thumb|right | alt=1926 Westland Widgeon (Br) and Ford Trimotor. | 1926 Westland Widgeon (Br) and Ford Trimotor.

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This is a list of aviation-related events from 1926:

Events

  • Award of the Harmon Trophy begins. A set of three trophies is awarded annually to the worlds outstanding aviator, aviatrix (female aviator), and aeronaut (balloon or dirigible aviator) for the year, and a fourth trophy (the National Trophy) is awarded to the outstanding aviator for the year in each of the 21 member countries of the International League of Aviators.
  • Fiat acquires the Società Anonima Aeronautica Ansaldo aircraft manufacturing subsidiary from the Gio. Ansaldo & C. shipbuilding company and combines it with its own Società Italiana Aviazione subsidiary to form a new Società Anonima Aeronautica d'Italia subsidiary for the design and production of aircraft.
  • The first known reforestation of land by aircraft is carried by airplanes operating from Wheeler Field on Oahu in the Territory of Hawaii.
  • Harold Frederick Pitcairn founds the Pitcairn Aircraft Company. It later will become the Autogiro Company of America.
  • Summer 1926 – A Lieutenant Jira of Czechoslovakia flies Avia B.9.11 L-BONG from Prague to Paris and back at an average speed of , a notable achievement at the time for an aircraft of the B.9s class.

January

  • January 6 – Deutsche Luft Hansa is formed by the merger of Deutscher Aero Lloyd and Junkers Luftverkehr.
  • January 22 – A Spanish four-man crew led by Spanish Air Force Major Ramón Franco – the brother of future Spanish dictator Francisco Franco – and including Captain Julio Ruiz de Alda Miqueleiz takes off from the Rio Tinto at Palos de Moguer, Spain, to begin a seven-stop flight to Buenos Aires in the Dornier Do J Wal ("Whale") flying boat Plus Ultra ("Farther Still"). After flying low past the Christopher Columbus Monument in Huelva, Spain, they make an uneventful 806-mile (1,298-km) flight to their first stop at Las Palmas in the Canary Islands.
  • January 26 – Ramón Franco and his crew complete the second leg of their Spain-to-Buenos Aires flight, flying from Las Palmas in the Canary Islands to Porto Praia in the Cape Verde Islands in 9 hours 50 minutes.
  • January 30 – Ramón Franco and his crew complete the third and longest leg of their Spain-to-Buenos Aires flight, flying from Barrera de Inferno in the Cape Verde Islands to Fernando de Noronha in 12 hours at an altitude of . It is the second-longest nonstop flight in history – exceeded only by a 1,890-mile North Atlantic Ocean crossing in a Vickers Vimy on 14-15 June 1919 by John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown – and they become the first aviators to cross the South Atlantic Ocean using only one aircraft. Rough weather forces them to spend the night on their flying boat Plus Ultra before they can dock at Fernando de Noronha.

February

  • February 4 – Spanish Air Force Major Ramón Franco, copilot/navigator Captain Julio Ruiz de Alda Miqueleiz, and their crew complete the fifth leg of their Spain–to–Buenos Aires flight in the Dornier Do J Wal ("Whale") flying boat Plus Ultra ("Farther Still"), flying from Recife, Brazil to Rio de Janeiro in 12 hours 16 minutes. Franco is at the controls for the entire flight. So many boats meet them that they have difficulty landing in Guanabara Bay without colliding with one.
  • February 9 – Ramón Franco and his crew complete the sixth leg of their Spain-to-Buenos Aires flight, flying from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Montevideo, Uruguay, in 12 hours 5 minutes. He is the second U.S. overnight mail service pilot to die on duty.

March

  • March 1 – Four Royal Air Force Fairey IIIDs begin a long-distance flight, taking them from Cairo to Cape Town and then on to Lee-on-Solent, England, where they will arrive on June 2.
  • March 16 – Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fuelled rocket near Auburn, Massachusetts.
  • March 24 – The Cierva Autogiro Company is founded in the United Kingdom.

April

  • April 1 – The Italian airline Società Italiana Servizi Aerei begins operations linking Trieste, Venice, Pavia, and Turin with CANT 10 flying boats.
  • April 6 – Varney Speed Lines begins operations in the U.S. It will later become Continental Airlines.
  • April 7 – The Italian airline Società Anonima Navigazione Aerea (SANA) begins fight operations, offering flying boat service on the Genoa–Rome–Naples–Palermo route.
  • April 10 – Three United States Army Air Service aircraft take photographs of an eruption of Mauna Loa volcano on the island of Hawaii, providing valuable scientific information. from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Los Angeles, using a Douglas M-2. The airline will begin passenger services a month later.
  • April 30 – Bessie Coleman, the first licensed African-American female pilot, is killed along with mechanic William Wills, who was piloting the plane, after they crash as a result of a wrench that Wills accidentally left loose getting stuck in the control gears.

