1911 in aviation

This is a list of aviation-related events from 1911:

Years in aviation: 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914
Centuries: 19th century · 20th century · 21st century
Decades: 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
Years: 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914

Events
  • The French Navy selects the torpedo boat tender Foudre for conversion into France's first ship capable of carrying and handling airplanes. She will become the first warship to be permanently altered for use as an aviation ship.[1]
  • The Austro-Hungarian Navy establishes an experimental naval air station at Pola.[2]
  • Imperial Japanese Navy officers arrive in France and the United States for flight instruction and to study the production and maintenance of airplanes. They will return to Japan in 1912 as Japan's first naval aviators.[3]
  • Imperial Japanese Navy Lieutenant Tetsukichi Isobe privately builds a seaplane out of bamboo. He pilots it for 60 meters (197 feet), reaching an altitude of 3 meters (10 feet), before the seaplane overturns.[4] Although lacking any official association with the navy, it is the first flight in Japan by a member of the Imperial Japanese Navy.
  • The British Army renames the observation balloon elements of the Royal Engineers: The Balloon Section becomes the Air Battalion, and the Balloon Factory becomes the Army Aircraft Factory.[5]

January–March
  • 18 January – Eugene Ely lands on a platform constructed over the deck of the armored cruiser USS Pennsylvania anchored in San Francisco Bay. This is the first time an aircraft lands on a ship.
  • 26 January – Glenn H. Curtiss flies the first successful seaplane.
  • 31 January
    • The United States Navy destroyer Paulding recovers Canadian civilian aviator John A. D. McCurdy after he is forced down at sea while he attempting a flight from Key West, Florida, to Havana, Cuba. He was unable to take off using an aircraft platform installed in November 1910, which had a hinged extension that could be lowered to sea level, as his airplane was too badly damaged during the recovery to continue its journey.[6]
    • The armored cruiser USS Pennsylvania conducts the United States Navy's only experiment with a man-lifting kite.[6]
  • 5 February – The first undisputed aeroplane flight in New Zealand is made by Vivian Walsh at Auckland in a Howard Wright biplane named Manurewa.
  • 17 February – At San Diego, California, Glenn Curtiss flies a prototype seaplane out to the U.S. Navy armored cruiser Pennsylvania in the harbor. Pennsylvania hoists the seaplane aboard, then returns it to the water, and Curtiss flies it back to shore. It is the first demonstration that a ship can handle a seaplane.[6]
  • 18 February – The first airmail is carried by an aeroplane. Henri Pequet carries mail across the Jumna River, from Allahabad to Naini Junction, India.
  • The Spanish Air Force is created as the Aeronáutica militar Española, with four aircraft.
  • 1 March – The first four Royal Navy pilots, Lieutenants Charles R. Samson, R. Gregory, and Arthur M. Longmore of the Royal Navy and Lieutenant E. L. Gerrard of the Royal Marine Light Infantry, report for flight training at Eastchurch airfield, using borrowed Short S.27 aircraft.
  • 23 March – Louis Breguet carries 11 passengers a distance of 5 km (3.1 mi).

April–June
Beaumont' Bleriot monoplane
  • 8 May – The U.S. Naval Aviation Service created and the U.S. Navy's first airplane, a Curtiss Model D, is ordered.
  • 21 May – The French Minister of War, Henri Maurice Berteaux, a spectator at the start of the 1911 Paris to Madrid air race, suffers fatal injuries when a plane crashes while attempting to take off.[8] Also during the race Eugene Gilbert encounters a large eagle over the Pyrenees, in one of the first bird strikes to an aircraft, on the way to Madrid.
  • 31 May – Andre Beaumont beats Roland Garros in the Paris to Rome air race, completing the 1,465 km (910 mi) course in 28 hours, 5 minutes.
  • 18 June – The 1911 Circuit of Europe air race begins.
  • 27 June – To win a $1,000 prize from the U.S.-Canadian Carnival for making history's first flight over Niagara Falls, American pilot Lincoln J. Beachey takes off into a drizzle in a Curtiss D biplane before 150,000 spectators and flies over the lower falls of Niagara Falls, then above American Falls. During a gradual climb, he circles over the falls several times, then dives into the mists of the falls, coming to within 6 meters (20 feet) of the surface of the Niagara River and passing under the Honeymoon Bridge at that altitude, becoming the first person to fly under a Niagara Falls bridge. At a speed of 80 km/hr (50 mph), the concludes by flying over the river down the length of the Niagara Gorge.[9]

