<!-- "none" is preferred when the title is sufficiently descriptive; see WP:SDNONE -->

This is a list of aviation-related events from 1929:

Events

  • During the year, the greatest number of fatal civil aircraft crashes in United States history take place.
  • Cubana de Aviación begins service.
  • Pan American World Airways begins service.
  • The Canadian Siskins aerobatic team is formed.
  • The first official airmail delivery by bush pilot to the District of Mackenzie in Canada's western Arctic takes place.
  • An airway beacon is built in St. Paul, Minnesota. It still exists in Indian Mounds Park.
  • Aircraft Development Corporation changes its name to the Detroit Aircraft Corporation.
  • Consolidated Aircraft Corporation absorbs the Thomas-Morse Aircraft Corporation.
  • In response to the creation of the Curtiss-Wright Corporation, the United Aircraft and Transport Corporation is formed as a holding company controlling the stock of the Boeing Airplane Company, the Chance Vought Corporation, the Hamilton Aero Manufacturing Company, and the Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Company, soon joined by the Sikorsky Aviation Corporation, the Stearman Aircraft Company, the Standard Steel Propeller Company, and several airlines managed by the new United Air Lines, Inc. management company.
  • The Glenn L. Martin Company sells its factory in Cleveland, Ohio, and moves to a new one at Middle River, Maryland.
  • The Imperial Japanese Navy begins to gather information on aerial techniques, training, and aircraft necessary for dive bombing.
  • The Royal Swedish Navy assigns a ship to aviation service for the first time.
  • Saunders-Roe Limited, also known as Saro, is formed.
  • United States Army Sergeant Ralph W. Bottriell makes his 500th and final parachute jump, the most by anyone in the world at the time. He then stops parachuting and becomes a ground instructor.

January

  • The Cierva C.8W autogyro makes the first autogyro flight in the United States, at Willow Grove, Pennsylvania.
  • January 1 &ndash; The Government of Poland creates LOT Polish Airlines as a state-owned, self-governing corporation.
  • January 1–7 &ndash; Carl Spaatz and four other United States Army Air Corps fliers set an endurance record of 151 hours aloft in the modified Atlantic-Fokker C-2A Question Mark.
  • January 3 &ndash; Australian aviators Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm found Australian National Airways (ANA), the first airline of that name. It will begin scheduled services in January 1930.
  • January 14 – The United States Department of Commerce's Aeronautics Branch receives the Aero Club of America Trophy (the future Collier Trophy) for 1928 for its outstanding development of airways and air navigation facilities.
  • January 15 – The Fairchild FC-2W2 Stars and Stripes makes the first flight from Little America, a base Richard E. Byrd and his team had recently set up on the Ross Ice Shelf off Antarctica to support his planned attempt at the first flight over the South Pole.
  • January 25
  • While circling at an altitude of over Little America off Antarctica, the Fairchild FC-2W2 Stars and Stripes sets a record for the longest distance for a two-way telegraphic connection between air and ground, maintaining continuous contact with San Francisco, California, and New York City.
  • January 29 – The Airways Division of the United States Department of Commerce turns on Beacon No. 25 at Miriam, Nevada, on the San Francisco–Salt Lake City Airway, completing the lighting of the Transcontinental Airway System in the United States by closing the final unlighted gap.
  • February 1 &ndash; Regulations covering the entry and clearance of aircraft carrying foreign cargo and passengers into the United States issued by the United States Department of Commerce's Aeronautics Branch (predecessor of the Federal Aviation Adminstration) go into effect.
  • February 4–5 (overnight) – With Oscar Grubb aboard as flight engineer, Frank Hawks sets a transcontinental airspeed record for a flight across the continental United States while ferrying the Lockheed Air Express (registration NR7955) from the Lockheed factory in Burbank, California, to an air show in New York City, making the flight in 18 hours 21 minutes. The use of a NACA cowling increases the aircraft's maximum speed from .
  • February 19 — Flying the Fairchild FC-2W2 Stars and Stripes over Antarctica, Richard E. Byrd discovers an area he names Marie Byrd Land and claims it for the United States. Since 15&nbsp;January, when Stars and Stripes began flights from Little America, Byrd's base on the Ross Ice Shelf, Byrd has used Stars and Stripes to explore and chart about of territory which he describes as "never before seen by human eye."
  • March 19 – The newly completed Ford 5-AT-B Trimotor NC9674, which had made its first flight only five days earlier, crashes when its wing strikes the ground on landing while it returns to Ford Airport in Dearborn, Michigan, during a Ford Motor Company flight prior to delivery to its customer. All four people on board die.
  • March 21 &ndash; Bernt Balchen pilots the Fairchild FC-2W2 Stars and Stripes from Little America, Richard E. Byrd's base on the Ross Ice Shelf, over Antarctica to rescue Byrd and two other members of his expedition. Byrd and the other two men previously had rescued Balchen and two scientists after their plane — the Fokker Super Universal The Virginia (NC4453) — was destroyed in a storm, then remained behind when Balchen and the two scientists flew back to Little America aboard Stars and Stripes. Byrd and the other two men then had been stranded by new storms until the weather improved and allowed Balchen to return to pick them up.
  • April 24–26 &ndash; Royal Air Force Squadron Leader Arthur G. Jones-Williams and Flight Lieutenant Norman H. Jenkins make the first non-stop flight from the United Kingdom to British India, using a Fairey Long-Range Monoplane. The flight, from RAF Cranwell to Karachi, covers nonstop in 50 hours 48 minutes, falling short of the world nonstop flight distance record.

