World Aviation in 1910 - Part 1

Part 2

1 January
The first pilot's licences are issued by the Aéro Club de France. A list of 16 licence holders was published in alphabetical order; unfortunately it missed out Charles Voisin (the first man to fly in France) and included some people who had never flown at all!

January
Igor Sikorsky begins work on a second helicopter.

January
Captain G.W.P. Dawes and J.V. Neale both crash when making the first aeroplane flights in Egypt in their Blériot monoplanes.

January
Colin Defries makes the first aeroplane flight in Australia, flying a Wright biplane at Sydney.

7 January
Hubert Latham makes the first flight to an altitude over 1,000 metres (2,281 feet) at Chalons in France when he flies an Antoinette VII to 3,280 feet.

10 January
The first United States aeroplane meeting is held at the Dominquez Field in Los Angeles and organised by the Aero Club of California.

19 January
Lieutenant Paul Beck drops sandbag "bombs" over Los Angeles from an aeroplane piloted by Louis Paulhan.

February
Hugo Junkers patents an aeroplane with a cantilevered wing.

8 March
Mademoiselle Elise Deroche, better known under her self awarded title 'la Baronne de Laroche', becomes the world's first qualified female pilot and the 36th French pilot, when she is awarded her brevet.

10 March
Frenchman Emil Aubrun makes the world's first night flights in a Blériot monoplane at Villalugano in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

10 March
William W. Gibson, of British Colombia, finishes work on the engine for the Gibson Twin-plane.

13 March
The first aeroplane flight in Switzerland is made by Captain Engelhardt in a Wright A biplane from an ice covered lake at St Moritz.

20 March
Gaspard-Felix Tournachon, alias Nadar, the photographer and balloonist, dies. He had taken the first aerial (balloon) photographs in 1863.

26 March
Plans for Aeropolis, an aerodrome at Le Bourget in France, are announced.

28 March
Frenchman Henri Fabre makes the world's first take-off from water at La Mede harbour near Marseilles. in the 'Hydravion', a powered seaplane.

April
The French Army forms a 'Service Aéronautique'.

April
Two Japanese army officers, Captain Tokugawa and Humazo Hino, are sent to France and Germany respectively to learn to fly.

30 April
Alberto Santos-Dumont retires from flying, suffering from multiple sclerosis.

7 May
The Antoinette Company builds a simulator at Mourmelon air school for pilots to practice the controls of an Antoinette monoplane.

18 May
International talks open in Paris to form a legal basis for flight between countries.

21 May
Frenchman Jacques de Lesseps wins 12,500 francs for a 37 minute flight from Calais and the £100 Daily Mail cup for the second English Channel flight.

24 May
Prince Charles of Romania becomes the first royal aeroplane passenger, in a Farman piloted by M. Osmontat at Bucharest.

25 May
The Wright brothers fly together for the first time at Dayton in Ohio.

27 May
Italian Ugo Tabachi pilots the first trial flight of the Caproni Ca1 monoplane, built by Gianni Caproni.

6 June
Robert Martinet wins the first cross-country air race between Angers and Saumur in France, a distance of 27 miles, in a Farman aeroplane.

9 June
The first aircraft reconnaissance is made by Captain Marconnet and Lieutenant Fequant of the French Army. They used a single seat Henri Farman biplane on a 2½ hour, 145 kilometre flight from Camp de Châlons at Mourmelon to Vincennes. Fequart piloted the aircraft while Marconnet, armed with a hand held camera, squeezed into a narrow space between the seat and the engine. During the flight, photographs were taken of roads, railways, towns and the countryside.

10 June
The French Army obtain a Wright biplane.

13 June
Charles Hamilton wins the New York Times' $10,000 prize for a return flight between New York and Philadelphia.

17 June
The Vlaicu I parasol monoplane makes it's first flight in Romania.

17 June
Zeppelin LZ7 'Deutschland' begins passenger services in Germany.

30 June
American Glenn Hammond Curtiss drops dummy bombs on the shape of a battleship marked out on Lake Keuka.

7 July
The Belgian war ministry establishes a flying corps.

10 July
The first flight at an altitude of over a mile is made by Walter Brookins, flying at 1,900 metres (6,234 feet) in a Wright biplane in Indianapolis, USA.

Part 2