Brazil studies the possibility of converting two merchant ships into aircraft carriers. Although nothing comes of the idea, it is the first time a Latin American country considers the acquisition of an aircraft carrier.[2]
The first commercial night flight between London and Paris takes place.
Hermann Oberth's submits his dissertation, which is rejected as "too fantastic". It will be published in 1923 as The Rocket to Planetary Spaces and will become a major work in spaceflight history.
March 22 – A chartered seaplane from Miami to Bimini developed engine problems and ditched into the sea eight and a half miles from its destination. All five passengers as well as the pilot (and owner) of the seaplane survived the crash but the passengers subsequently drowned. Only the pilot survived, picked up by a passing tanker after 56 hours in the water.[14]
April
April 4 – The Colombian Ministry of War opens a flying school, the Escuela de Aviación ("School of Aviation"), at Flandes.
April 13 – While preparing for the first attempt in history to fly around the world, Royal Australian Air Force Captain Ross Smith and Lieutenant James Bennett die in the crash at Byfleet, Surrey, England, of a Vickers Viking amphibian aircraft they are testing for the proposed circumnavigation.[15]
The Italian Corpo Aeronautico Militare ("Military Aviation Corps") holds experimental maneuvers in Friuli, Italy, to test the ability of military aircraft to coordinate troop movements on the ground by informing ground commanders of the movements of friendly and enemy ground forces. The experiment is less successful than hoped because of communication difficulties.[17]
The admirals′ committee of the Regia Marina (Italian Royal Navy) meets to discuss aviation generally and the use of airplanes in naval operations. Among the opinions expressed are that strikes by torpedo planes against ships at sea would be hampered by their need for support by reconnaissance and attack aircraft and the small amount of explosive in aerial torpedoes and would be no more dangerous that torpedo boat attacks and unlikely to achieve any success; that the Italian people would not want their defense to rely in a force "enclosed in such a fragile wrapping as today′s aircraft;" and that the airplane would take a long time to develop into a practical naval weapon and at present was "contrary to the ethical and aesthetic elements the Regia Marina was accustomed to demand in [its] preparation for war." Despite some positive comments on the freedom of movement of aircraft to conduct deep strikes against an enemy and the possibility that airplanes could provide a defense of coastlines and land borders out to a distance of 200 miles (320 km), the committee concludes that no warship had yet been sunk by aircraft and that "notwithstanding the many writings and opinions tending to exalt the value of aerial forces, they cannot yet be considered so important as to substitute, even in part, for the actions of naval and military forces in war."[18]
May 1 – Deruluft (Deutsche-Russische Luftverkehrs, "German-Russian Airlines") commences operations.
July 4 – A commercial LVG C.VI piloted by Lothar von Richthofen – a World War I ace with 40 victories and the younger brother of the top-scoring World War I ace Manfred von Richthofen – and carrying the American actress Fern Andra and her companion director Georg Bluen as passengers, suffers engine failure and crashes at Fuhlsbüttel, Germany. Von Richthofen and Bluen die; Andra spends a year recovering from her injuries.
The first national French glider meeting, the Congrės expérimental d'aviation sans moteur, organized by the Association of French Flyers and partly funded by the French government, takes place in Combegrasse, Puy-de-Dôme.
August 7
The seventh annual Aerial Derby is held, sponsored by the Royal Aero Club. Ten participants fly over a 99-mile (159-kilometer) circuit beginning and ending at Croydon Airport in London with control points at Brooklands, Hertford, Epping, and West Thurrock; the aircraft fly the circuit twice. L. R. Tait-Cox is the overall winner, completing the course in a Gloster Mars III at an average speed of 177.85 mph (286.22 km/h) in 1 hour 6 minutes 48.4 seconds; L. L. Carter wins the handicap competition in a Bristol M.1D with a time of 1 hour 50 minutes 0.4 seconds at an average speed of 107.85 mph (173.57 km/h) with a handicap of 47 minutes 9 seconds.
The second annual Air League Challenge Cup race is held at Croydon Airport in London. Competitors race over a three-lap course in teams of three, with each team member physically passing a baton to the next team member after completing one lap. Two Royal Air Force teams – one representing the defending champions at RAF Kenley, the other representing RAF Uxbridge – are the only entrants. The race is cancelled when the second lap begins with the engine of RAF Kenley's Avro 504 refusing to start and RAF Uxbridge's Avro 504 crash-landing after suffering engine failure on takeoff, narrowly missing the crowd. One SE.5a from each RAF station continues with an informal, two-lap race, which RAF Uxbridge wins easily, but RAF Kenley retains the cup from 1921.[25]
August 10 – The 1922 Schneider Trophy race is flown at Naples, Italy. It is won by the only non-Italian competitor, H.C. Biard in a British Supermarine Sea Lion II, with a winning speed of 234.5 km/h (145.7 mph).
August 15 – During a bombing show at Puck, Poland, an observer prematurely drops a bomb from a Lübeck-Travemünde F.4 floatplane. The bomb falls among spectators, killing 13 people and injuring 34.[26]
August 18 – Arthur Martens makes the first sailplane flight of over one hour during a glider competition at the Wasserkuppe in Germany, remaining aloft for 66 minutes. His aircraft, named Vampyr ("Vampire") is designed by Wolfgang Klemmperer.