May

  • May 9 &ndash; The United States Government establishes the Interdepartmental Committee on Airways to study and pass on applications for the extension of civil airways in the United States. The six-member committee consists of three representatives each from the United States Department of Commerce and the United States Post Office Department.
  • May 20 &ndash; The Peruvian Armys aviation branch and the Peruvian Navys Naval Aviation Corps are combined to form the Peruvian Aviation Corps, forerunner of the Peruvian Air Force.
  • May 25 &ndash; The Spanish government airline CLASSA officially assumes all the rights, obligations, fleets, and staff of Iberia and the other airlines that merged to form it.
  • May 26 &ndash; Flying a Junkers W 34 be/b3e (registration D-1119), Friedrich W. Neuenhofen sets a new world altitude record, reaching .
  • May 28
  • Marvel Crosson sets a women's altitude record, climbing to over Los Angeles, California, in a Travel Air J-5.
  • Flying a Nicholas-Beazley NB-3 monoplane (also known as the Barling NB-3), Barney Zimmerly, a test pilot for the Nicholas-Beazley Airplane Company, reaches an altitude of over Parks Airport in East St. Louis, Illinois. He sets a new altitude record both for single-seater airplanes and for airplanes weighing less than 400 kg (881 lbs).
  • May 30 &ndash; Logan Field opens at Baltimore, Maryland.
  • Frank Hawks sets a transcontinental airspeed record for a flight across the continental United States, flying the Lockheed Air Express Texaco Five (registration NR7955) across the country in 17 hours 38 minutes.
  • The Women’s Aeronautical Association of California proposes a $10,000 air race "for women only" from Santa Monica, California, to Cleveland, Ohio, a distance of . Time reports that the proposal meets with derision from some male pilots, who claim that female aviators are "publicity harpies" who have not "accomplished anything unusual," that women's flight records are not recorded officially and mean nothing, that women lack the nerves, stamina, perseverance, and confidence for flying, and that in the proposed race "none of them will be able to get over" the Rocky Mountains. They suggest that the proposed race instead be held over level ground from Omaha, Nebraska, to Cleveland and that a male pilot accompany each woman racer "to extricate her from flying difficulties." Amelia Earhart rebukes the men for these views, arguing that "women are less expert than men at flying" only because American culture does not encourage them to become mechanics, bus drivers, locomotive engineers, or ship's officers, that "women can fly" despite this, and that women will not be able to improve as aviators without opportunities like the proposed race. She threatens that if women were not permitted to navigate the entire Santa Monica-to-Cleveland course, neither she nor other women pilots would enter.
  • June 17
  • Using a six-passenger Travel Air, Delta Air Service (the future Delta Air Lines) begins passenger service with a first flight from Dallas, Texas, to Jackson, Mississippi, with stops at Shreveport and Monroe, Louisiana.
  • The Imperial Airways Handley Page W.10 City of Ottawa (G-EBMT) suffers an engine failure and ditches in the English Channel off Dungeness, England. Seven of the 13 people aboard die; the Belgian fishing trawler Gaby rescues the six survivors, all of whom are injured.
  • June 21 – A Spanish Air Force crew led by pilot Major Ramón Franco – brother of future Spanish dictator Francisco Franco – takes off from Los Alcázares, Spain, in the Dornier Do J Wal ("Whale") flying boat Numancia to attempt a westward flight around the world, intending to begin with an overnight flight to their first stop at the Azores. They overshoot the Azores, run out of fuel, and forced to land in the North Atlantic Ocean on June 22, where they drift until picked up by the Royal Navy aircraft carrier on June 29. Their round-the-world attempt is scrubbed.
  • June 29

