Time

Event

March 29 — The Aéronautique Militaire becomes a division of the French armed forces.

April 16 — Harriet Quimby becomes the first woman to fly across the English Channel. She pilots a Blériot from Deal in England to Cap Gris-Nez in France.

May 30 — Thirteen years to the day after he first wrote the Smithsonian Institution asking for information on aeronautics, Wilbur Wright dies of typhoid fever in his home in Dayton, Ohio. Orville Wright takes over as president of the Wright Company.

Summer — A.V. Roe builds and tests the first enclosed-cabin airplane. The Avro F monoplane has a steel frame, a skin of linen and aluminum, and celluloid windows. Roe also builds an enclosed-cabin biplane.

June 7 — At the request of inventor Isaac Lewis, Capt. Charles Chandler fires the Lewis machine gun from a Wright Model B piloted by Lt. Thomas de Witt Milling at College Park, Maryland, USA. It is the first time a machine gun has been fired from an airplane. Despite the success of the test, the US Army declines to adopt the gun. Lewis takes it to England where it becomes standard armament of British aircraft.

June 21 — Tiny Broadwick becomes the first woman to parachute from an airplane. The airplane is piloted by Glenn Martin.

July 27 — Lt. John Rodgers and En. Charles Maddox send the first wireless message from an aircraft to a ship. Flying a Wright Model B, they contact the torpedo boat USS Stringham.

October 1 — The German armed forces establishes the Military Aviation Services.

October 26 — Lt. John H. Towers experiments with the use of aircraft for anti-submarine warfare.

November 12 — The Navy launches a Curtiss seaplane, flown by Lt. T. Gordon Ellyson, from a ship using a compressed air catapult.

November 19 —  The British Admiralty asks Vickers LTD to produce an aircraft armed with a machine gun, the first aircraft purposefully designed for shooting down other aircraft.

November 28 — Italy establishes the first autonomous air force, the Flotta Aerea d'Italia. It's not connected to any other branch of their armed forces.
 

February 14-22 — The Olympia Aero Exhibition in London, England marks the beginning of the end of pioneer aviation. Gone are the open, kite-like air frames; all the latest aircraft have enclosed fuselages with cockpits and control panels. Aircraft motors brag of almost 200 horsepower, design emphasizes streamlining and speed, stick-and-rudder control systems are becoming standard. More ominously, the show introduces a new type of aircraft, the "war airplane."

February 27 — The New York courts return their decision on the Wright vs. Curtiss patent suit. They find in favor of the Wright brothers. Glenn Curtiss files an appeal to the Federal courts.

March 15 — The United States Army forms the 1st Aero Squadron under Capt. Charles Chandler to scout for rebel Mexican troops and bandits along the border. The squadron is based at Texas City, Texas

April 1 — Alfred, Lord Northcliffe, publisher of the London Daily Mail offers a prize 10,000 pounds for the first pilot to cross the Atlantic in an airplane. The prize is withdrawn at the start of World War I but renewed shortly thereafter.

April 16 — Maurice Provost,  flying a Deperdussin, wins the first Schneider Trophy contest, a speed trial for seaplanes in Monaco. More than any other contest, the Schneider Trophy spurs the development of aircraft engines.

May 13 — Igor Sikorsky pilots the huge Russky Vityaz on its first flight, carrying 8 passengers. With 4 engines, a wingspan of 92 feet, an open-air observation deck, and a total weight of 4080 kilograms (8995 pounds), it is the largest airplane in the world. Although many European engineers had predicted its failure, the Russky Vityaz proves the feasibility of large aircraft.

June — French engineer Louis Bechereau of Societé de Production Armand Deperdussin (SPAD) unveils their newest monoplane racer with a monocoque fuselage. This revolutionary method of construction uses the skin of the aircraft to carry structural loads. This, in turn, reduces the number of structural parts, making the aircraft lighter, more streamlined, and simpler to build.

August 10 — Lawrence Sperry and Lt. Patrick Berringer test an experimental device that uses 4 gyroscopes turning at 7000 rpm to stabilize a Curtiss Model F in flight. It is the beginning of the modern autopilot.

September 9 — Peter Nesterov, a young Russian officer out for a joy ride, flies the first loop-de-loop on record in a Nieuport IV. He is promptly placed under house arrest for endangering government property.

September 18 — A.V. Roe develops the Avro 504, a two-seat military scout and trainer that was used up until the 1930s. More Avro 504s are manufactured during World War I than any other aircraft.

September 21 —  Adolphe Pegoud flies the first public loop-de-loop in a Bleriot monoplane near Buc, France. This and other stunts (such as flying inverted) make him the first aerobatic pilot. These aerobatics would soon become the basis for evasive maneuvers used by combat pilots in World War I.

September 21 —  Roland Garros flies 453 miles (729 kilometers) across the Mediterranean in a Morane-Saulnier monoplane, from Saint-Raphael to Bizerte in Tunisia.

