvenirs. November 14 -- Flying a Curtiss biplane, Eugene Ely takes off from an 83-foot-long wooden deck built on the U.S.S. Birmingham in Hampton, Roads, VA. This marks the birth of the aircraft carrier. November 17 -- Ralph Johnstone fails to pull out of a spiraling dive in a exhibition flight and dies. He is the first American pilot to lose his life in an airplane. | |
| 1911 January -- French Captain A. Eteve invents and tests the first practical airspeed indicator. January -- Lieutenant M. S. Crissy drops live bombs over San Francisco Bay from a Wright airplane piloted by Philip O. Parmalee. It is the first time live bombs have been dropped from an aircraft. January 18 -- Eugene Ely takes off from Presidio Military Base in San Francisco and lands on a temporary wooden deck on the U.S.S. Pennsylvania. He has lunch with the captain and flies back to San Francisco. This is the first round trip to and from a ship by airplane. January 26 -- Glenn Curtiss flies the first practical seaplane from San Diego Bay in California. It is basically a standard Curtiss fitted with a single float beneath the wings. February -- Glenn Curtiss attaches wheels to the float of is primitive seaplane and creates the first amphibian airplane. February -- Lieutenant Riley Scott of the U.S. Army invents and tests the first bomb sight. February -- A specially-built Bleriot lifts ten passengers off the ground in France. Some of the passengers are young boys, but the flight demonstrates the possibility of multi-passenger air transport nonetheless. February 18 -- French pilot Henri Pequet flies the world's first official air mail in Allahabad, India. April 12 -- Pierre Prier, flying a Bleriot monoplane, makes the first non-stop flight between London and Paris. Summer -- Edouard Nieuport advances that basic design of the Bleriot monoplane and builds the Neiuport IV G, the first airplanes with a completely enclosed, streamlined fuselage. June 18 -- The Circuit of Europe, the first international air race, begins in Paris. August -- Pilot Hugh Robinson lands his Curtiss seaplane on Lake Michigan to rescue another pilot who crashed into the lake. It is the first air-sea rescue. August -- Harry Atwood flies his Wright Model B from St. Louis to New York -- over 1200 miles in nine days. August -- Harriet Quimby, a New York drama critic, becomes the first licensed woman pilot in America. September to December -- Cal Rodgers crosses America from Sheepshead Bay, NY to Long Beach, CA in a Wright Model EX dubbed the Vin Fiz, after his sponsor. The trip takes 84 days. Despite 5 major crashes and a host of smaller mishaps, it is the first time anyone crossed a continent in an airplane. September 19 -- Gustav Hamel flies the first English air mail between Hendon and Windsor in a Bleriot monoplane. September 23 -- Earl Ovington delivers the first official air mail for the U.S. Post Office in a Bleriot monoplane. October 22 -- The airplane is used in war for the first time when Italian Captain Carlo Piazza makes a reconnaissance flight in a Bleriot monoplane. He takes off from Tripoli and observes the Turkish army near Azizia. October 24 -- Orville Wright returns to Kitty Hawk for the last time to test an automatic stabilizer on a new glider. On one flight, he remains in the air for 9 minutes and 45 seconds, setting a world's record that stands for ten years. October 26 -- The 1909 Wright Military Flyer Miss Columbia is enshrined at the Smithsonian Institution. October 31 -- John Montgomery, the first American gliding pilot, dies in a gliding flight in California. November -- Plagued by accidents, the Wright Company dissolves its exhibition team. | |
| 1912 March 1 -- Captain Albert Berry makes the first parachute drop over St. Louis, MO. April 12 -- Harriet Quimby becomes the first woman to cross the English Channel in a Bleriot. May 30 -- Thirteen years to the day after he first wrote the Smithsonian Institution asking for information on aeronautics, Wilbur Wright dies of typhoid fever in his home in Dayton, Ohio. Orville Wright takes over as president of the Wright Company Summer -- Glenn Curtiss develops and test-flies the first successful flying boat, the "Model E." Summer -- A.V. Roe builds and tests the first enclosed-cabin airplane. The Avro F monoplane has a steel frame, a skin of linen and aluminum, and celluloid windows. Roe also builds an enclosed-cabin biplane. November 12 -- The Navy launches a Curtiss seaplane, flown by Lieutenant Ellyson, from a ship using a compressed air catapult. | |
| 1913 Throughout the year — A new breed of biplanes appears, with staggered wings and enclosed fuselages. This is the shape of things to come.
