May 30, 1913. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology begins
teaching aerodynamics.
June 21, 1913. Eighteen-year-old Georgia "Tiny" Broadwick becomes
the first woman to make a parachute jump in the US. Her 1,000-foot
leap takes place over Los Angeles, Calif.
June 30, 1913. The first Navy aviator is killed: Ens. W.D.
Billingsley is thrown from a seaplane.
July 19, 1913. In the skies over Seattle, Wash., Milton J. Bryant
begins a new form of advertising--skywriting.
August 27, 1913. Lt. Petr Nikolaevich Nesterov of the Imperial
Russian Army performs history's first inside loop while flying a
Nieuport Type IV over Kiev.
November 30, 1913. In late November or early December, the first
known aerial combat takes place over Naco, Mexico, between Phil
Rader, flying for Gen. Victoriano Huerta, and Dean Ivan Lamb, with
Venustiano Carranza. Details are unknown, except that a dozen pistol
shots are exchanged. 1914-1923
January 1, 1914. America's first regularly scheduled airline
starts operation across Tampa Bay between Saint Petersburg and
Tampa, Fla., with one Benoist flying boat. It lasts three months.
January 20, 1914. The Navy's aviation unit from Annapolis, Md.,
arrives at Pensacola, Fla., to set up the first naval air station.
February 24, 1914. In the wake of a rash of accidents, an Army
investigative board condemns all pusher-type airplanes.
April 25, 1914. Navy Lt. (j.g). P.N.L. Bellinger, flying a
Curtiss AB-3 flying boat from the battleship USS Mississippi (BB-23),
makes the first US operational air sortie against another country
when he searches for sea mines during the Veracruz incident.
May 5, 1914. A patent is issued for hinged inset trailing-edge
ailerons.
July 18, 1914. The Aviation Section of the Signal Corps is
created by Congress. Sixty officers and students and 260 enlisted
men are authorized.
August 25, 1914. Stephan Banic, a coal miner in Greenville, Pa.,
is issued a patent for a workable parachute design.
August 26, 1914. The first air battle of World War I on the
eastern front takes place. Staff Capt. Petr Nikolaevich Nesterov
records the first aerial ramming in combat.
December 1-16, 1914. Two-way air-to-ground radio communication
is demonstrated in a Burgess-Wright biplane by Army Signal Corps
Lts. H.A. Dargue and J.O. Mauborgne over Manila, the Philippines.
January 19-20, 1915. Germany launches the first zeppelin bombing
raids on England. One airship, the L.6, turns back, but two others,
the L.3 and L.4, drop their bombs on Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn.
March 3, 1915. Congress approves the act establishing the Nation-
al Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. NACA is to "supervise and
direct the scientific study of flight with a view to [its] practical
solution." The committee, initially given a budget of $5,000, will
evolve into the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
April 1, 1915. French Lt. Roland Garros shoots down a German
Albatros two-seater with a Hotchkiss machine gun fixed on the nose
of his Morane-Saulnier Type L monoplane. The airplane's propeller is
fitted with wedge-shaped steel deflector plates that protect the
blades from damage as the rounds pass through the propeller arc.
November 6, 1915. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Henry C. Mustin makes the first
airplane catapult launching from a moving vessel, USS North Carolina,
in Pensacola Bay, Fla.
December 11, 1915. The first foreign students to enter a US
flying training program--four Portuguese Army officers--report to
the Signal Corps Aviation School at San Diego, Calif.
March 15, 1916. The 1st Aero Squadron begins operations with
Gen. John J. Pershing in a punitive expedition against Mexico and
Pancho Villa.
March 21, 1916. The French government authorizes the formation
of the Escadrille Americaine. The unit, made up of American volun-
teer pilots, is later renamed the Lafayette Escadrille.
June 18, 1916. H. Clyde Balsey of the Lafayette Escadrille is
shot down near Verdun, France, the first American-born aviator shot
down in World War I.
September 2, 1916. Plane-to-plane radio is demonstrated at North
Island, Calif., when radiotelegraph messages are sent and receives
a distance of about two miles between the planes of Lt. W.A. Robert-
son and A.D. Smith and Lt. H.A. Dargue and Capt. C.C. Culver.
February 28,1917. For the first time in the US, the human voice
is transmitted by radiotelephone from an airplane to the ground at
San Diego, Calif.
April 30, 1917. During the month, Maj. William "Billy" Mitchell
becomes the first American Army officer to fly over the German lines.
May 26, 1917. Maj. T.F. Dodd, Air Service Signal Corps, appoints
aviation officer on the staff of Commander in Chief, American Expe-
ditionary Forces, the beginning oversea organization of the Air
service, AEF.
June 5, 1917. The first US military air unit sent to Europe in
World War I, the First aeronautic Detachment, arrives in Pauillac,
France.
August 13, 1917. The 1st Aero Squadron sails for Europe under
command of Maj. Ralph Royce, the first squadron to report for flying
duty in the AEF.
November 27, 1917. Brig. Gen. Benjamin D. Foulois takes over as
Chief of the Air Service for the American Expeditionary Force (AEF).
He replaces Brig. Gen. William L. Kenly.
January 19, 1918. The US School of Aviation Medicine begins
operations at Hazelhurst Field, Mineola, N.Y.
January 23, 1918. The first ascent by an AEF balloon is made at
the balloon school in Cuperly, France.
February 5, 1918. While flying as a substitute gunner with a
French squadron, Lt. Stephen W. Thompson becomes the first American
to record an aerial victory while in a US uniform. He shoots down a
German Albatros D.III but is credited with only half the victory,
sharing the "kill" with the French pilot.===
--- DB 1.39/004487
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* Origin: Volunteer BBS (423) 694-0791 V34+/VFC (1:218/1001.1)
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