January 3 – Trans World Airlines becomes the first airline to offer its passengers freshly brewed coffee in flight.[6]
January 4 – The Brooklyn Dodgers become the first professional baseball team to purchase its own airplane, buying a Convair CV-440. To reduce the CV-440's price to US$775,000, the team purchases it as part of a larger Eastern Airlines order.[7]
January 18 – Three United States Air ForceB-52 Stratofortress bombers make the world's first round-the-world, non-stop flight by turbojet-powered aircraft. They complete the flight in 45 hours 19 minutes, at an average speed of 534 mph (859 km/h).
June 7 – Executing a zoom climb after a low-altitude pass during a high-speed demonstration flight at Hensley FieldinDallas, Texas, for a graduating class from the Naval Postgraduate School, a Vought F8U-1 Crusader fighter flown by a Chance Vought Aircraft pilot disintegrates, killing the pilot. The aircraft's wreckage explodes violently at low altitude over Main Street in adjacent Grand Prairie, Texas, inflicting minor injuries to several bystanders.[16][17]
June 28 – The Moroccan airline Royal Air Maroc—Compagnie Nationale de Transports Aériens renames itself Royal Air Maroc.
November 6 – A prototype of the Bristol BritanniacrashesinDownend, England, during a test flight, killing all 15 people on board and injuring one person on the ground.
November 7 – The Security Resources Panel of the President's Science Advisory Committee, chaired by Horace Rowan Gaither, submits "Deterrence & Survival in the Nuclear Age" – commonly referred to as the "Gaither Report" – to PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower. Among other things, the report finds that there is "little likelihood of SAC's [i.e., the U.S. Strategic Air Command's] bombers surviving" a Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) attack "since there was no way to detect an incoming attack until the first [ICBM] warhead landed,"[28] and it recommends a significant strengthening of U.S. strategic offensive and defensive military capabilities.
November 15 – After taking off from England'sSouthampton Water, an Aquila AirwaysShort Solentflying boat develops engine trouble and crashes on the Isle of Wight while attempting to return. Forty-five of the 58 people on board die in what at the time is the second-deadliest aviation accident to have taken place in the United Kingdom and then the worst ever air disaster to occur in England.
^ abCrosby, Francis, The Complete Guide to Fighters & Bombers of the World: An Illustrated History of the World's Greatest Military Aircraft, From the Pioneering Days of Air Fighting in World War I Through the Jet Fighters and Stealth Bombers of the Present Day, London: Anness Publishing Ltd., 2006, ISBN978-1-84476-917-9, p. 46.
^Crosby, Francis, The Complete Guide to Fighters & Bombers of the World: An Illustrated History of the World's Greatest Military Aircraft, From the Pioneering Days of Air Fighting in World War I Through the Jet Fighters and Stealth Bombers of the Present Day, London: Anness Publishing Ltd., 2006, ISBN978-1-84476-917-9, p. 35.
^Maxtone-Graham, John, The Only Way to Cross, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN0-7607-0637-9, p. 408.
^ abCrosby, Francis, The Complete Guide to Fighters & Bombers of the World: An Illustrated History of the World's Greatest Military Aircraft, From the Pioneering Days of Air Fighting in World War I Through the Jet Fighters and Stealth Bombers of the Present Day, London: Anness Publishing Ltd., 2006, ISBN978-1-84476-917-9, p. 289.
^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. 709.
^ abShapiro, T. Rees, "Obituary: Virgil D. Olson, 93, Marine Copter Pilot First To Fly President," The Washington Post, August 2, 2012, p. B7.
^Polmar, Norman, "Historic Aircraft: The Last Picture Plane," Naval History, October 2010, p. 64.
^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. 452.
^"Today in History," The Washington Post Express, July 31, 2012, p. 30.
^Thetford, Owen, British Naval Aircraft Since 1912, Sixth Edition, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1991, ISBN1-55750-076-2, pp. 26-27.
^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. 407.
^Freeman, Maj Steve (September 1997). "Visionaries, Cold War, hard work built the foundations of Air Force Space Command". Guardian Magazine…funded Air Force newspaper. Vol. 5, no. 6: Special Anniversary Edition. p. 6.
^Gardiner, Robert, Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1947–1982, Part One: The Western Powers, <Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1983, ISBN0-87021-418-7, p. 28.
^Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN0-7607-0592-5, p. 11.
^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. 249.
^Polmar, Norman, "A Limited Success," Naval History, August 2015, p. 65.
^Bernier, Robert, "Ensign Eliminator," Aviation History, July 2012, p. 15.
Bridgman, Leonard (1957). Jane's All the World's Aircraft 1957–58. London: Sampson Low, Marston & Company, Ltd.
Bridgman, Leonard (1958). Jane's All the World's Aircraft 1958–59. London: Sampson Low, Marston & Company, Ltd.
Stroud, John (1968). Soviet Transport Aircraft since 1945. London: Putnam.
Taylor, John W. R. (1961). Jane's All the World's Aircraft 1961–62. London: Sampson Low, Marston & Company, Ltd.