May

  • May 1 – Deutsche Luft Hansa begins the first night passenger airline service, with domestic flights in Germany between Berlin and Königsberg employing Junkers G 24 aircraft.
  • May 4 – The Stinson Aircraft Corporation is incorporated.
  • May 6 – Flying a Blackburn Dart, Flight Lieutenant Gerald Boyce makes the first night deck landing in history, landing aboard the British aircraft carrier off the south coast of England.
  • May 9 – Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett make the first flight over the North Pole in a Fokker VIIa-3m.
  • May 11–14 - Roald Amundsen makes the first airship flight over the North Pole. The Norge leaves Spitzbergen and arrives in Teller, Alaska, three days later.
  • May 20 – The Air Commerce Act becomes law in the United States. It creates an Aeronautics Branch (the predecessor of the Federal Aviation Administration) within the United States Department of Commerce, vesting that entity with regulatory powers to ensure civil air safety, including testing and licensing pilots, issuing certificates to guarantee the airworthiness of aircraft, making and enforcing safety rules, certifying aircraft, establishing airways, operating and maintaining aids to air navigation, and investigating accidents and incidents in aviation.
  • May 23 – Western Air Express (the future Western Airlines) becomes one of the first U.S. airlines to offer regular passenger service, beginning flights from Los Angeles, California, to Salt Lake City, Utah, via Las Vegas, Nevada.

June

  • June 20 – The United States Coast Guard opens the first permanent Coast Guard Air Stations.
  • June 26 – Flying a Potez 28, Ludovic Arrachart and his brother Paul depart Paris. By the time a broken fuel pipe forces them to land at RAF Shaibah near Basra, Iraq, 26 hours 30 minutes later, they will have set a new world aviation nonstop distance record of .
  • June 30 – Alan Cobham sets out on a round trip from England to Australia in a de Havilland DH.50. He will arrive back in London on October 1 and receive a knighthood for his accomplishment.

July

  • July 2
  • The United States Army Air Service becomes the United States Army Air Corps.
  • In accordance with the redesignation of its parent service, the Air Service Tactical School at Langley Field in Virginia is renamed the Air Corps Tactical School.
  • An airplane drops tree seeds over a burned area of Hawaii in the first recorded instance of reforestation by airplane.

August

  • August 7 &ndash; The second Ford National Reliability Air Tour begins, with 25 contestants taking off from Ford Airport in Dearborn, Michigan. The tour cross-markets Ford Motor Company and its Stout Metal Airplane Division and showcases Henry Ford's interest in aviation. The event includes the unveiling of the prototype Ford Flivver, and the new Ford Trimotor participates, although it suffers a propeller failure that loosens its landing gear and one of its engines and makes a forced landing at Nova, Ohio. The tour uses a new scoring system for time to "stick" and "unstick" aircraft to the ground, helping to promote the use of brakes, which are unpopular at the time. Walter Beech and Vance Breese participate.
  • August 18 &ndash; Flying in bad weather on a scheduled passenger flight from Paris-Le Bourget Airport outside Paris to Croydon Airport in London with 15 people aboard, the Air Union Blériot 155 F-AIEB Wilbur Wright strikes the roof of a barn and crashes into haystacks near Hurst, Kent, south of Lympne Airport, killing its two crew members and two of its 13 passengers.
  • August 21 &ndash; The second Ford National Reliability Air Tour concludes with the competitors' return to Ford Airport in Dearborn, Michigan, at the end of a course that included stops at Kalamazoo, Michigan; Chicago, Illinois; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; St. Paul, Minnesota; Des Moines, Iowa; Lincoln, Nebraska; Wichita, Kansas; Kansas City, Missouri; Moline, Illinois; Indianapolis, Indiana; Cincinnati and Cleveland, Ohio; Fort Wayne, Indiana. Walter Beech is the overall winner of the competition in a Travel Air airplane. A Pitcairn PA-2 Sesquiwing wins in two aircraft classes.

September

  • September 10–17 – The Daily Mail sponsors the third and final light airplane trials at Lympne Aerodrome in Lympne, England. A Hawker Cygnet flown by George Bulman wins. Flying an Avro 581 Avian, Bert Hinkler takes second place in three of the six trials before withdrawing with magneto problems.
  • September 21 – Hoping to win the Orteig Prize, French World War I ace René Fonck attempts to take off from Roosevelt Field on Long Island in a severely overloaded Sikorsky S-35 for a nonstop transatlantic flight to Paris. The aircraft loses a wheel on takeoff, fails to gain lift, cartwheels off a bluff, and bursts into flames, killing two of its crew. Fonck survives.
  • September 26 &ndash; The French aviators Dieudonné Costes and René de Vitrolles fly from Paris to Assuan, Egypt, in an attempt to break the world distance record.

