1930 in aviation explained
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1930:
Events
January
- January 2 - Leroy Grumman, Leon Swirbul, and William Schwender found the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation at Baldwin on Long Island, New York.[6]
- January 16 - On speed trials, the British airship R100 reaches 81mph, making her the fastest airship in the world.
- January 17 - Record-setting aviator Frank Hawks attempts to take off in the Lockheed Air Express Texaco Five (registration NR7955) from a soggy field in West Palm Beach, Florida, but the plane is destroyed in a spectacular crash into a row of three parked aircraft. Hawks is unharmed.[7] [8]
- January 19 - Trying to return to Tijuana, Mexico, after taking off in poor weather for a scheduled passenger flight to Los Angeles, California, Maddux Airlines Flight 7 - the Ford 5-AT-C Tri-Motor NC9689 - crashes in Oceanside, California, and catches fire, killing all 16 people on board. It is the deadliest aviation accident in American history at the time.[9]
- January 25 - American Airways is formed.
February
- At the Philadelphia Navy Yard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the United States Navy tests a Ford 5-AT-74 Trimotor equipped with 30-foot (9.1-meter) floats during the month for use as a torpedo bomber, but does not pursue the concept further.[10]
- February 10 - The Air Union Farman F.63bis Goliath F-FHMY suffers a tailplane structural failure during a flight from Paris-Le Bourget Airport outside Paris to Croydon Airport in London with six people on board. The pilot tries to land at the Pagehurst Emergency Landing Ground in Marden, Kent, England, but the plane stalls and crashes at Marden. Two passengers die, and the other two passengers and both crew members suffer injuries.[11]
- February 15 - The Italian air power theorist Giulio Douhet dies at the age of 60.
- February 17 – A fire destroys the workshops of the Société d'Aviation Letord at Meudon, France, as well as aircraft, including the first Couzinet 20 and the Couzinet 27 Arc-en-ciel II.
- February 24 - Rancho-Boyeros Airport - the future José Martí International Airport - opens at Havana, Cuba.
March
April
- A float-equipped Cierva C.12 autogiro – dubbed the "Hydrogiro" – takes off from Southampton Water off the south coast of England. It is the first time that a rotary-wing aircraft takes off from a body of water.
- April 1 - Gerhard Fieseler founds the Fieseler aircraft manufacturing company under the name Fieseler Flugzeugbau Kassel.
- April 2
- The first Korean aviator, An Chang-nam, dies in the crash of his aircraft while he is returning to the airport at the Shanxi Aviation Academy at Taiyuan, Shanxi, China, in bad weather.
- The prototype of the Latécoère 340 trimotor parasol-winged flying boat (registration F-AKDI) breaks up in the air and crashes while being demonstrated for a French Navy official, killing both men on board. No further examples of the aircraft are built.
- April 6
- April 9 - Flying his de Havilland DH.60 Moth Miss India, Man Mohan Singh becomes the first Indian to fly (solo) from England to British India, landing at RAF Drigh Road, Karachi one month and one day after departing from Croydon Airport.
- April 10 - Flying the Junkers G 38 D-2000, Wilhelm Zimmermann sets four new world records for an aircraft carrying a payload of 5000kg (11,000lb), averaging a record 184.5km/h over a distance of 100km (100miles) and a record 172.9km/h over a distance of 500km (300miles) and setting a distance record of 501.6km (311.7miles) and an endurance record of 3 hours 2 minutes.[14]
- April 10–20 - The English aviator and ornithologist Mary Russell, Duchess of Bedford, and her personal pilot C. D. Barnard make a record-breaking flight in the Fokker F.VII Spider (G-EBTS) of 9000miles from Lympne Airport in Lympne, England, to Cape Town, South Africa, in 100 flying hours over 10 days.
- April 23 - A diesel engineed aircraft crashes in New York (state); among the 3 killed is Lionel Woolson, designer of the radial air-cooled aero diesel engine.[15]
- April 27 - During an air show at Fayetteville, Tennessee, pilot Milton P. Covert's plane loses altitude and crashes on a railroad embankment while approaching the landing area, striking spectators standing on the embankment. Covert survives, but at least nine spectators are killed and about 20 injured.[16] [17]
May
- May 5–14 - Amy Johnson makes the first solo flight from England to Australia by a woman, flying from Croydon to Darwin in a de Havilland Gipsy Moth.[18]
- May 11 - The New York Air Show of the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce is held at Madison Square Garden[19]
- May 12–13 - Flying for Aéropostale, the French pilot Jean Mermoz makes the first nonstop commercial flight across the South Atlantic Ocean, flying from Dakar, Senegal, to Natal, Brazil, in the float-equipped Latécoère 28-3 mail plane Comte de la Vaulx. The 3058km (1,900miles) flight takes 19 hours 35 minutes, and the plane carries 122kg (269lb) of mail.[20] On the return flight, Mermoz is forced to ditch Comte de la Vaux at sea; although he, his two companions, and the mail are saved, the aircraft sinks and is lost.
- May 15 - Ellen Church becomes the world's first female flight attendant, working for Boeing Air Transport.
