April

April 1, 1918 The United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force is born. It is formed out the army’s Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service.

April 2, 1997 A Boeing 777, powered by twin Rolls-Royce Trent 892 turbofans, returns to Seattle to set a new Eastbound speed around the world record of 553 mph. En route, the twinjet sets a Great Circle distance without landing record of 12,455.34 miles when flying from Seattle to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

April 6, 1924 The first successful flight around the world starts as four Douglas World Cruisers leave from Seattle, Washington. Of the four, only two complete the circumnavigation as they each fly 27,553 miles (44,340 km) in 175 days, and return to Seattle on September 28. The actual flying time is 371 hours, 11 minutes, and the successful pilots are Lt. Lowell H. Smith and Lt. Erik Nelson.

April 6, 1967 Trans World Airlines (TWA) becomes the first American airline to have a fleet composed entirely of jet aircraft.

April 8, 1931 Amelia Earhart climbs to a record altitude of 18,415 feet in a Pitcairn autogyro at Willow Grove, near Philadelphia.

April 9, 1969 The first U.K.-assembled supersonic transport, Concorde 002, makes a successful first flight in England.

April 13, 1966 Boeing announces in Seattle an order worth $525 million from Pan Am for 25 Model 747 jumbo jets. (AYY)

April 18, 1917 William E. Boeing’s Pacific Aero Products Company is renamed the “Boeing Airplane Company.”

April 22, 1985 Pan Am sells its Pacific division to United Air Lines for $750 million; the deal includes all Pan Am’s Pacific routes as well as its complete fleet of long-range 747SPs, half its TriStars and one DC-10.

April 26, 1972 The first Lockheed L-1011 TriStar enters scheduled service, with Eastern Air Lines, on its route from Miami to New York.

April 28, 1937 The first commercial flight across the Pacific is made as a Pan-American Boeing 314 Clipper seaplane arrives in Hong Kong.

April 29, 1988 The first flight of the Boeing 747-400 is made. This Advanced Superjet has a crew of two and can carry between 412 and 509 passengers over 8,000 miles. Sales in 1990 of 170 of these wide-body transports broke all records.

May

May 1, 1960 A Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, piloted by U.S. Air Force Col. Francis Gary Powers, is shot down over the Soviet Union by a surface-to-air missile.

May 3, 1952 The first landing at the North Pole is made by Americans Lt. Col. William P. Benedict and Lt. Col. J. O. Fletcher on a ski-and-wheel equipped Air Force Douglas C-47.

May 5, 1968 The first non-stop Atlantic crossing by an executive jet aircraft is made as a Grumman Gulfstream II lands in London, England after completing a 3,500-mile (5,633 km) flight from Teterboro, New Jersey.

May 7, 1937 The first successful pressurized airplane cabin is achieved in the Lockheed XC-35

May 9, 1926 The first airplane flight over the North Pole is made by Americans Lt. Cdr. Richard E. Byrd and Floyd Bennett in a Fokker F-VII/3m. Their total distance from Spitzbergen, Norway is 1,600 miles (2,575 km

May 11, 1927 Charles Lindbergh lands his new Ryan airplane, the Spirit of St. Louis, in St. Louis after a record non-stop overnight flight from San Diego of 14 hours, 25 minutes.

May 13, 1940 The first successful free flight of a true helicopter is made by Igor I. Sikorsky’s single-rotor VS-300.

May 15, 1930 The first airline stewardess is Ellen Church, a nurse who flies on the Boeing Air Transport flight between San Francisco, California and Cheyenne, Wyoming.

May 20, 1932 The first solo flight by a woman pilot across the Atlantic is made by American Amelia Earhart. She flies from Harbor Grace, Newfoundland to Londonderry, Northern Ireland in a Lockheed Vega monoplane in 13 hours, 30 minutes.

May 21, 1977 The Concorde makes a special trip from New York to Paris to mark the 50th anniversary of Charles Lindbergh’s historic flight on the same route in the Spirit of St. Louis; the airliner takes just 3 hours, 44 minutes, compared with Lindbergh’s time of 33 hours, 29 minutes.

May 25, 1910 Orville Wright takes his 82-year-old father for his first airplane ride. Also on this day, Wilbur and Orville fly together for the only time in a six-and-one-half minute flight at Simms Station, near Dayton, Ohio.

May 30, 1912 Wilbur Wright dies of typhoid fever at the early age of 45. His death marks the end of his extraordinary partnership with his brother Orville, which culminated in 1903 with the first true powered flight in history.

May 31, 1928 The first airplane flight across the Pacific is made by British Capt. Charles Kingsford-Smith and crew in a Fokker F-VIIB/3m. They fly from Oakland Field, California to Brisbane, Australia, 7,389 miles (11,890km), in 83 hours, 38 minutes. On the way, it becomes the first airplane to land in Fiji.

June

June 1, 1925 A car dealer covers himself in stamps worth $718 in a bid to be sent airmail from San Francisco to New York; the U.S. Post Office refuses to accept him.

June 2, 1910 Charles Rolls makes a non-stop double crossing of the Channel from Dover, England, in one hour, 35 minutes.

June 5, 1989 The massive Antonov An-225 Mriya flies in to Paris-Le Bourget for the 1989 Paris Air Show, carrying the Soviet Shuttle Buran on its back. When it takes of from Kiev to fly to Paris, the combination has a takeoff weight of 1,234,600 lb., the greatest weight ever lifted into the air.

June 11, 1926 The first flight of the Ford A-AT trimotor, an all-metal monoplane which competes with the three-engine Fokker and becomes a pioneer American airliner. It is known affectionately as the “Tin Goose.”

June 14, 1919 The first direct non-stop crossing of the Atlantic by airplane is made by a British two-man team. Capt. John Alcock and Lt. Arthur Whitten-Brown fly a Vickers Vimy bomber from St. Johns, Newfoundland to Clifden, Ireland. They fly some 1,950 miles in 16 hours, 27 minutes.

June 20, 1951 The first flight of aircraft with variable-sweep wings is made as the research aircraft Bell X-5, flies for 30 minutes at Edwards, California.

June 21, 1913 The first woman to make a parachute jump from an airplane is Georgia “Tiny” Broadwick. The 18-year-old American descends 1,000 feet over Los Angeles, California.

June 25, 1928 The Boeing Model 83 biplane, the last from this company in which wood was used for the wing frame and the last biplane built by Boeing, makes its first flight.

June 26, 1909 The first commercial sale of an airplane in the United States is made as Glenn H. Curtiss sells one of his planes to the Aeronautic Society of New York for $7,500. This action spurs the Wright brothers to begin a patent suit to prevent him from selling airplanes without a license.

June 27, 1923 The first refueling in mid-air (with hose) of one airplane by another is made by a De Havilland D.H.4-b from another one over San Diego, California. The planes are flown by Capt. L. H. Smith and Lt. J. P. Richter.

June 28, 1911 The first airplane charter flight is made by English aviator Thomas Sopwith who is hired by Wannamaker’s New York store to deliver repaired glasses to Philadelphia merchant W. A. Burpee.

June 28, 1927 The first non-stop flight between the United States and Hawaii is made by U.S. Lts. Albert F. Hegenberger and Lester J. Maitland. They fly 2,407 miles (3,874 km) from Oakland to Honolulu in 25 hours, 30 minutes.