From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1917:
[edit] Events
[edit] January
[edit] February
- Known as Bloody April. The Royal Flying Corps, while supporting the Arras offensive, loses 245 aircraft—140 in the first two weeks—out of an initial strength of 365. Aircrew casualties are 211 killed or missing and 108 captured.
- April 6 – The United States enters World War I, declaring war on Germany.
- April 13 – Royal Naval Air Service flying boats begin flying "Spider Web" patrols over the North Sea in the vicinity of the North Hinder light ship to detect German submarines in the area. The new patrol pattern, resembling a spider web, allows four aircraft to search a 4,000-square-mile (10,000-square-kilometer) area in about five hours, only half the time it takes a surfaced submarine to transit the area. The flying boats make 27 patrols in the next 18 days, sight eight German submarines, and make bombing attacks against three of them.[14][15]
- April 26 – The Pacific Aero Products Company is renamed the Boeing Airplane Company.[16]
- Birdseye B. Lewis and Chance M. Vought found the Lewis & Vought Corporation, which later would become the Chance Vought Corporation.[23]
- U.S. Army Colonel Raynal Bolling leads the Bolling Mission to Europe to examine the practicality of constructing British and French fighters in the United States. It leads to the establishment of the Engineering Division of the U.S. Department of War's Bureau of Aircraft Production to test its recommendations and to the manufacturing of the de Havilland DH.9 bomber and Bristol F.2B fighter in the United States.[24]
- An attack prior to the Battle of Messines Ridge on a British supply train by German aircraft disrupts the supply of British ammunition, forcing British artillery to cease firing after three hours.[25]
- At Naval Air Station Pensacola, Pensacola, Florida, the United States Navy armored cruiser Huntington lofts a kite balloon, the first U.S. Navy ship to do so.[26]
- June 5 – The United States Navy's First Aeronautical Detachment disembarks from the collier USS Jupiter in France under the command of Kenneth Whiting. It is the first U.S. military unit to arrive in Europe.[27]
- June 6 – The world's first landplane designed for use as a torpedo bomber, a Sopwith Cuckoo, is completed for the Royal Naval Air Service.[28]
- June 13 – 14 German Gotha bombers make the most destructive air raid on London of World War I. They attack in daylight, dropping 118 bombs,[29] killing 162 people and injuring 432. The casualty total is greater than inflicted by all the German airship attacks on England combined up to that time.[30] Nearly 100 British fighters attempt to intercept the German bombers but do not shoot any of them down.[31]
- June 14 – Royal Naval Air Service Curtiss H.12 Large America flying boat 8677 shoots down the German Zeppelin L.43.[32]
- June 17 – In daylight, 21 German Gotha bombers make Germany's second heavier-than-air bombing attack on England. Seven bombers attack small towns in Kent and Essex and 14 attack London. The bombers kill 162 people and injure 432.[33]
- June 20 – The British war cabinet decides to increase the size of the Royal Flying Corps from 108 to 200 squadrons, with most of increase coming in bomber squadrons.[34][35]
- June 28 – An aircraft takes off successfully from a flying-off platform mounted on a warship's gun turret for the first time when Royal Naval Air Service Flight Commander F. J. Rutland takes off from a platform aboard the British light cruiser HMS Yarmouth in a Sopwith Pup.[36]
[edit] August
- United States Secretary of War Newton D. Baker announces the completion of the first Liberty engine 28 days after its design began. Before the end of World War I, 13,574 will be manufactured, and total will reach 20,478 by 1919.[41][42]
- August 2 – A Sopwith Pup flown by Royal Naval Air Service Squadron Commander Edwin Dunning becomes the first aircraft to land aboard a moving ship, the hybrid aircraft carrier-battlecruiser HMS Furious.
- August 7 – Dunning is killed on his third landing when the Pup falls over the side of Furious.
- August 17 – Tasked to study how the United Kingdom's air forces could be best organized for the war with Germany and to consider whether or not they should remain subordinate to the British Army and Royal Navy, General Jan Smuts completes the Smuts Report. In it, he observes that an air service could be used as "an independent means of war operations," that "there is absolutely no limit to the scale of its future independent war service," that soon "aerial operations with their devastation of enemy lands and destruction of industrial and populous centres on a vast scale may be the principal operations of war, to which older forms of military and naval operations may become secondary and subordinate." He projects that by the summer of 1918 "the air battle front will be far behind the Rhine" while the ground front is still bogged down in Belgium and France and that air attacks on German industry and lines of communication could be an "important factor in bringing about peace." The report is the foundation of a new theory of warfare advocated by British bomber advocates and will inspire the creation of the independent Royal Air Force in 1918.[43]
[edit] September
- Due to increasing losses to new British fighters during daylight bombing raids on England, Germany switches to night bombing.[44]
- In a second bombing raid against Constantinople, the sole Handley Page O/100 in the Mediterranean is forced down in the Gulf of Xeros by engine failure and its crew taken prisoner by Ottoman forces.[45]
- The Commander in Chief of the Grand Fleet, Admiral David Beatty, proposes an aerial torpedo attack by 120 Sopwith Cuckoo torpedo bombers launched from eight converted merchant ships against the German High Seas Fleet at its moorings in Germany. Training for the raid takes place in the Firth of Forth, but the war will end before it can be carried out.
