The Soviet Union'sfirst five-year plan (1928–1932) begins, placing a high priority on the construction of new aircraft factories. It begins a rapid expansion of the Soviet aircraft industry.[1]
The Mitsubishi Internal Combustion Engine Company Ltd. changes its name to Mitsubishi Aircraft Company Ltd.[5]
Italy officially records its production rate for military aircraft at 150 per month, with a capacity to expand to 600 per month in wartime. The Regia Aeronautica (Italian Royal Air Force), meanwhile, determines that it will require a production rate of 900 aircraft per month during a war.[6]
Frank Hawks makes a nationwide goodwill tour of the United States for Texaco piloting the custom-built Ford TrimotorTexaco One. He visits more than 150 cities and covers approximately 51,000 miles (82,000 km). An estimated 500,000 people see Texaco One, and Hawks carries 7,200 passengers in the plane without mishap.[8]
Hoping to become the first person to fly a small, open-cockpit plane solo from South AfricatoLondon, Mary, Lady Heath, takes off in an Avro Avian for what she hopes will be a three-week trip. Instead, the trip will take three months, and she will not arrive in London until May.[9]
To advertise Texaco, Frank Hawks flies a Texas delegation in the custom-built Ford TrimotorTexaco One from Houston, Texas, to Mexico City, Mexico. The first goodwill trade extension air tour from the United States to Mexico, the flight receives widespread coverage in American and Mexican newspapers.[10]
January 26 – Veteran movie actor Earl Metcalfe is killed during a flying lesson when he falls or jumps from a plane at an altitude of 2,000 feet (610 meters) over Burbank, California, when it goes into a double roll.[12]
February 3 – New York City decides to build its first municipal airport.[13]
February 7–22 – Bert Hinkler makes the first solo flight from EnglandtoAustralia, flying from CroydontoDarwin in an Avro Avian. His flight sets a new time world record for an England-to-Australia flight of just under 15½ days, smashing the previous record of 28 days. He then flies on to Bundaberg, Queensland, Australia, arriving there on February 27.
February 12 – Mary, Lady Heath leaves Cape Town in an Avro Avian in an attempt to make the first solo flight by a woman from South Africa to England. She will arrive in Croydon on May 17.
March 26 – The Italian Secretary of State for Air, Italo Balbo, founds the airline Società Aerea Mediterranea (SAM) as an early step toward an Italian Fascist government takeover of all Italian airlines and rationalization of their routes.
March 30 – Mario de Bernardi sets a new airspeed record of 512.776 km/h (318.624 mph) at Venice, Italy – the first over 300 mph (480 km/h) and the first over 500 km/h (310 mph). He flies a Macchi M.52bis.
The Imperial Japanese Navy begins to experiment with coordinated torpedo attacks by aircraft and surface ships. It will not abandon the concept as impractical until the mid-1930s.[17]
During the month, Sumitoshi Nakao becomes the first Japanese aviator to save his life by parachute when he bails out of one of two Mitsubishi 1MF2 Hayabusa-type fighter prototypes when it disintegrates during a diving test during official Imperial Japanese Army trials at Tokorozawa. He is uninjured.
Mary, Lady Heath, arrives at Croydon AerodromeinLondon, completing a 9,000-mile (14,500-kilometer) flight from South Africa in an Avro Avian, stepping out of the cockpit to greet a cheering crowd wearing a pleated skirt, high heels, a fur coat, and a cloche hat. When she had begun the journey in South Africa in January, she had hoped to complete the flight in three weeks, but various setbacks – including a crash-landing outside Southern Rhodesia after she suffered heat stroke – have led to the trip taking three months. She becomes the first person to fly from South Africa to London solo in a small, open-cockpit plane.[9]
June 3 – Italian aviators Arturo Ferrarin and Carlo Del Prete complete a nonstop flight in the Savoia-Marchetti S.64 begun on May 31 during which they have made 51 round trips between Torre Flavia (inLadispoli) and Anzio. The flight breaks three world records, setting a new world nonstop distance record over a closed circuit of 7,666 kilometers (4,763 miles), a new world endurance record of 58 hours 34 minutes, and a new world record for average speed over a distance of 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles) of 139 km/h (86 mph).[25][26]
July 3–5 – Italian aviators Arturo Ferrarin and Carlo Del Prete set a new nonstop flight distance record, flying a Savoia-Marchetti S.64 from Montecelio, Italy, to Brazil. Departing on July 3 and hoping to reach Rio de Janeiro, they are forced to turn back due to bad weather and attempt to land at Natal, Brazil, but their flight ends in a forced landing on a beach at Touros, Brazil, on July 5 after they remain airborne for 48 hours 14 minutes and cover 8,100 kilometers (5,000 miles) nonstop. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale recognizes the flight as establishing a new official nonstop distance record of 7,188 kilometers (4,466 miles), the great-circle distance between Montecelio and Natal.[28][29][26][30]
July 4 – While crossing the English Channel with several other people during a flight from Croydon, England, to Brussels, Belgium, aboard his private Fokker F.VIItrimotor, wealthy Belgian financier Alfred Loewenstein excuses himself to visit the lavatory. When he does not return, his secretary investigates and finds the lavatory empty, the aircraft's adjacent entrance door open, and Loewenstein missing from the plane, having jumped or fallen thousands of feet to his death. His body will be discovered in the sea near Boulogne, France, on July 19.