<!--Many sources incorrectly state that Phoebe Omlie set this record in 1928.-->

  • Phoebe Omlie sets a women's world altitude record, reaching in a Monocoupe 90 above the airport at Moline, Illinois.
  • The Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company and the Wright Aeronautical Corporation merge to form the Curtiss-Wright Corporation. The new corporation constructs light aircraft at the Curtiss plant in Buffalo, New York; heavy aircraft and flying boats at its Keystone Aircraft Corporation subsidiary in Bristol, Pennsylvania; civil aircraft at its Curtiss-Robertson subsidiary in St. Louis, Missouri; and Curtiss and Wright aircraft engines at the Wright factory in Paterson, New Jersey.
  • June 30
  • During a flight from Moline, Illinois, pilot Phoebe Omlie sets a women's altitude record, reaching over Iowa City, Iowa.
  • The United States Department of Commerce's Aeronautics Branch (predecessor of the Federal Aviation Administration) has issued a total of 170 type certificates to aircraft.
  • July 1 &ndash; The United States Department of Commerce begins using teletype machines to transmit aviation weather information. Among the first airport stations to receive teletypes are those at Hadley Field, New Jersey; Cleveland, Ohio; Chicago, Illinois; and Concord, California, all of which are connected with the central office in Washington, D.C., from which data are exchanged for all locations. — French World War I flying ace Louis Coudouret heads back to France bound for Angoulême. At an altitude of , he loses control of the plane due to engine failure and crashes at Saint-Amant-de-Bonnieure. Coudouret dies of his injuries hours after the crash, but his two passengers survive.
  • Transcontinental Air Transport commences a regular service transporting passengers all the way across the continental United States in 48 hours, using a combination of trains and aircraft for different legs of the journey, with airplanes carrying passengers during daylight portions of the trip and trains carrying them at night. Charles Lindbergh flies the first plane over the route.
  • August 2–10 &ndash; The English aviator and ornithologist Mary Russell, Duchess of Bedford, her personal pilot C. D. Barnard, and mechanic Robert Little make a record-breaking flight in the Fokker F.VII Spider (G-EBTS) of from Lympne Airport in Lympne, England, to Karachi, then in the British Indian Empire, and back to Croydon Airport in South London, England, in eight days.
  • August 4–16 &ndash; The first International Tourist Aircraft Contest Challenge 1929 takes place in Paris, with a race over Europe. The German crew of Fritz Morzik wins in the BFW M.23 plane.
  • August 8–29 &ndash; The German rigid airship LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin makes the first round-the-world flight by a rigid airship, leaving from Lakehurst, New Jersey, and returning to Lakehurst in 21 days 7 hours 34 minutes. It is only the second round-the-world flight of any kind, and the first since a circumnavigation by two United States Army Air Service Douglas World Cruisers accomplished between April and September 1924. Nineteen pilots take off from Clover Field in Santa Monica, California, headed for Cleveland, Ohio, and a twentieth leaves the following day. Competitors are limited to using airplanes with engine power that the race's organizers consider "appropriate for a woman;" Opal Kunz's Travel Air is declared "too fast for a woman to fly" — even though she owns and flies it — forcing her to find a less powerful aircraft for the race.
  • August 19
  • The ZMC-2 flies for the first time. Constructed at Naval Air Station Grosse Ile, Michigan, by The Aircraft Development Corporation of Detroit (later renamed the Detroit Aircraft Corporation), it will be the only successfully operated metal-skinned airship ever built, completing 752 flights and logging 2,265 hours of flight time in nearly 12 years of United States Navy service at Naval Air Station Lakehurst, New Jersey before it is retired and scrapped in 1941.