July–September

October–December
  • 10 October – During an attempt to become the first person to cross the continental United States by air, Calbraith Rodgers breaks Harry Atwood's August cross-country distance record, reaching 1,398 miles (2,251 km).[20]
  • 14 October – Worldwide aviation deaths reach a total of 100.[20]
  • 19 October – During an aerobatic display at Macon, Georgia, American aviation pioneer Eugene Ely pulls out of a dive too late and crashes into the ground, breaking his neck. He jumps clear of the wreckage but dies minutes later.[21]
  • 22 October – A military airplane makes an operational flight for the first time when an Italian Army Blériot XI piloted by Captain Carlo Piazza flies from Tripoli to 'Aziziya to carry out reconnaissance of Ottoman Army positions in Libya during the Italo-Turkish War.[22] Later in the day, an Italian Nieuport flown by a Captain Moizo becomes the first airplane to be damaged by enemy forces in combat when it suffers several hits from Turkish ground fire.[22]
  • 24 October – Orville Wright soars in a glider 9 minutes and 45 seconds over dunes near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
  • 26 October – An airplane directs naval gunfire for the first time when an Italian Etrich Taube crewed by Captain Carlo Piazza and Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti spots fire for the Regia Marina (Italian Royal Navy) armored cruiser Carlo Alberto as she fires at Ottoman Army positions ashore in Libya.[22]
  • 31 October – John Montgomery is fatally injured in a crash of his Evergreen glider near San Jose, California.
  • 1 November – An airplane conducts a wartime bombing mission for the first time, when Italian Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti, flying an Etrich Taube monoplane, drops four 2-kg (4.5-pound) bombs on Ottoman Army positions at Ain Zara and Tajura near Tripoli, Libya, during the Italo-Turkish War.[23][24][25]
  • 2 November – Calbraith Rodgers and Robert G. Fowler, who both are attempting the first coast-to-coast flight across the continental United States – Rodgers westbound and Fowler eastbound – meet in Tucson, Arizona Territory, where both are making a stopover.[26]
  • 5 November – Calbraith Rodgers completes the first coast-to-coast airplane flight across the continental United States in the Vin Fiz Flyer. The trip takes 49 days, with several crashes en route.
  • 1 December - Royal Navy Lieutenant Arthur Longmore lands a float-equipped Short Improved S.27 in the River Medway, becoming the first person in the United Kingdom to take off from land and make a successful water landing.

First flights

April

May

Notes
  1. Layman 1989, p. 17-18.
  2. Layman 1989, p. 13.
  3. Peattie 2001, p. 4-5.
  4. Peattie 2001, p. 11.
  5. "rafmuseum.org.uk "Early Military Ballooning"". Archived from the original on 2013-05-19. Retrieved 2015-11-16.
  6. Layman 1989, p. 110.
  7. Great Britain Timeline: 1911 - 1941
  8. "Dashes Into Group Of French Cabinet Officers". New Oxford Item. May 25, 1911. Retrieved 2010-11-04.
  9. "Lincoln Beachy". HOME > NIAGARA FALLS HISTORY > TOURISM HISTORY NIAGARA FALLS DAREDEVILS > LINCOLN BEACHY: Niagara Falls Info. Retrieved 29 November 2016.
  10. Taylor, John W. R. (1972) [1971 - Hamlyn Publishing]. Aircraft. Gossamer All-Color Guide Series. Grosset & Dunlap.
  11. Gray, Carroll (2005). "CICERO FLYING FIELD - Origin, Operation, Obscurity and Legacy - 1891 to 1916 - OPERATION, 1911 - OPENING DAY". lincolnbeachey.com. Carroll F. Gray. Retrieved June 25, 2019. Cicero Flying Field officially opened on July 4, 1911, as 5,000 people crowded onto the area between the hangars and the “strip.”
  12. "Taft Greets Atwood after Rainy Flight" (PDF). The New York Times. 1911-07-15.
  13. Edwards, John Carver (2009). Orville's Aviators: Outstanding Alumni of the Wright Flying School, 1910-1916. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland. p. 172.
  14. "Today in History". The Washington Post Express. 2011-08-01. p. 30.
  15. Daniel, Clifton, ed. (1987). Chronicle of the 20th Century. Mount Kisco, New York: Chronicle Publications. p. 153. ISBN 0-942191-01-3.
  16. "An American Lady Aviator". Flight. 1911-08-26. Retrieved 2012-05-16.
  17. "Lidia Zvereva". Centennial of Women Pilots. Archived from the original on 31 March 2018. Retrieved 14 September 2017.
  18. "Atwood Ends Record Air Trip. Lands Here 1,265 Miles from St. Louis, Beating Best Previous Flight by 101 Miles" (PDF). The New York Times. 1911-08-26. Retrieved 2012-10-11. Harry N. Atwood, the young Boston aviator, landed at Governors Island at 2:38 yesterday afternoon, at the end of the greatest cross-country flight in the history of ...
  19. Daniel, Clifton, ed. (1987). Chronicle of the 20th Century. Mount Kisco, New York: Chronicle Publications. p. 154. ISBN 0-942191-01-3.
  20. Daniel, Clifton, ed., Chronicle of the 20th Century, Mount Kisco, New York: Chronicle Publications, 1987, ISBN 0-942191-01-3, p. 155.
  21. Muir, Tom, "Birth of the Aircraft Carrier," MHQ, Winter 2018, p. 64.
  22. Franks, Norman, Aircraft vs. Aircraft: The Illustrated Story of Fighter Pilot Combat From 1914 to the Present Day, London: Grub Street, 1998, ISBN 1-902304-04-7, p. 8.
  23. The influence of air power upon history by Walter J. Boyne, p.38
  24. Whitehouse, Arch, The Zeppelin Fighters, New York: Ace Books, 1966, no ISBN number, p. 39.
  25. Franks, Norman, Aircraft vs. Aircraft: The Illustrated Story of Fighter Pilot Combat From 1914 to the Present Day, London: Grub Street, 1998, ISBN 1-902304-04-7, pp. 8-9.
  26. "Blackstock, Joe, "Fowler Tried Harder But Was Only the Second Flier To Cross the Nation By Airplane," Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, May 14, 2012". Archived from the original on 2012-05-17. Retrieved 2012-05-28.
  27. Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN 0-7607-0592-5, p. 75.

References
  • Layman, R.D., Before the Aircraft Carrier: The Development of Aviation Vessels 1849-1922, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1989, ISBN 0-87021-210-9
  • Peattie, Mark R., Sunburst: The Rise of Japanese Naval Air Power 1909-1941, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2001, ISBN 1-55750-432-6
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