The American Section of the International League of Aviators resurrects the National Trophy, a Harmon Trophy awarded from 1926 to 1938 to the outstanding aviator of the year in each of the 21 member countries of the now-defunct League. It will be awarded until 1949 amid much controversy, with the awards going largely unrecognized.
January 8 – The U.S. Joint War Plans Committee reports that by July 1946, as a result of post-World War II demobilization, the United States Army Air Forces will have only five heavy bomber groupsinEurope, with only a 65-percent readiness level, and a reserve force of five heavy bomber groups in the United States, with only a 20-percent readiness level. It also reports that the United States Navy will have 13 aircraft carriers at a high state of readiness by that time. It finds that in the event of war with the Soviet Union, the only effective American response will be the delivery of atomic bombs by aircraft of the U.S. Army Air Forces and the United States Navy, and recommends atomic strikes by Army Air Forces B-29 Superfortress bombers based in England; Foggia, Italy; Agra, India; and Chengdu, Republic of China, on 17 Soviet cities to target administrative and research and development centers and aircraft and munitions factories, with an expectation of a B-29 loss rate of 35 percent. It recommends an inventory of 196 atomic bombs in order to carry out this campaign.[2]
January 12 – The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff note that the use of atomic bombs alone will be insufficient to defeat the Soviet Union in the event of a war, and that substantial conventional air, ground, and naval forces will remain necessary.[3]
Misr Airlines, the future EgyptAir, ceases all flight operations until May because of three accidents in late 1945 and resulting strikes demanding that the airline acquire newer, safer aircraft.
February 11 – After lengthy negotiations, American and British government representatives reach the Bermuda Agreement, the first bilateral agreement regulating international commercial air transport. Agreement also is reached for the International Air Transport Association (IATA) to coordinate and fix international air fares.
The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff assess that a U.S. atomic arsenal and bombers capable of delivering it promptly could deter the Soviet Union from launching a war.[11]
Misr Airlines, the future EgyptAir, resumes flight operations. It had suspended flights in February because of three accidents in late 1945 and resulting strikes demanding that the airline acquire newer, safer aircraft.
May 27 – In United States v. Causby, the United States Supreme Court rules that the common law doctrine that persons who own real property own it Cuius est solum, eius est usque ad coelum et ad inferos ("from the depths to the heavens") "has no place in the modern world" at least as far as air rights are concerned, but that it remains "fundamental to property rights in land" as a source of law, and therefore a landowner does own "at least as much of the space above the ground as he can occupy or use in connection with the land" and invasions of that airspace "are in the same category as invasions of the surface." The ruling entitles the plaintiff to collect damages from the United States Government under the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution for forcing him out of the business of raising chickens on his farm because of the negative effect on the chickens of U.S. military aircraft operating from a nearby airport, but it does not specifically define where private property rights end and public airspace begins over private property in the United States.[17]
June 15 – The United States Navy's newly formed Navy Flight Exhibition Team, better known as the Blue Angels, gives its first public performance at Jacksonville-Craig Field at Jacksonville, Florida.
June 21 – A U.S. Army Air Forces P-80 Shooting Star carries the first air mail flown by a turbojet-powered aircraft.
With post-World War II demobilization well underway, the U.S. Navy's force of aircraft carriers has dropped to 23 of all types with more decommissionings planned, while its aircraft force has declined from 41,000 to 24,000 within the past year and continues to decline rapidly.[25]
July 11 – A fire begins in the baggage compartment of the Transcontinental and Western AirwaysLockheed L-049 ConstellationStar of Lisbon during a training flight with no passengers on board designated Flight 513. The fire spreads and the plane crashes near Reading, Pennsylvania, killing five of the six people on board. As a result of the accident, all Constellations are grounded from July 12 to August 23 for the installation of cargo fire detection equipment.
The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff report that the Soviet Union has 4,000 combat aircraft based in Germany at a high state of readiness and able to strike virtually without warning.[29]
Trans-Pacific Airlines (the future Aloha Airlines) begins non-scheduled interisland service in Hawaii.[16]
July 31 – Philippine Airlines becomes the first Asian airline to cross the Pacific using a chartered Douglas DC-4 on the first of several flights to ferry home 40 US servicemen. Each crossing took 41 hours with fuelling stops at Guam, Wake, Kwajelein and Honolulu.
The United Kingdom loans the aircraft carrier HMS Colossus to France, which commissions her as Arromanches. Arromanches becomes the French Navy's first non-experimental fleet aircraft carrier. France will purchase the ship outright in 1951.[30]
August 1 – The United Kingdom establishes British European Airways as a state-owned corporation.
