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This is a list of aviation-related events from 1947:
[edit] Events
[edit] January
[edit] February
- The Royal Navy forms its first all-helicopter squadron, No. 705 Squadron, which serves as the Fleet Air Arm's Helicopter Fleet Requirements Unit at Gosport.[6]
- May 1 – United Airlines begins daily scheduled service between San Francisco and Honolulu.[5]
- May 28 – British South American Airways conducts trials of non-stop flights from London to Bermuda using aerial refueling over the Azores.
- May 29 – The Douglas DC-4 Mainliner Lake Tahoe, operating as United Airlines Flight 521, fails to become airborne while attempting to take off from LaGuardia Airport in New York City, runs off the end of the runway, and slams into an embankment, killing 42 of the 48 people on board. It is the worst aviation disaster in American history at the time, although the death toll will be exceeded in a crash the following day.
- May 30 – During a flight from Newark, New Jersey, to Florida, an Eastern Air Lines DC-4 disintegrates in flight at an altitude of 6,000 feet (1,829 m) and crashes into a swamp near Baltimore, Maryland, killing all 53 people on board. It replaces the previous day's United Airlines crash as the deadliest airline accident in American history. Among the dead are two relatives of a man who had died the previous day in the United crash. The 97 deaths in the two crashes exceed the entire commercial aviation death toll in the United States for 1946.[7]
- July 3 - The Philippine Air Force is formed.
- July 15 - Northwest Airlines launches the first commercial passenger service from the U.S.A. to Asia's Far East along the North Pacific route with Douglas DC-4 The Manila, linking Minneapolis/St. Paul (USA) and Tokyo (Japan), Shanghai (China) and Manila (Philippines) by way of Edmonton (Canada) (technical stop), Anchorage (Alaska USA) and Shemya (USA) (technical stop). The Northwest Seattle—Anchorage service offered a connection (at Anchorage) with this new operation to the Orient. Seoul (South Korea) was included as a stop on the Northwest Airlines route to the Orient in August 1947.
[edit] August
- Bad weather forces a U.S. Marine Corps pilot down in communist-controlled territory near Tsingtao, China, during the Chinese Civil War. A landing party of U.S. Marines and U.S. Navy sailors destroys his plane to prevent its capture but fails to retrieve him, and the Chinese Communists return him to U.S. custody only after lengthy negotiations.[9]
- August 2 – The British South American Airways Avro Lancastrian Star Dust (tail number G-AGWH) disappears over the Andes during a flight from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Santiago, Chile, with the loss of all 11 people on board. Its wreckage finally will be discovered in glacial ice on Argentina's Tupungato mountain in 1998.
- August 3 – A Tushino air parade in Moscow, USSR, presents the newest Soviet jets including among others: Yak-19, La-150, La-156, La-160, Su-9, Su-11.
- August 10 – British European Airways (BEA) begins the world's first regular cargo-only airline service.
- August 15 – The Royal Pakistan Air Force is formed.
- August 20 – Flying the Douglas D-558-1 Skystreak, U.S. Navy Commander Turner F. Caldwell sets a new world air speed record of 640.796 mph (1,031.878 km/h) over Muroc, California.[10]
- August 23 – The Avro Tudor 2 prototype, G-AGSU, crashes on take-off at Woodford, Greater Manchester, killing Avro chief designer Roy Chapman and test pilot S. A. Thorn.[11]
- August 25 – Flying the Douglas Skystreak, United States Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Marion Carl achieves another world air speed record, reaching 650 mph (1,047 km/h).
- August 28 – The Norwegian Air Lines Short S.25 Sandringham 6 flying boat Kvitbjørn crashes into a mountain near Lødingsfjellet in Lødingen, Norway, killing all 35 people on board. It is the deadliest aviation accident in Norwegian history at the time.