- May 18 - The German dirigible Graf Zeppelin leaves Friederichshafen, Germany, on the first airship flight across the South Atlantic, bound for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is a trial flight to test the feasibility of regular airship service between Germany and Brazil.[20]
- May 23 - President Herbert Hoover presents the crew of the flying boat NC-4 with gold medals for completing the first transatlantic flight in 1919.[21]
- May 27 - A CLASSA Ford 4-AT trimotor makes the first flight between Peninsular Spain and the Canary Islands, landing at Los Rodeos Airport on Tenerife Island.
June
July
- July 12 - Flying a Waco JYM biplane to Chicago, Illinois, Northwest Airways pilot Mal Freeburg sees that the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad trestle near Trevino, Wisconsin, is on fire shortly after he flies over a Burlington Blackhawk express passenger train headed for the trestle. He flies at low level back up the tracks and makes three low passes to warn the train, flashing his landing lights and dropping landing flares. The train stops only 400yd short of the burning trestle.[23]
- July 16-August 8 - The second International Tourist Aircraft Contest Challenge 1930 in Berlin, won by the German crew of Fritz Morzik on the BFW M.23 plane.
- July 19 - Record-holding aviator Frank Goldsborough dies in a crash in Vermont on his 20th birthday.
- July 20-August 1 - A 7560abbr=onNaNabbr=on race over Europe takes place as part of the Challenge 1930 contest.
- July 23 - Aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss dies, aged 52.
- July 29 - The British airship R100 sets out on a test flight from the United Kingdom to Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and back. She will arrive at Montreal 78 hours later, remain there for 12 days, then begin the return trip to the United Kingdom on August 13, arriving in London on August 16 after a flight of 57½ hours.[24]
August
- August 3 - The Imperial Japanese Navy practices dive bombing for the first time, using fighters to sink the retired protected cruiser Akashi with 4abbr=onNaNabbr=on practice bombs in Tokyo Bay.[25]
- August 8 - End of the Challenge 1930 contest, won by Fritz Morzik.
- August 13 – Flying the Travel Air Type R Mystery Ship Texaco 13, Frank Hawks sets a new west-to-east transcontinental airspeed record for a flight across the continental United States, completing the flight in 12 hours 25 minutes 3 seconds. At the time, it is the fastest crossing of the United States ever made.[26]
- August 22 - Attempting to avoid a thunderstorm in poor weather on a domestic passenger flight in Czechoslovakia from Kbely Airport in Bratislava to Brno, the Czechoslovak State Airlines Ford 5-AT-C Tri-Motor OK-FOR banks sharply to avoid a 35-meter-tall (115-foot-tall) smokestack, strikes the ground, and crashes at Jihlava, killing 12 of the 13 people aboard.[27]
- August 23 - The Ford National Reliability Air Tour starts in Chicago.
- August 25 - Eddie August Schneider sets the junior transcontinental air speed record. He flies from Westfield, New Jersey.
September
October
- October 1 - Western Air Express and Transcontinental Air Transport merge to form Transcontinental and Western Air, Inc.,[28] which in 1950 will be renamed Trans World Airlines.
- October 5 - The British dirigible R101, at the time the world's largest airship, crashes in France while on a flight from Cardington, Bedfordshire, England, to Karachi in British India. Forty-eight of the 54 people on board are killed, including Royal Air Force Air Vice Marshal Sir Sefton Brancker; the Irish aviator and athlete Herbert Carmichael Irwin, who was the captain of R101; the noted British airship pilot and engineer George Herbert Scott; and British Secretary of State for Air Christopher Thomson, 1st Baron Thomson.
- October 7 - Upon the completion of the final game of the 1930 World Series in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Frank Hawks flies photographs of the game to North Beach Airport in Queens, New York, in the Travel Air Type R Mystery Ship Texaco 13, delivering them only 20 minutes after the end of the game and faster than wire services, demonstrating that fast air courier services are feasible.
- October 9–10 - First flight by a Canadian, pilot Capt. J. Erroll Boyd (1891-1960), from North America (Harbour Grace, NL) to England, in the Wright-Bellanca WB-2 Maple Leaf (aka, Columbia), navigated by the American, Lieut. Harry Connor. This flight was also notable for transporting mail bearing a surcharged stamp as a commemorative overprint.[29]
- October 25 - Transcontinental and Western Air begins the first all-air coast-to-coast passenger service in the United States with regular passenger flights between New York, New York, and Los Angeles, California. The trip takes 30 hours and includes an overnight stop in Kansas City, Missouri.[28]
- October 30 - The Imperial Airways Handley Page W.8g Hamilton City of Washington (registration G-EBIX) crashes into high ground in dense fog at Boulogne, France, during a scheduled flight from Paris-Le Bourget Airport outside Paris to Croydon Airport in London. Three of the six people on board die.[30]
November
- November 3 - Brothers Thomas Elmer Braniff and Paul Revere Braniff found their second airline, Braniff Airways, Inc. It eventually will become Braniff International Airways.
- November 13 - Braniff Airways begins operations, using Lockheed Vega aircraft to offer service between Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Wichita Falls, Texas.
