1905 in aviation explained

This is a list of aviation-related events from 1905:

Events

• In Santa Clara, California, Daniel J. Maloney flies for 20 minutes with a glider after starting from a balloon at a height of 4000feet.
• The engineer Maurice Stanislas Léger's helicopter lifts a person vertically into the air in Monaco.
• U.S. Army Signal Corps transferred all balloon school activities to Fort Omaha, Nebraska.

January–December

• 18 January  - The Wright brothers begin discussions with the United States Government about selling it an airplane.^[1]
• 16–20 March  - Daniel Maloney is launched by balloon in a tandem-wing glider designed by John Montgomery^[2] and makes three successful flights at Aptos, California, the highest launch being at 3000abbr=offNaNabbr=off with an 18-minute descent to a predetermined landing location.
• 27 April  - Sapper Moreton of the British Army's balloon section is lifted 2600feet by a kite at Aldershot under the supervision of the kite's designer, Samuel Cody.
• 29 April  - Daniel Maloney is launched by balloon in a tandem-wing glider designed by John Montgomery to an altitude of 4000abbr=offNaNabbr=off^[2] before release and gliding and then landing at a predetermined location as part of a large public demonstration of aerial flight at Santa Clara, California].
• 6 June  - Gabriel Voisin lifts off of and flies along the River Seine in his float-glider towed by a motorboat.
• 23 June  - The Wright brothers fly the Wright Flyer III for the first time. It is the first fully controllable and practical version of the original 1903 Wright Flyer.^[3]
• 14 July  - Orville Wright has a serious crash with Wright Flyer III, upon which the Wright Brothers radically alter the aircraft. The front rudder is mainly the culprit for the Flyer's insistent pitching.
• 18 July  - Daniel Maloney launches a tandem-wing glider designed by John Montgomery at Santa Clara, California. A balloon cable damages the glider and upon release Maloney and the aircraft fall uncontrolled to the ground, killing Maloney.^[2] This is the third death of a heavier-than-air aircraft pilot after Otto Lilienthal in 1896 and Percy Pilcher in 1899.
• 5 August  - Nineteen-year-old Welshman Ernest Willows makes the first flight of Willows No. 1 a semi-rigid airship he had built.
• 31 August  - Balloonist John Baldwin accidentally killed during a premature dynamite/balloon stunt at County Fair, Greenville Ohio^[4]
• September  - The Wright Brothers resume flight experiments with the re-designed Flyer III with performance of the airplane immediately in the positive. Smooth controlled flights lasting over 20 minutes now occur.
• 7 September  - Flying circles over a cornfield near Dayton, Ohio, and chasing flocks of birds, Orville Wright records history's first bird strike. The dead bird lays on the airplane's wing before Wright makes a sharp turn and dumps it off.^[5]
• 4 October  - Piloting the Flyer III over Huffman Prairie outside Dayton, Ohio, Orville Wright makes the first airplane flight in history of over 30 minutes in length.^[6]
• 5 October  - Wilbur Wright makes a flight of 24.2miles over Huffman Prairie in the Flyer III. The flight lasts for 39 minutes 23 seconds.
• 14 October  - The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) is founded in Paris.
• 15 October  - The Wright brothers record a flight of just over 24miles in 28 minutes in the Wright Flyer III.^[7]
• 16 October  - The Wright brothers complete their 1905 test flight program, making their last flight until May 1908.^[3]
• 30 November  - At Lake Constance, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin's LZ2 airship is damaged significantly while attempting its first launch.^[3]
• December  - Neil MacDermid is carried aloft in Canada by a large box kite named The Siamese Twins, designed by Alexander Graham Bell.

Notes and References

1. Web site: Century of Flight Aviation Timeline 1904 . 2010-10-03 . 2019-03-03 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190303215345/http://www.century-of-flight.net/Aviation%20history/aviation%20timeline/1900_to_1910.htm . dead .
2. Johnsen, Frederick A., "Mother Ships," Aviation History, January 2018, p. 48.
3. Web site: Century of Flight Aviation Timeline 1905 . 2010-10-03 . 2019-03-03 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190303215345/http://www.century-of-flight.net/Aviation%20history/aviation%20timeline/1900_to_1910.htm . dead .
4. https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/218990 Aviation Safety Network database
5. Brotak, Ed, "When Birds Strike," Aviation History, May 2016, p. 46.
6. Daniel, Clifton, ed., Chronicle of the 20th Century, Mount Kisco, New York: Chronicle Publications, 1987,, p. 82.
7. Franks, Norman, Aircraft vs. Aircraft: The Illustrated Story of Fighter Pilot Combat From 1914 to the Present Day, London: Grub Street, 1998,, p. 7.