March 1, 1935. General Headquarters (GHQ) Air Force is created
 at Langley Field, Va. It is a compromise for those seeking a com-
 pletely 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.
     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 pro-
 duced for more than ten years and would become the most numerous,
 (3,200+ including more than 300 for the USAAF) and quite possibly,
 the most famous flying boat ever.
     August 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.
     September 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, Mich. This
 is the oldest certified aviation record still standing.
     November 22, 1935. First transpacific airmail flight, in China
 Clipper, by Capt. Edwin C. Musick, takes place from San Francisco
 to Honolulu, Midway Island, Wake Island, Guam, and Manila.
     December 17, 1935. 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. The US military uses C-47s in three wars,
 and some "Gooney Birds" are still in use today.
     February 19, 1936. Airpower advocate Billy Mitchell dies in New
 York City at the age of fifty-seven. 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.
     September 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 fourteen hours, fifty-
 five minutes.
     April 12, 1937. Frank Whittle bench-tests the first practical
 jet engine in laboratories at Cambridge University, England.
     May 6, 1937. The German dirigible Hindenburg (LZ-129) burns while
 mooring at Lakehurst, N.J., killing thirty-six 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.
     July 20, 1937. First shoulder sleeve insignia authorized for an
 independent American air unit-- for General Headquarters Air Force.
     September 1, 1937. Air Corps lst. Lt. Benjamin Kelsey makes the
 first flight of the Bell XFM-1 Airacuda multiplace fighter at
 Buffalo, N.Y. Both the plane 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.
     October 15, 1937. The Boeing XB-15 makes its first flight at
 Boeing Field in Seattle, Wash., under the control of test pilot
 Eddie Allen.
     February 17, 1938. Six Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses, under the
 command of 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 Air Corps history.
     April 6, 1938. Company pilot James Taylor makes the first flight
 of the Bell XP-39 Airacobra at Wright Field, near Dayton, 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 re-
 fuses to allow inert helium to be exported to Germany for use in
 zeppelins. Secretary 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, nineteen hours, eight minutes, ten
 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 twenty-eight-hour flight from Floyd
 Bennett Field in Brooklyn, N.Y.
     August 22, 1938. The Civil Aeronautics Act goes into effect.
 The Civil Aeronautics Authority will coordinate all civil aviation.
     September 29, 1938. Brig. Gen. H.H. "Hap" Arnold is named Chief
 of the Army Air Corps, succeeding Maj. Gen. Oscar Westover, who was
 killed in a plane crash September 21.
     October 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.
     December 31, 1938. The Boeing Model 307 Stratoliner, the first
 passenger plane to have a pressurized cabin, makes its first flight.
     January 27, 1939. Lt. Benjamin Kelsey makes the first flight of
 the Lockheed XP-38 at March Field, Calif. The two leading American
 aces of all time, Maj. Richard I. Bong (forty victories) and Maj.
 Thomas B. McGuire (thirty-eight victories) would fly P-38s.
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