  • During Marvel Crosson's flight from Yuma to Phoenix, Arizona, on the second day of the Women's Air Derby, her Travel Air Model 11 goes into an tailspin at an altitude of about crashes in a thick growth of cottonwood in the Gila River Valley about from Wellton, Arizona. Her badly battered body is found from the wreck of her plane, indicating that she had jumped from the plane. She had pulled her parachute's rip cord, but either her parachute had failed to open or she had jumped at too low an altitude for it to have time to open.
  • August 26 &ndash; The Women's Air Derby concludes with the competitors' arrival at Cleveland, Ohio, greeted by an estimated 18,000 spectators. In nine days of flying, starting from Santa Monica, California, they have made stops at San Bernardino, California; Yuma, Phoenix, and Douglas, Arizona; El Paso, Pecos, Midland, Abilene, and Fort Worth, Texas; St. Louis, Missouri; and Cincinnati, Ohio. Ten of the 14 pilots competing in the heavy airplane division (those with engines from 510 to 875 cubic inches [8,357 to 14,339] cm<sup>3</sup>]) finish the race, as do four of the six competing in the light airplane class (those with engines of 275 to 510 cubic inches [4,506 to 8,357 cm<sup>3</sup>]). Louise Thaden finishes first and wins the heavy airplane competition with a time of 20 hours 19 minutes 4 seconds. Phoebe Omlie wins the light airplane competition with a time of 25 hours, 12 minutes 47.5 seconds.
  • September 6
  • The Imperial Airways de Havilland DH.66 Hercules G-EBMZ stalls when it flares too early while attempting a night landing at Jask Airport in Jask, Persia. It crashes and bursts into flames when its wing fuel tanks rupture and emergency flares in its wingtips ignite the fuel. Both crew members and one of the three passengers die. The deceased pilot, A. E. Woodbridge, had shot down and wounded the German fighter ace Manfred von Richthofen during World War I.
  • The 1929 Schneider Trophy race is flown at Calshot Spit in the United Kingdom. Royal Air Force Flying Officer Henry Waghorn wins in a Supermarine S.6 at an average speed of .
  • Flying the Wright XF3W-1 Apache equipped with floats, United States Navy Lieutenant Apollo Soucek sets a world altitude record for seaplanes, climbing to .
  • September 11 &ndash; Guatemala establishes the Dirección General de Aeronáutica Civil ("General Directorate of Civil Aeronautics") as its national civil aviation authority.
  • September 12 &ndash; The Italian Fascist leader Italo Balbo becomes Italy's Minister of the Air Force.
  • September 24 &ndash; Flying from Mitchel Field on Long Island, New York, United States Army Air Corps Lieutenant Jimmy Doolittle — flying in a Consolidated NY-2 with a hooded cockpit and accompanied by a check pilot who can intervene in case of an emergency — becomes the first pilot to use only instrument guidance to take off, fly a set course, and land. He receives directional guidance from a radio range course aligned with the airport runway, uses radio marker beacons to indicate his distance from the runway and a sensitive altimeter to determine his altitude, and controls the attitude of his airplane with guidance from a directional gyroscope and an artificial horizon. He returns to Mitchell Field after flying along a course. The flight is part of research Doolittle is conducting for the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics.
  • September 27–29 &ndash; Dieudonné Costes and Maurice Bellonte set a new world distance record, flying from Le Bourget in Paris, to Qiqihar, China, in a Breguet 19.
  • September 30 &ndash; Fritz von Opel pilots the rocket-powered RAK.1 aircraft on a 75-second, 1.6-kilometre (1-mile) flight near Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany.