November — T.O.M. Sopwith develops the Tabloid Scout, a highly maneuverable biplane able to climb to 15,000 feet in 10 minutes. This will develop into the Sopwith Camel, one of the most effective fighters of World War I.

November 21 — Spanish pilot Lt. Rios and engineer Capt. Manuel Barreiro are seriously wounded be rifle fire from Moroccan soldiers on the ground in Tangiers, dispelling the notion that airplanes present a target that is impossible to hit from the ground. 

November 30 — American mercenary pilots Dean Ivan Lamb, flying for Panco Villa, and Philip Rader, flying for President Huerta, exchange pistol shots over Naca, Mexico in the the world's first aerial combat. Neither is hit.

December 10 — Igor Sikorsky flies the huge 4-engine Ilya Muromets, the first true airliner. It is equipped with a heated cabin,  electric lighting, wicker chairs, a bedroom, a lounge and even the first airborne toilet. Sikorsky later flies it with 16 passengers and it might have gone into commercial service had not World War I broken out. Instead, it is converted to become the first heavy bomber.

December 28 — Georges Lagagneux climbs to a record-breaking altitude of 6120 meters (20,079 feet) in a Nieuport II-N and becomes the first pilot to use oxygen in flight.
 

January 1 — P.E. Fansler  founds the first regularly scheduled airline, with pilot Tony Jannus flying both passengers and freight between Tampa and St. Petersburg (22 miles or 34 kilometers) in a Benoist flying boat. The airline survives only until March, but carries 1,024 passengers without a single mishap. On this same day, the Chinese Army forms the Chinese Army Air Arm.

January 13 — The United States Court of Appeals upholds the original decision of the Wright vs. Curtiss patent suit. This establishes the Wright brothers as the legal inventors of the airplane, as well as the historic inventors.

February — Glenn Curtiss begins to build a huge flying boat, the America, to capture The Daily Mail Atlantic Prize for the first flight across the Atlantic. Flight tests continue into the summer. 

February 24 — After a rash of fatal accidents, the U.S. Army grounds all Wright and Curtiss "pusher" airplanes, leaving the Army with almost nothing to fly. Glenn Martin offers a tractor biplane to fill the gap, the the Martin Model T becomes the Army's first "safe" training airplane.

April 20 —  The USS Mississippi transports three Navy aircraft to support US troops and fly reconnaissance in Vera Cruz, Mexico. This is the US Navy's first aviation mission.

April 24 —  Glenn Curtiss unveils the Curtiss Model J, a tractor biplane designed by B. Douglas Thomas. Thomas had formally been an engineer for Sopwith Aviation in England, and the Model J incorporates all the lastest advances in European biplane design. 

May 28 — In an attempt to nullify the legal decision of Curtiss vs. Wright, Glenn Curtiss "restores" the 1903 Langley Aerodrome and flies it from Lake Keuka ostensibly to prove the Aerodrome was the first airplane capable of manned flight. In reality, Curtiss has made over 30 major modifications to the Aerodrome to make it airworthy. The flights have no effect on the patent litigation.

July 4 — Tiny Broadwick makes the first jump with a modern parachute – packed in a backpack and released with a rip cord – over San Diego, California.

June 29 — Igor Sikorsky and his crew serve the first inflight meals aboard the Ilya Muromets on a flight from Kiev to St. Petersburg.

July 14 — Robert H. Goddard is granted a patent for a liquid-fueled rocket.

June 18 — Lawrence Sperry and Emil Cachin demonstrate a gyroscopic automatic stabilizer in a Curtiss C-2 at the Concours de la Securité en Aéroplane in France. While in flight, Sperry and Cachin walk out on opposite wings while the aircraft flies itself past the review stand.

August 1 — World War I breaks out in Europe. Glenn Curtiss cancels his plans for a trans-Atlantic flight. The America is assigned to submarine patrol duty.

August 17 — Capt. Lewis E. Goodier Jr. tests a bomb-dropping device designed by Lt. Riley Scott in a Martin Model T at the Signal Corps Aviation School at North Island, California.

August 30 — Paris, France is bombed by the Germans. It is the first time a capital city comes under attack from the air.

September — Glenn Curtiss and B. Douglas Thomas rework the Model J to produce the Curtiss Model N. It just squeaks by a military review board, barely meeting the Army's new qualifications.  Curtiss and Thomas later refine the design create the capable Curtiss Model JN or "Jenny."

September 24 — Royal Flying Corps pilots use both aerial photography and wireless telegraphy to direct artillery fire during the Battle of the Aisne in France. Their aircraft carry 75-pound Morse-code transmitters.

October 5 — French Corp. Louis Quenalt, an observer flying in a Voisin piloted by Sgt. Joseph Frantz, shoots down a German Aviatik with a Hotchkiss machine gun. This is the first air-to-air kill.

October 31 —  Lt. Humphries of the Royal Flying Corps carries out the first recorded strafing attack, firing 250 rounds at a German convoy.