[edit] September
[edit] October
- October 1 – Los Angeles Airways begins the first scheduled carriage of airmail by helicopter
- October 1 – George Welch allegedly breaks the sound barrier during a dive in the North American XP-86. The claim remains disputed.
- October 14 – U.S. Air Force Captain Chuck Yeager takes the rocket-powered Bell X-1 past the speed of sound in the first controlled, supersonic, level flight. The flight, which achieves Mach 1.06, sets a new world air speed record of 807.2 mph (1,299 km/h).
- October 24 – United Airlines Flight 608, a DC-6 (NC37510) en route to Chicago from Los Angeles, catches fire and crashes while attempting an emergency landing at the Bryce Canyon, Utah, airport, killing all 52 people aboard. It is the first crash of a DC-6 and the second-deadliest air crash in U.S. history at the time.
- October 26-November 7 – Rhulin A. Thomas makes the first solo coast-to-coast flight by a deaf pilot. (Calbraith Perry Rodgers was an earlier deaf pilot who flew coast-to-coast in 1911, but was supported by a team on the ground.)
[edit] November
- November 2 – With Howard Hughes at the controls, the Hughes H-4 Hercules, also known as the "Spruce Goose," makes its first flight, traveling at 135 mph (217 km/hr) for about a mile (1.6 km) at an altitude of 70 feet (21 meters) over Long Beach Harbor in California with 32 people on board. Both the largest flying boat and the aircraft with the largest wingspan (319 feet 11 inches; 97.54 meters) ever built, it never flies again.
[edit] December
[edit] First flights
[edit] January
[edit] February
[edit] August
[edit] September
[edit] October
[edit] November
[edit] December
[edit] Entered service
[edit] August
[edit] October
[edit] November
[edit] Retired
[edit] References
- ^ Lynch, Adam, "Hometown Heroine," Aviation History, March 2012, p. 58.
- ^ Angelucci, Enzo, with Peter Bowers, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1985, ISBN 978-0-517-56588-9, pp. 21.
- ^ Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 340.
- ^ The AMA History Program Presents: Biography of COL. ROBERT E. THACKER, RET.
- ^ a b Aviation Hawaii: 1940-1949 Chronology of Aviation in Hawaii
- ^ Sturtivant, Ray, British Naval Aviation: The Fleet Air Arm, 1917-1990, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1990, ISBN 0-87021-026-2, p. 182.
- ^ New York Daily News Runway 18 Air Safety, May-June 1947, Chapter 197
- ^ Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 274.
- ^ Marolda, Edward J., "Asian Warm-Up to the Cold War", Naval History, October 2011, pp. 29-30.
- ^ Wooldridge, E.T., Captain (ret.), USN, "Snapshots From the First Century of Naval Aviation," Proceedings, September 2011, p. 54.
- ^ Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN 978-0-7607-0592-6, p. 84.
- ^ a b Mauer, Maurer, Air Force Combat Units of World War II: The Concise official Military Record, Edison, New Jersey: Chartwell Books, 1961, ISBN 978-0-7858-0194-8, p. 11.
- ^ Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 298.
- ^ Swanborough, Gordon, and Peter M. Bowers, United States Navy Aircraft Since 1911, London: Putnam, 1976, ISBN 978-0-370-10054-8, p. 467.
- ^ Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN 978-0-7607-0592-6, p. 272.
- ^ Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN 978-0-7607-0592-6, p. 52.
- ^ Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, ISBN 978-0-517-56588-9, p. 342.
- ^ Swanborough, Gordon, and Peter M. Bowers, United States Navy Aircraft Since 1911, London: Putnam, 1976, ISBN 978-0-370-10054-8, p. 229.
- ^ Swanborough, Gordon, and Peter M. Bowers, United States Navy Aircraft Since 1911, London: Putnam, 1976, ISBN 978-0-370-10054-8, p. 231.
- ^ Polmar, Norman, "Historic Aircraft: The God of the Sea's Namesake", Naval History, October 2011, p. 16.
- ^ Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 413.
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