October

  • October 1
  • The U.S. Federal Radio Commission allocates radio frequencies to clear the way for air transport companies to develop a communications network in the United States that supplements the United States Government's radio facilities. As a result, by the end of 1929 some major air transport lines will be maintaining two-way voice communication with their planes in flight.
  • October 6 &ndash; Inter-Island Airways &ndash; the future Hawaiian Airlines &ndash; begins operations.
  • October 7 &ndash; The Kingdom of Yugoslavia′s flag carrier, Aeroput, makes its first international flight, flown by a Potez 29/2 from Belgrade, Yugoslavia, to Vienna, Austria, via Zagreb, Yugoslavia, with five passengers on board.
  • October 10 &ndash; The U.S. Department of Commerce's Aeronautics Branch inaugurates a position-reporting service for planes flying along U.S. Government airways. flying the route averaging in a Waco. Art Davis, also flying a Waco, places second.
  • October 26 &ndash; During a scheduled passenger flight from Naples International Airport in Naples, Italy, to Genoa Cristoforo Colombo Airport outside Genoa, Italy, the Imperial Airways Short S.8/1 Calcutta flying boat City of Rome (registration G-AADN) makes a forced landing in high winds and poor weather in the Ligurian Sea off La Spezia, Italy. It sinks during efforts to tow it to shore, killing all seven people on board.
  • October 29 &ndash; Colonial Flying Service and the Scully Walton Ambulance Company of New York City inaugurate an air ambulance service.
  • November 9 &ndash; Flying from an airfield in the Territory of Alaska, American aviation pioneer Carl Ben Eielson and his mechanic Earl Borland die in the crash during a storm of their plane in Siberia while attempting to evacuate furs and personnel from the Nanuk, a cargo ship trapped in the ice at North Cape (now Mys Shmidta).
  • November 23 &ndash; Novice German aviator Friedrich Karl von Koenig-Warthausen arrives in Hanover, Germany, in a Klemm Daimler L.20B, completing a 15-month around-world-journey that had begun at Berlin Tempelhof Airport in Berlin on August 1928. Originally intending to fly only to Moscow, he had continually extended his journey, flying on to the Persian Gulf, across northern India and to Siam, then continued mostly by ship to China, Japan, and across the Pacific Ocean before flying across the United States and Ontario, Canada, then taking a ship to Europe and finally flying to Hanover. Although his 15-month trip includes segments traveled by ship, he flies about and spends 450 hours in the air, and he is recognized as the first person to complete a solo flight around the world largely by airplane.
  • November 25 &ndash; The Spanish government airline CLASSA officially begins operation of all lines previously operated by the airlines that merged to form it, including Iberia.
  • November 26 &ndash; After taking off from Hal Far, Malta, a Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Air Force Fairey Flycatcher lands aboard the British aircraft carrier , achieving the first night carrier landing by a fleet fighter.
  • November 28–29 &ndash; Richard E. Byrd and crew take off from their base at Little America on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica in a Ford Trimotor and make the first flight over the South Pole, dumping several bags of food and supplies overboard to gain enough altitude to climb over the Queen Maud Mountains. They return to Little America after a round-trip flight of 1,600 miles (2,575 kilometers) that lasts 17 hours 26 minutes. Byrd becomes the first person to fly over both the North Pole (which he had done in May 1926) and the South Pole.

