Part-9
    March 5, 1939. Using a hook trailing from their Stinson Reliant,
 Norman Rintoul and Victor Yesulantes demonstrate a nonstop airmail
 system by picking a mail sack off a pole in Coatesville, Pa.
     March 30, 1939. Flugkapitan Hans Dieterle sets a world speed
 record of 463.82 mph in the Heinkel He-100V-8. The flight is made
 at Oranienburg, Germany.
     April 3, 1939. President Roosevelt signs the National Defense
 Act of 1940, which authorizes a $300 million budget and 6,000 air-
 planes for the Army Air Corps and increases AAC personnel to 3,203
 officers and 45,000 enlisted troops.
     April 26, 1939. Flugkapitan Fritz Wendel sets the last recognized
 absolute speed record before World War II as he pilots the Messer-
 schmitt Bf-209V-1 to a speed of 469.224 mph at Augsburg, Germany.
     May 20, 1939. Regularly scheduled transatlantic passenger and
 airmail service begins.
     June 20, 1939. The German Heinkel He-176, the first aircraft to
 have a throttle-controlled liquid-fuel rocket engine, makes its
 first flight at Peenemunde with Flugkapitan Erich Warsitz at the
 controls.
     August 27, 1939. The first jet-powered aircraft, the Heinkel
 He-178, makes its first flight. Flugkapitan Erich Warsitz is the
 pilot.
     September 1, 1939. At 4:34 a.m., Lt. Bruno Dilley leads three
 Junkers Ju-87 Stuka dive bombers in an attack against the Dirschau
 Bridge. The German invasion of Poland, the first act of World War
 II, begins six minutes later.
     October 8, 1939. A Lockheed Hudson crew from the Royal Air
 Force's No. 224 Squadron shoots down a German Do-18 flying boat.
 This is the first victory recorded by an American-built aircraft
 in World War II.
     October 13, 1939. Evelyn Pinchert Kilgore becomes the first
 woman to be issued a Civil Aeronautics Authority instructor's
 certificate.
     December 29, 1939. The prototype Consolidated XB-24 Liberator
 makes a seventeen-minute first flight from Lindbergh Field in San
 Diego, Calif., with company pilot Bill Wheatley at the controls.
 More than 18,100 B-24s will be built in the next five and a half
 years, making for the largest military production run in US
 history.
1940-1945
     February 21, 1940. Henry A.H. Boot and John T. Randall, working
 at the University of Birmingham, England, create the first practical
 magnetron. The magnetron, a resonant-cavity microwave generator, is
 vital in the development of airborne radar.
     May 16, 1940. President Roosevelt calls for 50,000 airplanes a
 year.
     July 10, 1940. The Luftwaffe attacks British shipping in the
 English Channel docks in South Wales. These actions are the first in
 what will become the Battle of Britain.
     August 13-October 5, 1940. Against overwhelming odds, Royal Air
 Force pilots fend off the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain and
 ward off German invasion of the British Isles. The Luftwaffe loses
 1,733 aircraft and crews.
     September 17, 1940. Adolph Hitler announces that Operation Sea
 Lion, the German invasion of Great Britain, "has been postponed
 indefinitely." This effectively marks the end of the Battle of
 Britain, although fighting would continue.
     October 8, 1940. The Royal Air Force announces formation of the
 first Eagle Squadron, a Fighter Command unit to consist of volunteer
 pilots from the US.
     March 22, 1941. The first black flying unit, the 99th Pursuit
 Squadron, is activated. As part of the 332d Pursuit Squadron, they
 will become known as the Tuskegee Airmen.
     April 11, 1941. With the possibility that the US would be drawn
 in to World War II and that all of Europe could be in Axis hands,
 the Army Air Corps invites Consolidated and Boeing to submit design
 studies for a bomber capable of achieving 450 mph at 25,000 feet, a
 range of 12,000 miles at 275 mph, and a payload of 4,000 lbs of
 bombs at maximum range. This study results in the Convair B-36.
     May 6, 1941. Company test pilot Lowery Brabham makes the first
 flight of the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt at Farmingdale, Long Island,
 N.Y. The P-47, the heaviest single-engine fighter ever built in the
 US, will see action in every theater in World War II as both a
 high-altitude escort fighter and as a low-level fighter bomber.
     May 13-14, 1941. In the first mass flight of bombers over the
 Pacific, twenty-one B-17s fly from Hamilton Field, Calif., to Hickam
 Field, Hawaii, thirteen hours, ten minutes.
     June 20, 1941. The Army Air Forces are established, comprising
 the Office of the Chief of Air Corps and the Air Force Combat Com-
 mand, with Maj. Gen. H.H. Arnold as Chief.
     July 8, 1941. The RAF makes a daylight attack on Wilhelmshaven,
 Germany, using Boeing Fortress Is. This is the first operational use
 of the B-17 Flying Fortress.
     August 12, 1941. First successful rocket-assisted takeoff of an
 airplane takes place.
     December 1, 1941. Civil Air Patrol is established.
     December 7, 1941. Imperial Japanese forces attack Pearl Harbor.
     December 8, 1941. The day after the Japanese attack on Pearl
 Harbor, company test pilot Robert Stanley makes the first flight of
 the Bell XP-63 Kingcobra, a bigger and more powerful version of the
 P-39, at Buffalo, N.Y.
 End of Part 9
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