August 8 – The Couzinet 27Arc en Ciel II crashes in France during trials. Its mechanic dies instantly and its pilot dies of his injuries a few days later, leaving only survivor of the crash.
August 11 – Only a little over five weeks after completing their record-breaking Italy-Brazil flight, Italian aviators Arturo Ferrarin and Carlo Del Prete are injured in the crash during a demonstration flight of a Savoia-Marchetti SM.62flying boat during ongoing post-flight celebrations in Brazil. Del Prete will die of his injuries on August 16.[35]
September 25 – Over France near Paris, Baron Willy Coppens, Belgium's top scoring fighter ace of World War I, sets a new world parachute record, descending safely from an altitude of 6,000 meters (20,000 feet).[37]
December 15–17 – French aviators Dieudonné Costes and Paul Codos set a world distance record for flight over a closed circuit, flying 8,029 km (4,989 mi).
^Hardesty, Von, Red Phoenix: The Rise of Soviet Air Power 1941-1945, Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1982, ISBN0-87474-510-1, p. 46.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 35.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 182.
^Francillon, René J., Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1979, ISBN0-87021-313-X, p. 20.
^Francillon, René J., Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1979, ISBN0-87021-313-X, p. 23.
^Gooch, John, Mussolini and His Generals: The Armed Forces and Fascist Foreign Policy, 1922-1940, Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press, 2007, ISBN978-0-521-85602-7, p. 80.
^Sturtivant, Ray, British Naval Aviation: The Fleet Air Arm, 1917-1990, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1990, ISBN0-87021-026-2, p. 215.
^Dobson, Christopher, and John Miller, The Day They Almost Bombed Moscow: The Allied War in Russia, 1918-1920, New York: Atheneum, 1986, no ISBN, pp. 18-19.
^Peattie, Mark R., Sunburst: The Rise of Japanese Naval Air Power 1909-1941, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2001, ISBN1-55750-432-6, p. 37.
^Peattie, Mark R., Sunburst: The Rise of Japanese Naval Air Power 1909-1941, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2001, ISBN1-55750-432-6, p. 72.
^Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN0-7607-0592-5, p. 187.
^Hagedorn, Dan: Conquistadors of the Sky: A History of Aviation in Latin America. University Press of Florida, 2008. ISBN0-8130-3249-0, ISBN978-0-8130-3249-8, p. 217.
^Francillon, René J., Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1979, ISBN0-87021-313-X, p. 30.
^Mondey, David, ed., The Complete Illustrated History of the World's Aircraft, Secaucus, New Jersey: Chartwell Books, Inc., 1978, ISBN0-89009-771-2, p. 65.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 326.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, ISBN0-517-56588-9, pp. 132-133.
^Francillon, René J., Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1979, ISBN0-87021-313-X, p. 493.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, ISBN0-517-56588-9, p. 194.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 132.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 78.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 72.
^Mondey, David, ed., The Complete Illustrated History of the World's Aircraft, Secaucus, New Jersey: Chartwell Books, Inc., 1983, ISBN0-89009-771-2, p. 29.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, ISBN0-517-56588-9, pp 139-140f
^ abAngelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, ISBN0-517-56588-9, p. 138.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 75.