February 27 -- The New York courts return their decision on the Wright vs. Curtiss patent suit. They find in favor of the Wright brothers. Glenn Curtiss files an appeal to the Federal courts. April 16 -- Maurice Provost wins the first Schneider Trophy contest, a speed trial for seaplanes, in Monaco. More than any other contest, the Schneider Trophy spurs the development of aircraft engines. May 13 -- Igor Sikorsky pilots the huge Bolshoi on its first flight, carrying 8 passengers. With 4 engines, a wingspan of 92 feet, and an open-air observation deck, it is the largest airplane in the world. (Later modifications would add 4 more engines, increase the wingspan to 113 feet, and enable it to carry up to 16 passengers.) The Bolshoi marks the beginning of large airplane engineering which eventually leads to airliners and heavy bombers. June -- French engineer Louis Bechereau unveils the Deperdussin, a monoplane racer with the first monocoque fuselage. This revolutionary method of construction uses the skin of the aircraft to carry structural loads. This, in turn, reduces the number of structural parts, making the aircraft lighter and simpler to build. It is the first truly streamlined aircraft. Summer -- Two Spanish pilots are seriously wounded be rifle fire from Moroccan soldiers on the ground in Tangiers, dispelling the notion that airplanes present a target that is impossible to hit from the ground. August -- Peter Nesterov, a young Russian officer out for a joy ride, flies the first loop-de-loop on record. He is promptly placed under house arrest for endangering government property. September 13 -- Roland Garros crosses the Mediterranean Sea, flying 512 miles in a Morane-Saulnier monoplane. September 21-- Adolphe Pegoud flies the first public loop-de-loop in a Bleriot monoplane near Buc, France. This and other stunts ( such as flying inverted) make him the first aerobatic pilot. These aerobatics would soon become the basis for evasive maneuvers used by combat pilots in World War I. Winter -- The Daily Mail of London, England offers a prize 10,000 pounds for the first pilot to cross the Atlantic in an airplane. | |
| 1914 January 1 -- P.E. Fansler founds the first regularly scheduled airline, flying both passengers and freight between Tampa and St. Petersburg (22 miles) in a Benoist flying boat. The airline survives only until March, but it carries 1,024 passengers without a single mishap. January 13 -- The United States Court of Appeals upholds the original decision of the Wright vs. Curtiss patent suit. This establishes the Wright brothers as the legal inventors of the airplane, as well as the historic inventors. February -- Glenn Curtiss begins to build a huge flying boat, the America, to capture The Daily Mail prize for the first flight across the Atlantic. Flight tests continue into the summer. April 24 -- Glenn Curtiss unveils the Curtiss Model J, a tractor biplane designed by B. Douglas Thomas. Thomas had formally been an engineer for Sopwith Aviation in England, and the Model J incorporates all the lastest advances in European biplane design. May 28 -- In an attempt to nullify the legal decision of Curtiss vs. Wright, Glenn Curtiss "restores" the 1903 Langley Aerodrome and flies it from Lake Keuka ostensibly to prove the Aerodrome was the first airplane capable of manned flight. In reality, Curtiss has made over 30 major modifications to the Aerodrome to make it airworthy. The flights have no effect on the patent litigation. June 18 — Lawrence Sperry demonstrates the first gyroscopic automatic pilot (called by him a "gyro-stabilizer") in a Curtiss Model F flying boat. He received a 50,000-franc prize from the French government for his invention. Sperry also developed the turn-and-bank indicator and retractable landing gear. August 1 -- World War 1 breaks out in Europe. Glenn Curtiss cancels his plans for a trans-Atlantic flight. The America is assigned to submarine patrol duty. August 30 -- Bombs are dropped on Paris from and airplane. It is the first time a capital city is bombed. August -- After a rash of fatal accidents, the U.S. Army grounds all Wright and Curtiss "pusher" airplanes, leaving the Army with almost nothing to fly. Glenn Martin offers a tractor biplane to fill the gap, the the Martin Model T becomes the Army's first "safe" training airplane. September to December -- The U.S. Army drafts new requirements for a military training aircraft. In response to these specifications, Glenn Curtiss and B. Douglas Thomas rework the Model J to produce the Curtiss Model N. It just squeaks by a military review board, barely meeting the qualifications. Curtiss and Thomas refine the design create the capable Curtiss Model JN. This is the beginning of the Curtiss "Jenny," one of the most popular aircraft ever built. September 24 -- British airmen in France direct artillery fire from the air for the first time, using 75-pound Morse-code transmitters. October 5 -- French Corporal Louis Quenalt, an observer flying in a Voisin piloted by Sergeant Joseph Frantz, shoots down a German Aviatik with a Hotchkiss machine gun. This is the first air-to-air kill. |