- September 3 – The United States Army's 1st Aero Squadron arrives in France
- September 11 – French ace Capitaine Georges Guynemer goes missing in action. Kurt Wisserman of Jasta 3 is credited with shooting him down, but Guynemer's body is never found.
- September 17 – While on convoy escort duty in the Atlantic Ocean, the United States Navy armored cruiser Huntington has her kite balloon blown away in bad weather. A shipfitter from her crew is awarded the first Medal of Honor in World War I for rescuing the balloonist.[46]
- September 22 – A Royal Naval Air Service Curtiss H-12 flying boat piloted by Flight Sub-Lieutenant N. Magor sinks the German submarine UB-32 in the North Sea. It is only time an aircraft sinks a German submarine during World War I.[47]
- September 23 – During an epic 10-minute dogfight against six Royal Flying Corps SE.5s of No. 56 Squadron, the German ace Werner Voss, flying a Fokker Dr.I triplane, is shot down and killed by the British ace Arthur Rhys-Davids north of Frezenberg, Belgium. At the time of his death, Voss has 48 victories and is the second-leading German ace behind Manfred von Richtofen.
- September 26 – For the second time, French ace René Fonck shoots down six German aircraft in a day.
[edit] October
[edit] November
[edit] December
[edit] First flights
[edit] January
[edit] February
[edit] September
[edit] October
[edit] November
[edit] December
[edit] Entered service
[edit] January
[edit] February
[edit] References
- ^ Layman, R.D., Before the Aircraft Carrier: The Development of Aviation Vessels 1849-1922, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Insitute Press, 1989, ISBN 0-87021-210-9, p. 30.
- ^ Layman, R.D., Before the Aircraft Carrier: The Development of Aviation Vessels 1849-1922, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Insitute Press, 1989, ISBN 0-87021-210-9, pp. 73, 75.
- ^ Layman, R.D., Before the Aircraft Carrier: The Development of Aviation Vessels 1849-1922, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1989, ISBN 0-87021-210-9, p. 96.
- ^ Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 202.
- ^ Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, ISBN 0-517-56588-9, p. 417.
- ^ Layman, R.D., Before the Aircraft Carrier: The Development of Aviation Vessels 1849-1922, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1989, ISBN 0-87021-210-9, p. 44.
- ^ Chant, Chris, The World's Great Bombers, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2000, ISBN 0-7607-2012-6, p. 34.
- ^ Mauer, Maurer, Air Force Combat Units of World War II: The Concise official Military Record, Edison, New Jersey: Chartwell Books, 1961, ISBN 0-7858-0194-4, p. 2.
- ^ 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, ISBN 978-1-84476-917-9, p. 263.
- ^ Layman, R.D., Before the Aircraft Carrier: The Development of Aviation Vessels 1849-1922, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1989, ISBN 0-87021-210-9, p. 116.
- ^ Phythyon, John R., Jr., Great War at Sea: Zeppelins, Virginia Beach, Virginia: Avalanche Press, Inc., 2007, p. 7.
- ^ Mauer, Maurer, Air Force Combat Units of World War II: The Concise official Military Record, Edison, New Jersey: Chartwell Books, 1961, ISBN 0-7858-0194-4, p. 2.
- ^ Aviation Hawaii: 1879-1919 Chronology of Aviation in Hawaii
- ^ Allward, Maurice, An Illustrated History of Seaplanes and Flying Boats, New York: Dorset Press, 1981, ISBN 0-88029-286-5, p. 27.
- ^ Terraine, John, The U-Boat Wars 1916-1945, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1989, ISBN 0-8050-1352-0, p. 74.
- ^ Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 63.
- ^ Thetford, Owen, British Naval Aircraft Since 1912, Sixth Edition, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1991, ISBN 1-55750-076-2, p. 87.
- ^ Swanborough, Gordon, and Peter M. Bowers, United States Navy Aircraft Since 1911, Second Edition, London: Putnam, 1976, ISBN 0-370-10054-9, p. 24.
- ^ Allward, Maurice, An Illustrated History of Seaplanes and Flying Boats, New York: Dorset Press, 1981, ISBN 0-88029-286-5, p. 27.
- ^ 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, ISBN 978-1-84476-917-9, p. 265.
- ^ Chant, Chris, The World's Great Bombers, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2000, ISBN 0-7607-2012-6, p. 26.
- ^ Hastings, Max, Bomber Command: Churchill's Epic Campaign - The Inside Story of the RAF's Valiant Attempt to End the War, New York: Simon & Schuster Inc., 1987, ISBN 0-671-68070-6, p. 37.
- ^ Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, ISBN 0-517-56588-9, p. 428.
- ^ Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 194.
- ^ 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, ISBN 978-1-84476-917-9, p. 264.
- ^ Layman, R.D., Before the Aircraft Carrier: The Development of Aviation Vessels 1849-1922, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1989, ISBN 0-87021-210-9, p. 113.
