March 28 – The Imperial AirwaysArmstrong Whitworth ArgosyairlinerCity of Liverpool catches fire in the air over Belgium and crashes, killing the crew of three and all 12 passengers, the deadliest accident in the history of British civil aviation up to this date.[8] The fire may have been started deliberately.[9][10][11]
April 4 – The U.S. Navy dirigibleUSS Akron(ZRS-4) crashes during a storm off the coast of New Jersey, killing 73 of its 76 crewmen. It is the worst aviation accident in history at the time, and no greater loss of life will occur in a single air crash until 1950.
April 11 – Departing England on April 11 in the Avro Mark VIA AvianSouthern Cross, William N. "Bill" Lancaster begins an attempt to set a speed record for a flight to South Africa. He crashes in the Sahara Desert on April 12 and dies on April 20 while awaiting rescue. His mummified body and wrecked aircraft will not be discovered until February 1962.[14]
April 17 – At Oakland Municipal Airport in Oakland, California, George and William Besler unveil their aviation steam engine to the public for the first time, with William flying the steam-powered Travel Air 2000 in a public demonstration that consists of three flights totaling a combined 15 minutes in the air, banking over San Francisco Bay before returning to the airport. The engine is virtually silent, allowing William to call down to the crowd while passing over it at an altitude of 200 feet (61 meters). He reaches 100 mph (160 km/h) and demonstrates the engine's braking power by reversing the propeller on landing and coming to a stop in only 100 feet (30 meters).[16] Despite the engine's success and speculation by aviation reporters that steam engines could economically power the airplanes of the future, the Beslers make no further public flights and do not develop the engine further.[17]
April 19 – The U.S. Navy conducts the first mass seaplane flight from Oahu to French Frigate Shoals, a 759-mile flight. The aircraft return via the Gardner Pinnacles, completing the round trip in 8 hours 10 minutes.[18]
Erhard Milch, State Secretary of the German Reich Air Ministry, receives a major study of the future of a new German air force written by Dr. Robert Knauss. Knauss projects that the main threat to the reestablishment of Germany as a great power will be a preventive attack by France and Poland before Germany can fully rearm, and he recommends the creation of a force of 400 four-engined bombers which could deter such an attack with an ability to attack enemy population and industrial centers and destroy enemy morale.[23]
May 7–8 – Stanislaw Skarzynski flies the South Atlantic from Senegal to Brazil in a small single-seater tourist airplane RWD-5bis, in 20 hours 30 minutes, over a distance of 3,582 km (2,226 mi). The RWD-5bis was the smallest plane to have ever flown the Atlantic - empty weight below 450 kg (990 lb), loaded 1100 kg. It is a part of 17,885 km Warsaw - Rio de Janeiro flight from April 27 to June 24.
May 29 – Flying a Potez 53, George Detré wins the 1933 Coupe Deutsch de la Meurthe race, covering the 2,000 km (1,200 mi) two-stage closed-circuit course in 6 hours 11 minutes 45 seconds at an average speed of 322.81 km/h (200.58 mph).[25]
August 4 – United States NavyLieutenant CommanderThomas G. W. Settle attempts to set a new human altitude record in A Century of Progress, a 105-foot- (32-meter-) diameter, 600,000-cubic foot (16,990-cubic meter) balloon with a sealed and pressurized gondola. Launched from Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois, his flight reaches only 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) and lasts only 15 minutes before the balloon sinks back to the ground because of a valve that sticks open.[29]
September 7 – The prototype of the French Dewoitine D.332 airliner, named Emeraude and registered as F-AMMY, sets a world record for an aircraft in its class by logging an average speed of 159.56 km/h (99.15 mph) over a 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) course carrying a useful load of 2,000 kilograms (4,400 pounds).
September 24 – The Soviet sealed cabin balloon USSR-1, intended to carry Georgi Prokofiev, Konstantin Gudenoff, and Ernest Birnbaum in an attempt to set a new altitude record for human flight, fails to launch on the first attempt at making the record flight.[29]
September 28 – Gustave Lemoine, using oxygen but had no pressure suit, sets a new world altitude record of 13,661 m (44,820 ft) in a Potez 506, unable to go higher because of icing of his eyes as he sits in his open cockpit. His flight, made from Villacoublay, France, lasts 2 hours 5 minutes.[31]
September 30 – The Soviet balloonists Georgi Prokofiev, Konstantin Gudenoff, and Ernest Birnbaum fly in the sealed cabin balloon USSR-1 to an altitude of 62,230 feet (18,970 meters) in a flight of 8 hours 19 minutes, setting a new altitude record for human flight. Although the flight exceeds the previous record for human altitude – set by Auguste Piccard and Max Cosyns in August 1932 – by 9,077 feet (2,767 meters), the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) does not recognize the record as official because the Soviet Union is not an FAI member.[29][32]
October
Flying a Farman F.239, French aviators Jean Réginensi and André Bailly set three world airspeed records over distances of 100 kilometers (62 miles), 500 kilometers (310 miles), and 1,000 kilometers (620 miles).
October 4 – The French aviators Jean Assolant and René Lefèvre take from Oran in French Algeria in the Bernard 81 GRL'Oiseau Canari II, hoping to set a new unrefueled nonstop straight-line world distance record by flying to Saigon in French Indochina. Unexpectedly high fuel consumption puts the record out of reach, and they land in Karachi, having flown 6,600 km (4,100 mi) in 27 hours.