August 5 – The U.S. Joint Warfare Planning Committee predicts that after 1950 the Soviet Union will be able to strike the United States with guided missiles and strategic bombers armed with atomic weapons, seize territory in Alaska and Canada from which to launch air attacks against the United States, and employ airborne forces to attack vital targets. It recommends that the United States develop air warning, air defense, and antiaircraft artillery systems with which to counter such operations.[32]
August 9 – As three U.S. Army Air Forces A-26 Invaderattack aircraft make a low-level pass during an air show at the North Montana State Fair in Great Falls, Montana, two of them collide 750 feet (230 meters) from a grandstand crowded with 20,000 spectators. The wing of one A-26 shears off the tail of the other. The tail-less A-26 crashes into a horse barn, killing three crew members, three people on the ground, and twenty thoroughbred horses; the other A-26 continues to fly for between one and five miles (1.6 and 8 kilometers) (sources differ) before crashing in a field, killing one of its crewmen. The third bomber in the formation lands safely.[33]
August 15 – The U.S. Joint Warfare Planning Committee submits Plan Gridle for the defense of Turkey against the Soviet Union, which finds that the Turkish Air Force of fewer than 700 aircraft could offer only token resistance against a Soviet offensive and would have to be reinforced by ten American fighter groups, followed by the establishment of U.S. Army Air Forces heavy bomber bases in Turkey.[34]
Operation Magic Carpet, which returns millions of American military personnel to the United States after World War II, concludes. Sixty-three U.S. aircraft carriers have taken part as temporary personnel transports.[36]
September 29 – The United States NavyLockheed P2V NeptuneTruculent Turtle, piloted by Commander Thomas D. Davies and aided by four JATO rockets, departs Perth, Australia, bound nonstop for Naval Air Station AnacostiainWashington, D.C. On take-off, it weighs 85,575 pounds (38,816 kg), the heaviest twin-engine aircraft ever to take off up to this time. Although bad weather forces the plane to land short of Washington in Columbus, Ohio, after 55 hours 17 minutes continuously in the air, the flight nonetheless sets a new nonstop, unrefueled world distance record of 11,235.6 nautical miles (20,808.3 kilometres) which stands for 16 years until broken by a U.S. Air Force B-52H Stratofortress in 1962.[41]
October 15 – Hermann Göring commits suicide by poisoning himself in his jail cell at Nuremberg, Germany, the day before his scheduled hanging for war crimes. A World War Iace with 22 victories and one of the leaders of the German Nazi movement and government, he had served as Supreme Commander of the German Luftwaffe from 1935 to 1945.
November 6 – An American intelligence report predicts that by 1956 the Soviet Union will have a strategic air force and as many as 150 atomic bombs, while the United States will have 350 to 400 atomic bombs. It assesses that the Soviet Union would withhold its atomic weapons during a war in order to deter an American nuclear attack on Soviet targets.[29]
December 20 – The U.S. Joint Warfare Planning Committee reports that air forces in Italy consist of 112 British Royal Air Force fighters and 198 obsolete operational aircraft of the ill-trained Italian Air Force, which has low morale, and that in an invasion of Italy by the Soviet Union and its allies these forces would face 642 Yugoslav Air Force combat aircraft.[44]
The U.S. Navy's inventory of combat aircraft stands at 1,461, a 64 percent decline from the force it had available at the end of World War II on 15 August 1945. It has 10,000 naval aviators.[50]
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 204.
^Ross, Steven T., American War Plans 1945-1950: Strategies For Defeating the Soviet Union, Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass, 1996, ISBN0-7146-4192-8, pp. 11, 15-17.
^Ross, Steven T., American War Plans 1945-1950: Strategies For Defeating the Soviet Union, Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass, 1996, ISBN0-7146-4192-8, p. 17-18.
^Isenberg, Michael T., Shield of the Republic: The United States Navy in an Era of Cold War and Violent Peace, Volume I: 1945-1962, New York: St. Martin's Press, ISBN0-312-09911-8, p. 88.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 274.
^Ross, Steven T., American War Plans 1945-1950: Strategies For Defeating the Soviet Union, Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass, 1996, ISBN0-7146-4192-8, p. 18.
^Ross, Steven T., American War Plans 1945-1950: Strategies For Defeating the Soviet Union, Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass, 1996, ISBN0-7146-4192-8, p. 12.
^Ross, Steven T., American War Plans 1945-1950: Strategies For Defeating the Soviet Union, Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass, 1996, ISBN0-7146-4192-8, p. 33.
^Polmar, Norman, "Historic Aircraft: The Flying Banana," Naval History, August 2010, p. 16.