- ^ Layman, R.D., Before the Aircraft Carrier: The Development of Aviation Vessels 1849-1922, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1989, ISBN 0-87021-210-9, p. 116.
- ^ Sturtivant, Ray, British Naval Aviation: The Fleet Air Arm, 1917-1990, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1990, ISBN 0-87021-026-2, p. 215.
- ^ Frankland, Noble, Bomber Offensive: The Devastation of Europe, New York: Ballantine Books Inc., 1970, p. 11.
- ^ Chant, Chris, The World's Great Bombers, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2000, ISBN 0-7607-2012-6, p. 29.
- ^ Frankland, Noble, Bomber Offensive: The Devastation of Europe, New York: Ballantine Books Inc., 1970, p. 11.
- ^ Thetford, Owen, British Naval Aircraft Since 1912, Sixth Edition, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1991, ISBN 1-55750-076-2, p. 87.
- ^ Hastings, Max, Bomber Command: Churchill's Epic Campaign - The Inside Story of the RAF's Valiant Attempt to End the War, New York: Simon & Schuster Inc., 1987, ISBN 0-671-68070-6, p. 37.
- ^ Wikipedia Liberty L-12 article.
- ^ Chant, Chris, The World's Great Bombers, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2000, ISBN 0-7607-2012-6, p. 29.
- ^ Sturtivant, Ray, British Naval Aviation: The Fleet Air Arm, 1917-1990, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1990, ISBN 0-87021-026-2, p. 215.
- ^ Chant, Chris, The World's Great Bombers, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2000, ISBN 0-7607-2012-6, p. 34.
- ^ Hastings, Max, Bomber Command: Churchill's Epic Campaign - The Inside Story of the RAF's Valiant Attempt to End the War, New York: Simon & Schuster Inc., 1987, ISBN 0-671-68070-6, p. 37.
- ^ Terraine, John, The U-Boat Wars 1916-1945, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1989, ISBN 0-8050-1352-0, p. 78.
- ^ Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 323.
- ^ Wikipedia Liberty L-12 article.
- ^ Chant, Chris, The World's Great Bombers, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2000, ISBN 0-7607-2012-6, p. 30.
- ^ Hastings, Max, Bomber Command: Churchill's Epic Campaign - The Inside Story of the RAF's Valiant Attempt to End the War, New York: Simon & Schuster Inc., 1987, ISBN 0-671-68070-6, p. 38.
- ^ Chant, Chris, The World's Great Bombers, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2000, ISBN 0-7607-2012-6, p. 26.
- ^ Chant, Chris, The World's Great Bombers, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2000, ISBN 0-7607-2012-6, p. 34.
- ^ Layman, R.D., Before the Aircraft Carrier: The Development of Aviation Vessels 1849-1922, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1989, ISBN 0-87021-210-9, p. 113.
- ^ Terraine, John, The U-Boat Wars 1916-1945, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1989, ISBN 0-8050-1352-0, p. 77.
- ^ Frankland, Noble, Bomber Offensive: The Devastation of Europe, New York: Ballantine Books Inc., 1970, p. 11.
- ^ Layman, R.D., Before the Aircraft Carrier: The Development of Aviation Vessels 1849-1922, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Insitute Press, 1989, ISBN 0-87021-210-9, p. 78.
- ^ Thetford, Owen, British Naval Aircraft Since 1912, Sixth Edition, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1991, ISBN 1-55750-076-2, p. 14.
- ^ Francillon, René J., Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1979, ISBN 0-87021-313-X, p. 26.
- ^ 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, ISBN 0-517-56588-9, p. 378.
- ^ Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, ISBN 0-517-56588-9, p. 416.
- ^ Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN 0-7607-0592-5, p. 51.
- ^ Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, ISBN 0-517-56588-9, p. 417.
- ^ Thetford 1978, p. 318.
- ^ Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, ISBN 0-517-56588-9, p. 419.
- ^ Taylor 1988, p.71.
- ^ Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN 0-7607-0592-5, p. 51.
- ^ Mason 1994, p. 95.
- ^ Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, ISBN 0-517-56588-9, p. 415.
- ^ Mason 1994, pp. 66–69.
- ^ Robertson 1970, p. 59.
- ^ Bruce 1953, p.87.
- ^ Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN 0-7607-0592-5, p. 39.
- Bruce, J.M. "The S.E.5: Historic Military Aircraft No. 5". Flight, 17 July 1953. Pages 85–89, 93.
- Mason, Francis K. The British Bomber Since 1914. London: Putnam Aeronautical Books, 1994. ISBN 0-85177-861-5.
- Robertson, Bruce. Sopwith – The Man and His Aircraft. London: Harleyford, 1970. ISBN 0-90043-515-1.
- Taylor, H.A. Fairey Aircraft since 1915. London:Putnam, 1988. ISBN 0-370-00065-x.
- Thetford, Owen. British Naval Aircraft Since 1912. London: Putnam, 1994. ISBN 0-85177-861-5.
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; the U.S. Coast Guard does not adopt it.[18] Except for an 18-month interruption in 1918-1919, the marking will remain in use until June 1942.