- November 21 - The Dornier Do R4 Superwal flying boat airliner I-RONY, operating on a passenger flight for the Italian airline Società Anonima Navigazione Aerea (SANA), disappears over the Mediterranean Sea during a flight from Barcelona, Spain, to Marseilles, France, with the loss of all six people on board.[31]
- November 24 - The Ford Motor Company Ford 5-AT-C Trimotor NX419H crashes on landing at Ford Airport in Dearborn, Michigan, killing both people on board.[32]
December
First flights
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
Entered service
January
May
July
November
Retirements
May
Notes and References
- Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 37.
- Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997,, p. 125.
- Book: Flying Magazine. January 1934.
- Isenberg, Michael T., Shield of the Republic: The United States Navy in an Era of Cold War and Violent Peace, Volume I: 1945-1962, New York: St. Martin's Press,, p. 489.
- Sturtivant, Ray, British Naval Aviation: The Fleet Air Arm, 1917-1990, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1990,, p. 17.
- Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 214.
- Allen, Richard Sanders, Revolution in the Sky: Those Fabulous Lockheeds, The Pilots Who Flew Them, Brattleboro, Vermont: The Stephen Greene Press, 1964, p. 36.
- Web site: Pentland. Andrew. Civil Aircraft Register - United States (17). Golden Years of Aviation. 19 April 2021. Leeds UK.
- http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19300119-0 Aviation Safety Network: Accident description
- Polar, Norman, "'There's a Ford in Your Future'," Naval History, December 2015, pp. 14-15.
- http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19300210-0 Aviation Safety Network: Accident Description
- https://books.google.com/books?id=q-MDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA883 "Glider is towed by plane across the nation."
- Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987,, p. 462.
- http://hugojunkers.pytalhost.com/ju_who_z.htm German Aviation History Homepage: Junkers Who is Who? Wilhelm Zimmermann
- Book: Curry, Roger. Engines of Change. 2021. 222.
- News: Airplane Falls on Crowd, Seven Killed. The Frederick Post. Associated Press. 28 Apr 1930. 12 July 2009.
- News: Held for Deaths in Crash: Pilot of Plane Which Killed Nine at Fayetteville, Tenn., Arraigned. The New York Times. 28 April 1930. 20 September 2009.
- Mondey, David, ed., The Complete Illustrated History of the Worlds Aircraft, Secaucus, New Jersey: Chartwell Books, Inc., 1978,, p. 30.
- https://www.nytimes.com/1930/05/12/archives/air-show-closes-viewed-by-120000-management-declares-exhibit.html AIR SHOW CLOSES; VIEWED BY 120,000 - New York Times May 12, 1930
- Mondey, David, ed., The Complete Illustrated History of the Worlds Aircraft, Secaucus, New Jersey: Chartwell Books, Inc., 1978,, p. 34.
- https://web.archive.org/web/20121012012530/http://www.uscg.mil/history/webaircraft/CGAviationHistory1916_1938.pdf A Chronological History of Coast Guard Aviation: The Early Years, 1915-1938
- http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19300605-0 Aviation Safety Network: Accident description
- Johnson, Frederick L., "Modest Mal," Aviation History, March 2012, p. 18.
- Mondey, David, ed., The Complete Illustrated History of the Worlds Aircraft, Secaucus, New Jersey: Chartwell Books, Inc., 1983,, p. 29.
- Peattie, Mark R., Sunburst: The Rise of Japanese Naval Air Power 1909-1941, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2001,, p. 40.
- Pahl, Gerard, "Mystery Ship," Air Classics, Volume 41, No. 9, September 2005, p. 80.
- http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19300822-0 Aviation Safety Network: Accident Description
- http://twaflightattendants.com/liftoffhtml/historytimeline.html TWA History Timeline
- Dyer . Norris R. . 1998 . Famous Newfoundland Flights of the 1930s-Then and Now . 55 . 1 . 20–31 . BNA Topics . Toronto, ON . Philaprint Inc. . 23 Apr 2017 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160620133432/http://bnatopics.org/journals/nfld/1998/Pages%20from%20BNA%20Topics,%20Vol.%2055,%20No.%201,%20Jan-Feb-Mar%201998,%20Whole%20No.%20474.pdf . 20 June 2016 . dead .
- http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19301030-0 Aviation Safety Network: Accident Description
- http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19301121-1 Aviation Safety Network: Accident Description
- http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19301124-0 Aviation Safety Network: Accident Description
- http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/venezuela/airforce.htm globalsecurity.org Venezuelan Air Force: Fuerzas Aereas or Aviacion Aviación Militar Bolivariana
- Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997,, p. 120.
- Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 81.
- Francillon, René J., Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1979,, pp. 254, 339.
- Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 59.
- Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987,, p. 142.
- Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987,, p. 143.
- Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997,, p. 79.
- Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, pp. 81, 83.
- Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 132.
- Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987,, p. 140.
- Polar, Norman, "'There's a Ford in Your Future'," Naval History, December 2015, p. 15.
- Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987,, p. 128.
- Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987,, p. 119.