October

  • October 1 – Northwest Airways (the future Northwest Airlines) begins service as a contract U.S. mail carrier.
  • October 21 – The British airship R.33 makes further parasite fighter tests, releasing two Gloster Grebes from .
  • October 22 – Curtiss F6C Hawk fighters of the United States Navys Fighter Squadron 2 (VF-2) surprise U.S. Navy capital ships sortieing from San Pedro Harbor in California with a simulated dive-bombing attack, diving almost vertically from . It generally is considered the birth of modern dive bombing.
  • October 28 – The French aviators Dieudonné Costes and J. Rignot break the world distance record, flying from Paris to Jask, Persia, as a part of Paris–India–Paris flight.

November

  • Adolphe Bernard's Société Industrielle des Métaux et du Bois (SIMB; Industrial Company for Metals and Wood) closes, a victim of bankruptcy. Bernard again will reorganize the company in September 1927 as the Société des Avions Bernard (Bernard Aircraft Company) and resume the design and production of aircraft.
  • November 6 – Italo Balbo becomes Italy's Secretary of State for Air.
  • November 13 – The 1926 Schneider Trophy race is flown at Hampton Roads, Virginia. Mario de Bernardi of Italy wins in a Macchi M.39 at , a new world speed record.
  • November 15 – T. Neville Stack and B. S. Leete leave England in an attempt to reach India by air in a de Havilland DH.60. They will arrive in Karachi on January 8, 1927.
  • November 17 – Mario de Bernardi breaks his four-day-old world speed record, reaching in the same Macchi M.39 at Hampton Roads, Virginia, USA.

December

  • December 7
  • In the United States, the first airway light beacon erected by the Aeronautics Branch (predecessor of the Federal Aviation Administration) of the United States Department of Commerce begins operation. It is located on the air mail route between Chicago, Illinois, and Dallas, Texas, northeast of Moline, Illinois. By June 30, 1927, the United States will have of lighted airways.
  • December 21 – Hinkler and Leeming depart Woodford Aerodrome in the Avro 585 Gosport biplane G-EBPH to make a second attempt at landing on Helvellyn, but turn back after finding the winds over the Lake District too strong to allow a landing.
  • Boulton Paul Sidestrand
  • Buhl-Verville CA-3 Airster
  • Cierva C.8
  • Dewoitine D.25
  • Fairchild 71
  • Farman F.150
  • FBA 23
  • Junkers A 32
  • Junkers A 35
  • Junkers G 31
  • Latécoère 26
  • Levasseur PL.4
  • Pitcairn PA-2 Sesquiwing
  • Pitcairn PA-3 Orowing
  • Potez 28
  • Westland Westbury
  • Wright-Bellanca WB-2
  • c. 1926 – Mitsubishi 2MB1
  • Spring 1926 – Westland Racer

January

  • January 12 – Polikarpov DI-1
  • January 25 – Stinson Detroiter

February

  • Latécoère 25
  • February 19 – Dornier N/Kawasaki Ka 87

March

  • Armstrong Whitworth Argosy G-EBLF

April

  • April 24 - Handley Page Harrow (HP.31)

May

  • Bernard SIMB AB 12
  • May 5 – Wright XF3W Apache
  • May 7 – Blériot 127

June

  • ca. June – Saunders A.3 Valkyrie
  • June 11 – Ford 4-AT Trimotor
  • June 14 – Fairchild FC-1, prototype of the Fairchild FC-2
  • June 17 – Junkers W 33
  • June 19 – Blackburn Iris
  • June 26
  • Avro 566 Avenger
  • Avro Tutor

July

  • Latécoère 21
  • Martin T3M
  • July 6 – Macchi M.39

August

  • August 9 – Focke-Wulf GL 18

September

  • Avro 581, prototype of the Avro Avian

Entered service

  • Levasseur PL.2 with French Naval Aviation aboard the aircraft carrier Béarn

May

  • Consolidated NY-1 with the United States Navy
  • Farman F.170 Jabiru with Société Générale des Transports Aériens

June

  • Breguet 19 B.2 bomber variant with the 11e Régiment d'Aviation de Bombardement of the French Armys Aéronautique Militaire
  • June 16 &ndash; Armstrong Whitworth Argosy G-EBLO with Imperial Airways

August

  • Lioré et Olivier 21 with Air Union

September

  • Martin T3M with the United States Navy

December

  • SABCA S.2 with SABENA

Retirements

  • Cox-Klemin XS by the United States Navy
  • Grigorovich M-24 by Soviet Naval Aviation
  • Martin MS by the United States Navy

March

  • Avro 549 Aldershot by No. 99 Squadron, Royal Air Force

References

  • Taylor, H.A. Fairey Aircraft since 1915. London:Putnam, 1988. .