World Aviation in 1910 - Part 2

Part 1

13 July
A German Erbslon non-rigid airship explodes near Opladen, killing five people.

21 July
The Wright brothers begin experimenting with wheeled landing gears.

24 July
German August Euler patents a machine-gun armament arrangement for an aeroplane.

August
Harry Ferguson pilots the first passenger flight to be flown in Ireland.

8 August
The first aircraft tricycle landing-gear is installed, on a United States Army Wright biplane.

17 August
Franco American John B. Mosiant's mechanic becomes the first passenger to fly across the English Channel, in a Blériot monoplane.

20 August
Lieutenant Jacob Earl Fickel of the United States Army, fires the first shots from an aeroplane at Sheepshead Bay in New York State. He fires a Springfield rifle at a target from the passenger seat of a Curtiss biplane.

27 August
The first aircraft radio is used in an aeroplane which flew over the race track at Sheepshead Bay in New York. The aircraft was piloted by a Canadian, J.A.D. McCurdy, who transmitted the following message, which was received by a ground station operated by H.M. Horton. "Another chapter in aerial achievement is hereby written in the receiving of this first message ever recorded from an aeroplane in flight".

28 August
Swiss Armand Dufaux flies the length of Lake Geneva, a distance of 41 miles, in his tractor biplane. He takes 56 minutes to win the 5,000 Swiss franc prize.

2 September
Blanche Scott becomes the first American female pilot to fly solo, at Lake Keuka in Hammondsport, New York State.

6 September
John Moisant wins the Daily Mail £50 prize for a flight from Paris to London.

8 September
The first recorded aerial collision occurs when two brothers named Warchalovski crash in Austria.

14 September
Zeppelin LZ6 is destroyed by fire at Boden-Oos.

14 September
The French Army use nine aeroplanes in manoeuvres as Henry Farman sets up an army flying school.

23 September
Peruvian Georges Chavez flies over the Alps, from Brig to Domodossola, in a Blériot monoplane but is killed when he crash-lands.

27 September
Roger Sommer flies in his unique twin-engined biplane.

October
Romanian Henri Coanda exhibits a propellerless biplane. It fails.

October
The first fighter aircraft, a Voisin biplane fitted with a machine gun, is exhibited at the Paris Aero Show.

2 October
The first officially recorded mid-air collision between two aeroplanes occurs in Milan. An Antoinette piloted by Rene Thomas strikes a Henry Farman biplane piloted by Englishman Captain Bertram Dickson. Both pilots survived.

15 October
American Walter Wellman attempts to fly across the North Atlantic in his airship 'America'. The flight fails and the crew is rescued at sea.

11 October
Ex-President Teddy Roosevelt becomes the first United States president to fly when he is taken up at St Louis.

22 October
The Aéronautique Militaire is formed from the French Service Aéronautique.

23 October
The Infante Don Alfonso of Orleans and Bourbon becomes the first royal pilot. A cousin of King Alfonso of Spain, he learnt to fly on an Antoinette monoplane at Mourmelon in France. He was a lieutenant in the Spanish Army at the time.

26 October
A Lebaudy airship purchased by the British government flies a 230 mile flight from Aldershot to Moisson in France.

28 October
Monsieur Tabuteau performs a closed circuit record of 465 kilometres(289 miles) in a Maurice Farman biplane, ending the supremacy of the Wright biplanes.

7 November
The world's first freight-carrying flight occurs when Philip O. Palmalee pilots a Wright Model B biplane, transporting silk from Dayton to Columbus in Ohio, for the Morehouse-Martens Company.

14 November
Exhibition pilot Eugène Ely makes the first take-off from a ship, using a temporary flight deck on the cruiser USS Birmingham. The ship was at anchor in Chesapeake Bay. The pilot flew his Curtiss Hudson Flier biplane 2½ miles to Willoughby Spit near Norfolk in Virginia to land.

23 November
Octave Chanute dies aged 78, having played an important role in the advancement of aviation.

December
In India, the British Army is impressed by a demonstration of three biplanes by the British and Colonial Aeroplane Company.

3 December
Gaston Cugnet crashes his Blériot monoplane while demonstrating it at Melbourne Cricket Ground.

10 December
Romanian Henri Coanda makes a brief flight in the world's first jet-powered aeroplane. It is powered by a 37kW (50 horse-power) Clerget piston engine driving a centrifugal air compressor.

31 December
John Moisant is killed when his aeroplane crashes at New Orleans.

Also this year...
The following air services are established:

• Imperial Russian Flying Corps
• Russian Naval Aviation School
• Romanian Flying Corps

The Golub (Pidgeon), the first Russian-designed non-rigid airship, enters service with the Russian Army at Lida.

The first German pilot's licence is issued to August Euler.

The first model aircraft kits are manufactured by the American Aeroplane Manufacturing Company in New York.

Part 1