August 22 – Captain Norman Macmillan and cine-photographer Geoffrey Mallins are rescued from the Bay of Bengal when their civilianised Fairey IIICfloatplane suffers engine failure and capsizes after landing in the Indian Ocean at the beginning of the second leg of their attempt to make the first flight around the world. Major Wilfred T. Blake had already left the effort due to appendicitis, and Malin had replaced Lieutenant Colonel L. E. Broome. The two men are rescued from their overturned aircraft on August 24. They had taken 91 days reach Burma, and they are far behind schedule when their around-the-world attempt ends.[27]
October 8 – Lilian Gatlin arrives at Curtiss Field, Long Island, New York, becoming the first woman to cross the continental United States by airplane. She completes the 2,680-mile (4,316-km) flight in 27 hours 11 minutes. The flight is intended to promote the National Association of Aviation Gold Mothers, an organization she founded, and to encourage the United States Government to begin an annual commemoration of aviators who have given their lives "on the altar of patriotism and progress in pursuit of an ideal."[28]
October 14 – The prototype of the Latécoère 4 crashes in France after being caught in a gust of wind, injuring both men on board. No further examples of the aircraft are built.
October 16–21 – The Daily Mail sponsors a glider competition at Itford Hill in the South Downs east of Brighton, England, attracting 13 competitors. Alexis Manyrol of France wins with a world-record 201-minute flight in his Peyret tandem monoplaneglider; the best British performance is by Fred Raynham, who remains aloft for 113 minutes in his Handasyde glider.
October 22 – Flying a bright yellow Kinner Airster named The Canary, Amelia Earhart sets a new women's altitude record, reaching 14,000 feet (4,300 meters).
November 28 – The first use of skywriting for advertising in the United States takes place over New York City during a visit by British skywriting pilots Jack Savage and Cyril Turner.[31][32][33]
December 27 – Hōshō, Japan's first aircraft carrier, is commissioned. She is the world's first aircraft carrier designed and built as such to be commissioned.
^Scheina, Robert L., Latin America: A Naval History 1810–1987, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1987, ISBN0-87021-295-8, p. 193.
^Scheina, Robert L., Latin America: A Naval History 1810–1987, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1987, ISBN0-87021-295-8, p. 197.
^Peattie, Mark R., Sunburst: The Rise of Japanese Naval Air Power 1909–1941, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2001, ISBN1-55750-432-6, p. 15.
^Peattie, Mark R., Sunburst: The Rise of Japanese Naval Air Power 1909–1941, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2001, ISBN1-55750-432-6, p. 35.
^Layman, R.D., Before the Aircraft Carrier: The Development of Aviation Vessels 1849–1922, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1989, ISBN0-87021-210-9, pp. 103, 105.
^Chant, Chris, The World's Great Bombers, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2000, ISBN0-7607-2012-6, p. 44.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 58.
^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. 428.
^"Five Died at Sea in 56-hour Drift on Disabled Plane", The New York Times, March 26, 1922, p. 1.
^O'Connor, Derek, "'Foredoomed to Failure': An Ill-Prepared British Crew Set Out in 1922 On the First-Ever Attempt to Fly Around the World," Aviation History, January 2014, p. 38.
^ abHardesty, Von, Red Phoenix: The Rise of Soviet Air Power 1941–1945, Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1982, ISBN0-87474-510-1, p. 44.
^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. 56.
^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. 39.
^O'Connor, Derek, "'Foredoomed to Failure': An Ill-Prepared British Crew Set Out in 1922 on the First-Ever Attempt to Fly Around the World," Aviation History, January 2014, p. 38.
^Scheina, Robert L., Latin America: A Naval History 1810–1987, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1987, ISBN0-87021-295-8, p. 195.
^Layman, R.D., Before the Aircraft Carrier: The Development of Aviation Vessels 1849–1922, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1989, ISBN0-87021-210-9, p. 121.
^Olejko, Andrzej. Tragiczne pokazy (Tragic show) in: "Aero Magazyn Lotniczy" nr. 2(21)/2009, pp.4–7 (in Polish)
^O'Connor, Derek, "'Foredoomed to Failure': An Ill-Prepared British Crew Set Out in 1922 on the First-Ever Attempt to Fly Around the World," Aviation History, January 2014, p. 42.
^Daniel, Clifton, Chronicle of the 20th Century, Mount Kisco, New York: Chronicle Publications, 1987, ISBN0-942191-01-3, p. 295.
^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. 430.
^Layman, R.D., Before the Aircraft Carrier: The Development of Aviation Vessels 1849–1922, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1989, ISBN0-87021-210-9, p. 124.
^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. 423.
^Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN0-7607-0592-5, p. 186.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 292.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 36.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 122.
^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. 424.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, pp. 325–326.
^Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN0-7607-0592-5, p. 76.
References
Taylor, H.A. Fairey Aircraft since 1915. London:Putnam, 1988. ISBN0-370-00065-X.