December

  • December 2 &ndash; Fifteen air carriers set up Aeronautical Radio, Inc. (ARINC), a not-for-profit organization which uses a common network of ground stations to serve as the single coordinator of aeronautical communications for the air transport industry in the United States.
  • December 17 &ndash; Royal Air Force Captain Arthur G. Jones-Williams and Lieutenant Norman H. Jenkins set out from RAF Cranwell in England in the Fairey Long-Range Monoplane to set a new nonstop flight distance record by flying to South Africa. The flight ends in tragedy later in the day when their plane crashes into Mount Sainte Marie du Zit in the Atlas Mountains in French Tunisia at an altitude of after 13 hours 40 minutes in the air, killing both of them.
  • December 20
  • Will Kirk Kaynor, a member of the United States House of Representatives representing the 2nd Congressional District of Massachusetts, dies in the crash of a United States Army Air Corps plane at Bolling Field in Washington, D.C. It was his first time in an airplane.
  • Bellanca CH-300 Pacemaker
  • Bellanca TES
  • Cessna DC-6
  • Cierva C.12
  • Cierva C.19
  • Curtiss Thrush
  • Fairchild FB-3
  • Farman F.200
  • FBA 270
  • Hall XFH
  • Heinkel HD 56, prototype of the Aichi E3A
  • Levasseur PL.14
  • Macchi M.67
  • Piaggio P.9
  • Pitcairn PA-7
  • Potez 36
  • Southern Martlet
  • Verville Air Coach
  • Early 1929
  • Thomas-Morse XP-13 Viper
  • Westland Interceptor
  • Spring 1929 – Levasseur PL.10

January

  • Gloster Gauntlet
  • January 27 – Saunders A.10

February

  • February 1 – Lublin R-X
  • February 13 – Junkers A50
  • February 22 – Westland IV, prototype of the Westland Wessex trimotor airliner

April

  • April 3 &ndash; Cunningham-Hall PT-6
  • April 11 &ndash; Boeing P-12

May

  • Pietenpol Air Camper homebuilt aircraft prototype, with Ford Model A engine
  • Polikarpov DI-2
  • May 3 &ndash; Gee Bee Model A
  • May 17 &ndash; Martin XT5M-1, prototype of the Martin BM

June

  • June 11 &ndash; Vickers Type 143
  • June 21 &ndash; Vought XF2U-1

July

  • Bernard 20
  • Fokker D.XVI
  • RWD-2
  • July 4 – Saro A17 Cutty Sark
  • July 7 – Marinens Flyvebaatfabrikk M.F.10
  • July 29 – Dornier Do X

August

  • Bernard 60 T
  • Bernard H.V.41
  • PZL P.1
  • August 19 – Detroit ZMC-2
  • October 2 – Acme Sportsman
  • October 14 – Airship R101

November

  • November 6 – Junkers G.38
  • November 26 – Vickers Type 177

December

  • Dewoitine D.26
  • Hall XPH-1, prototype of the Hall PH
  • Nakajima A2N
  • December 16 – R100
  • December 28 – Mitsubishi B2M

Entered service

  • Bernard 190T with CIDNA
  • Butler Blackhawk
  • Consolidated NY-3 with the United States Navy
  • Curtiss P-6 Hawk with the 27th Pursuit Squadron, United States Army Air Corps
  • Nakajima A1N with the Imperial Japanese Navy
  • Polikarpov I-3 with 4th and 7th Fighter Squadrons, Red Air Force
  • Polikarpov U-2, later redesignated Polikarpov Po-2 (NATO reporting name "Mule")
  • Tupolev TB-1 with the VVS

February

  • February 27 – Boeing P-12 with the United States Army Air Corps

Retirements

  • Avro 555 Bison by the Royal Air Force
  • Fairey Fawn by the Royal Auxiliary Air Force and Special Reserve squadrons
  • Latécoère 15 by Lignes Aériennes Latécoère
  • Saunders A.3 Valkyrie
  • Saunders A.4 Medina

Notes