October 10 – A bomb destroys a United AirlinesBoeing 247 in mid-air near Chesterton, Indiana, during a transcontinental flight across the United States. killing all seven people on board. It is the first proven case of sabotage in civil aviation, although no suspect is ever identified.
October 15 – The Rolls-Royce Merlin engine is started for the first time.
October 18 – The American Ford 4-AT-B TrimotorNC4806, operating over Nicaragua as an executive aircraft, crashes into Lake Managua from an altitude of 2,000 feet (610 meters), killing all three people on board.[33]
During an air show at Amarillo, Texas, two aircraft belonging to a flying circus troupe collide over the city while flying through streamers dropped by a third aircraft. Four people aboard the two aircraft die.[34]
November 21 – The only completed Kalinin K-7, which had made its first flight only a little over three months before on 11 August, crashes near Kharkov in the Soviet Union after one of its tail booms suffers a structural failure, killing 15 of the 20 people on board.[35] Although two more K-7s are planned, neither is built before the project is cancelled in 1935.
December 19–23 – The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale-sponsored Second International Aviation Meeting takes place in Egypt. The 32 competitors take part in three competitions – a 900-mile (1,450-km), two-day touring event called the "Circuit of the Oases;" a 230-mile (370-km) speed contest; and an "Oasis Trophy" competition in which the contestants compete for the trophy based on the number of point they scored in the other two events. Competitors are handicapped under an extremely complex scoring system that takes into account fuel consumption, speed of wing folding, comfort, picketing, take off and landing distances, luggage, engine starting, safety appliances, controls and instruments, refueling, ease of maintenance, and a safety criterion that requires them to shut their engines off at an altitude of 2,000 feet (610 meters) and glide to a landing.[37]
December 20–30 – Flying the Curtiss ThrushOutdoor Girl, Helen Richey and Frances Harrell Marsalis employ aerial refueling to remain airborne continuously for 237 hours 43 minutes. They fall short of their goal of remaining in the air until January 1, 1934, but nonetheless shatter the previous continuous flight record of 196 hours set in August 1932 by Marsalis and Louise Thaden.[38]
December 30 – The Imperial AirwaysAvro TenApollo (G-ABLU) strikes a radio mast and crashes at Ruysselede, Belgium, killing all 10 people on board. King Albert I of Belgium will award Camille van Hove, who is hospitalized with serious burns suffered while trying to rescue victims from the airliner's wreckage, the Civic Cross (1st Class).
^Kerr, E. Bartlett, Flames Over Tokyo: The U.S. Army Air Forces's Incendiary Campaign Against Japan 1944-1945, New York: Donald I. Fine, Inc., 1991, ISBN978-1-55611-301-7, p. 105.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 58.
^Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN978-0-7607-0592-6, p. 77.
^Sturtivant, Ray, British Naval Aviation: The Fleet Air Arm, 1917-1990, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1990, ISBN0-87021-026-2, p. 215.
^Du, Jiaxin, "Last Battle on the Great Wall," Military History, January 2017, pp. 32, 35, 36.
^Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN978-0-7607-0592-6, p. 63.
^Denham, Terry (1996). World Directory of Airliner Crashes. Yeoford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. p. 21. ISBN1-85260-554-5.
^Milde, Michael, International Air Law and ICAO Eleven International Publishing, 2008, pp. 228-9.
^Barker, Ralph (1988) [First edition published 1966]. "The World of Albert Voss". Great Mysteries of the Air (Revised ed.). London: Javelin. ISBN0-7137-2063-8.
^Murray, Williamson, Strategy for Defeat: The Luftwaffe 1933-1945, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama: Air University Press, 1983, no ISBN number, pp. 6-7.
^Mondey, David, ed., The Complete Illustrated History of the World's Aircraft, Secaucus, New Jersey: Chartwell Books, Inc., 1978, ISBN0-89009-771-2, p. 90.
^Lynch, Adam, "Hometown Heroine," Aviation History, March 2012, pp. 55-56.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 182.
^Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN0-7607-0592-5, p. 287.
^ abAngelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 86.
^Francillon, René J., Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1979, ISBN978-0-87021-313-7, pp. 297-298.
^Mondey, David, ed., The Complete Illustrated History of the World's Aircraft, Secaucus, New Jersey: Chartwell Books, Inc., 1978, ISBN0-89009-771-2, p. 2730.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 97.
^Swanborough, Gordon, and Peter M. Bowers, United States Navy Aircraft Since 1911, London: Putnam, 1976, ISBN978-0-370-10054-8, p. 202.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, ISBN978-0-517-56588-9, p. 434.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, ISBN978-0-517-56588-9, p. 384.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, ISBN978-0-517-56588-9, p. 151.
^Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN978-0-7607-0592-6, p. 70.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 219-220.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, ISBN978-0-517-56588-9, p. 153.
^Francillon, René J., Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1979, ISBN978-0-87021-313-7, p. 446.
^Francillon, René J., Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1979, ISBN978-0-87021-313-7, pp. 254, 256.
^Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN0-7607-0592-5, p. 74.
^Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN0-7607-0592-5, p. 124.
^Francillon, René J., Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1979, ISBN978-0-87021-313-7, p. 494.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, ISBN978-0-517-56588-9, p. 148.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 218.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, ISBN978-0-517-56588-9, p. 138.