^Isenberg, Michael T., Shield of the Republic: The United States Navy in an Era of Cold War and Violent Peace, Volume I: 1945-1962, New York: St. Martin's Press, ISBN0-312-09911-8, p. 89.
^Marolda, Edward J., "Asian Warm-Up to the Cold War", Naval History, October 2011, pp. 30-31.
^The unconventional composite propeller-jet RyanFR Fireball was technically the first aircraft with a jet engine to land on an American carrier, but it was designed to primarily utilize its piston engine during takeoff and landing. The March 1946 issue of Naval Aviation News, p. 6, shows that an FR-1 made an emergency jet-powered landing on an aircraft carrier on November 6, 1945, when its radial engine failed in the landing path, becoming the first aircraft to make a jet-powered landing on an American aircraft carrier, albeit unintentionally and with damage to the plane.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 298, states that the FD Phantom's first carrier landing was on July 26, 1946.
^ abcRoss, Steven T., American War Plans 1945-1950: Strategies For Defeating the Soviet Union, Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass, 1996, ISBN0-7146-4192-8, p. 9.
^Chesneau, Roger, ed., Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1922-1946, New York: Mayflower Books, 1980, ISBN0-8317-0303-2, pp. 22, 262.
^Isenberg, Michael T., Shield of the Republic: The United States Navy in an Era of Cold War and Violent Peace, Volume I: 1945-1962, New York: St. Martin's Press, ISBN0-312-09911-8, p. 134.
^Ross, Steven T., American War Plans 1945-1950: Strategies For Defeating the Soviet Union, Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass, 1996, ISBN0-7146-4192-8, pp. 34-35.
^Ross, Steven T., American War Plans 1945-1950: Strategies For Defeating the Soviet Union, Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass, 1996, ISBN0-7146-4192-8, p. 35-36.
^Polmar, Norman, "Historic Aircraft: The Flying Banana," Naval History, August 2010, pp. 16-17.
^Isenberg, Michael T., Shield of the Republic: The United States Navy in an Era of Cold War and Violent Peace, Volume I: 1945-1962, New York: St. Martin's Press, ISBN0-312-09911-8, p. 86.
^ 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. 399.
^Polmar, Norman, "Historic Aircraft: The God of the Sea's Namesake", Naval History, October 2011, p. 16.
^ abcDonald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN0-7607-0592-5, p. 84.
^Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN0-7607-0592-5, p. 84, states that the flight time was 50 minutes.
^Ross, Steven T., American War Plans 1945-1950: Strategies For Defeating the Soviet Union, Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass, 1996, ISBN0-7146-4192-8, pp. 38-39.
^Isenberg, Michael T., Shield of the Republic: The United States Navy in an Era of Cold War and Violent Peace, Volume I: 1945-1962, New York: St. Martin's Press, ISBN0-312-09911-8, p. 96.
^ abDonald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN0-7607-0592-5, p. 115.
^Boyne, Walter J., "Republic's Fleeting Masterpiece," Aviation History, March 2012, p. 52.
^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. 367.
^Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN0-7607-0592-5, p. 272.
^Gann, Harry, "Douglas DC-6 and DC-7," 1999, p. 100.
^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. 368.
^Swanborough, Gordon, and Peter M. Bowers, United States Navy Aircraft Since 1911, London: Putnam, 1976, ISBN0-370-10054-9, p. 453.
^Dorr, Robert F., "Cold Warrior," Aviation History, January 2015, p. 47.
^Swanborough, Gordon, and Peter M. Bowers, United States Navy Aircraft Since 1911, London: Putnam, 1976, ISBN0-370-10054-9, p. 473.
^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. 446.
^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. 415.
^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. 342.
^Johnson, E. R., "Workhorse of the Fleet," Aviation History, November 2011, p. 49.
Bridgman, Leonard. Jane's All The World's Aircraft 1951–52. London: Sampson Low, Marston & Company, Ltd, 1951.
de Narbonne, Roland (April 2005). "Avril 1946, dans l'aéronautique française: Une actualité légère et sportive". La Fana de l'Aviation (in French). No. 437. pp. 76–78.
de Narbonne, Roland (May 2005). "Mai 1946, dans l'aéronautique française: L'échec du très astucieux "Courlis"". La Fana de l'Aviation (in French). No. 438. pp. 76–78.
de Narbonne, Roland (June 2005). "Juin 1946, dans l'aéronautique française: Un monstre inutile : le NC-3021 "Belphégor"". La Fana de l'Aviation (in French). No. 439. pp. 74–77.
de Narbonne, Roland (October 2006). "Octobre 1946, dans l'aéronautique française: Aussi traditionnel que son nom, le Boisavia "Muscadet"". La Fana de l'Aviation (in French). No. 443. pp. 76–77.
