March 2 – Seeking a safe route across the Andes between Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Santiago, Chile, to avoid the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) detour aircraft routinely made to avoid the mountains, a Latécoère 25 piloted by Jean Mermoz and carrying his mechanic, Alexandre Collenot, and Count Henry de La Vaulx as passengers is caught in a downdraft and forced to land on a 300-meter-wide (986-foot-wide) plateau at an altitude of 4,000 meters (13,000 feet). The three men spend four days repairing and lightening the plane and clearing a path to the edge of the plateau, after which they roll it off the edge, Mermoz dives to gain airspeed, and they arrive safely in Santiago. The event is widely celebrated.
March 13 – The Spanish government airline CLASSA is formally established as a company, formed by the merger of Iberia and several other Spanish airlines.
March 17 – The Colonial Western Airways Ford 4-AT-B TrimotorNC7683 suffers a double engine failure during its initial climb after takeoff from Newark Airport in Newark, New Jersey. It fails to gain height and crashes into a railroad freight car loaded with sand, killing 14 of the 15 people on board the aircraft. At the time, this is the deadliest airplane accident in American history.[8][9]
March 19 – The newly completed Ford 5-AT-B TrimotorNC9674, which had made its first flight only five days earlier, crashes when its wing strikes the ground on landing while it returns to Ford Airport in Dearborn, Michigan, during a Ford Motor Company flight prior to delivery to its customer. All four people on board die.[10]
April 2–6 – Flying a biplane in support of rebel forces during the Escobar Rebellion in Mexico, Irish pilot Patrick Murphy makes a number of bombing raids against Naco in the Mexican state of Sonora in which he mistakenly drops bombs across the border in the United States on three occasions, damaging several buildings and destroying a car in neighboring Naco, Arizona. It is the first time in history that U.S. territory has come under aerial bombing attack by a foreign aircraft.
May 20 – The Peruvian Army's aviation branch and the Peruvian Navy's Naval Aviation Corps are combined to form the Peruvian Aviation Corps, forerunner of the Peruvian Air Force.
May 25 – The Spanish government airline CLASSA officially assumes all the rights, obligations, fleets, and staff of Iberia and the other airlines that merged to form it.
May 26 – Flying a Junkers W 34 be/b3e (registration D-1119), Friedrich W. Neuenhofen sets a new world altitude record, reaching 12,739 meters (41,795 feet).
June 13 – The United States Coast Guard establishes an "air traffic flight-following" capability along the coast of the continental United States employing a network of Coast Guard radio stations.[15]
June 17
Delta Air Lines begins passenger service (as Delta Air Service) with a first flight from Dallas, Texas, to Jackson, Mississippi, with stops at Shreveport and Monroe, Louisiana.[16]
In an article entitled "Is Flying Safe?" in the July 1929 issue of Scientific American, Irish aviator Mary, Lady Heath, writes that the most important factors in making airline travel safe are well-trained pilots and strict construction standards for aircraft.[19]
July 4 – The Japanese aviator Masashi Goto crashes and is killed in Utah's Uinta Mountains in the beginning stages of an attempted flight around the world by crossing the continents of North America, Europe, and Asia.
July 7 – Transcontinental Air Transport commences a regular service transporting passengers all the way across the United States in 48 hours, using a combination of trains and aircraft for different legs of the journey.
To address an outbreak of Arab raids against Jewish villages in Palestine, the British aircraft carrierHMS Courageous arrives off Jaffa and disembarks all of her aircraft to operate from a desert landing strip at Gaza. They operate over Palestine for four weeks before reembarking aboard Courageous in September.[20]
August 4–16 – The first International Tourist Aircraft Contest Challenge 1929 takes place in Paris, with a 5,942 km (3,692 mi) race over Europe. The German crew of Fritz Morzik wins in the BFW M.23 plane.
August 29 – While Mary, Lady Heath, practices for the National Air Races in Cleveland, Ohio, the aircraft she is piloting clips a chimney and crashes through a factory roof. She spends weeks in a coma, but recovers from her injuries.[19]
November 6 – After taking off from Croydon Airport in London with nine people aboard for a scheduled passenger flight to Amsterdam, the Deutsche Luft HansaJunkers G 24biOberschlesien (registration D-903) crashes after striking trees on a hill in Marden Park, Surrey, while attempting to return to Croydon in thick fog. Three of the four crew members and four of the five passengers die.[25]
November 9 – American aviation pioneer Carl Ben Eielson and his mechanic Earl Borland die in the crash of their plane in Siberia while attempting to evacuate furs and personnel from the Nanuk, a cargo ship trapped in the ice at North Cape (now Mys Shmidta).[26][27][28][29]
November 25 – The Spanish government airline CLASSA officially begins operation of all lines previously operated by the airlines that merged to form it, including Iberia.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 95.
^Peattie, Mark R., Sunburst: The Rise of Japanese Naval Air Power 1909–1941, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2001, ISBN1-55750-432-6, p. 40.
^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. 106.
^Allen, Richard Sanders, Revolution in the Sky: Those Fabulous Lockheeds, The Pilots Who Flew Them, Brattleboro, Vermont: The Stephen Greene Press, 1964, p. 53.
^ abDaniels, C. M., "Speed: The Story of Frank Hawks," Air Classics, Vol. 6, No. 2, December 1969, p. 47.
^ abAngelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 58.
^O'Connor, Derek, "The Other Franco," Aviation History, January 2018, p. 59.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 108.
^ abO'Brien, Lora, "Lady Heath," Aviation History, March 2016, p. 15.
^Sturtivant, Ray, British Naval Aviation: The Fleet Air Arm, 1917–1990, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1990, ISBN0-87021-026-2, p. 14.
^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. 462.
^O'Connor, Derek, "Going Long," Aviation History, March 2016, pp. 52, 54.
^Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN0-7607-0592-5, p. 72.
^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. 257.
^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. 425.
^ abcAngelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 78.
^"Pietenpol Aircraft Company - Pietenpol Air Camper History". pietenpolaircraftcompany.com. Pietenpol Aircraft Company. Retrieved June 20, 2017. By now Henry Ford had come out with his new car, the Model A, powered by a bigger four cylinder engine. At an estimated 40 horsepower, this engine seemed just the thing for Bernard Pietenpol's new aircraft design's needs, and having been on the market for several years, junk yards were starting to get as many of them as Model T engines...So Bernard Pietenpol went to work converting the Ford Model A engine for his new monoplane. In May 1929 Bernard Pietenpol test flew his Air Camper with the new engine. It was a complete success – a perfect match of airframe to power plant.
^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. 433.
^Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN0-7607-0592-5, p. 125.
^Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN0-7607-0592-5, pp. 124-125.
^Polmar, Norma, "Historic Aircraft: The Hall Contribution," Naval History, February 2014, p. 15.
