1928

Master Index

1930

1929 Chronology of Aviation History
Major Aviation Events

1929 Aviation Records

• Speed: (Italy), 362-mph, Giuseppe Motta, Macchi M.67, 22 August 1929.

• Distance: (France), 4,989.26-miles, D. Costes and P. Codos, Breguet 19, 17 December 1929.

• Altitude: (Germany), 41,795-feet, Willi Neuenhofen, Junkers W.34, 26 May 1929.

• Weight: (Germany), 123,457-lbs, Dornier, Do.X.

• Engine Power: (UK), 1,900-hp, Rolls-Royce, R.

1929

• 1929 — Greatest number of fatal civil aircraft crashes in US history.

• 1929 — Cubana de Aviacion begins service.

• 1929 — Airway Beacon Tower Pan Am begins service.

• 1929 — The Canadian Siskins aerobatic team is formed.

• 1929 — First official airmail to the Mackenzie District of Canada's western Arctic by bush-pilot.

• 1929 — Airway Beacon is built in St. Paul, Minnesota. It still exists in Indian Mounds Park.

• 1929 — Aircraft Development Corporation changes its name to the Detroit Aircraft Corporation.

January 1929

• January — First flight of the Gloster Gauntlet.

• January 1 — Polish airline LOT formed.

• January 1 to 7 — Carl Spaatz and four other Air Corps fliers set an endurance record of 151 hours aloft in the Question Mark.

• January 27 — USS Saratoga carries out a successful simulated dawn raid on the Panama Canal in a training exercise.

February 1929

• February 1 — First flight of the Lublin R-X.

March 1929

• March 30 — Imperial Airways commences the first scheduled air service between England and India.

April 1929

• April 24-26 — Sqn Ldr A. G. Jones-Wiliams and Flt Lt N. H. Jenkins make the first non-stop flight from England to India using a Fairey Long-Range Monoplane.

May 1929

• May — The Bristol Bulldog enters service with No. 3 Squadron RAF.

June 1929

• June 11 — First flight of the Vickers Type 143.

July 1929

• July — First flight of the RWD-2.

• July 3 — Lt A. W. Gordon hooks a Vought VO-1 onto US Navy airship USS Los Angeles in successful parasite fighter experiments.

• July 4 — the Japanese aviator Masashi Goto crashes and is killed in Utah's Uinta Mountains in the beginning stages of an attempted flight around the world by crossing the continents of North America, Europe and Asia.

• July 7 — Transcontinental Air Transport commences a regular service transporting passengers right across the United States in 48 hours, using a combination of trains and aircraft for different legs of the journey.

• July 13 — The Polish aviator Ludwik Idzikowski crashes in the Azores and dies in an attempt of a westbound transatlantic flight.

• July 17 — Delta Air Lines started commercial airline operations.

• July 22 — Lufthansa uses a catapult to launch a Heinkel HE.12 mail plane from the passenger liner Bremen, 400 km (249 miles) out of New York, speeding the mail on its way before the ship reached port.

• July 29 — First flight of the Dornier Do.X.

August 1929

• August — First flight of the PZL P.1.

• August 4 — 16 — the first International Tourist Aircraft Contest Challenge 1929 in Paris, with 5,942 km race over Europe, won by the German crew of Fritz Morzik on the BFW M.23 plane.

• August 8-29 — Airship Graf Zeppelin makes a round-the-world flight, from and to Lakehurst, New Jersey.

September 1929

• September 6 — Schneider Trophy race flown at Calshot Spit, UK. Won by Flt. Off. Henry Waghorn in a Supermarine S.6 at 528.9 km/h (328.7 mph).

• September 9 — First flight of the De Havilland Puss Moth.

• September 11 — First flight of the Tupolev R-6.

• September 17 — First flight of the Adcox Student Prince.

• September 24 — Lt Jimmy Doolittle makes a completely blind take-off, flight, and landing.

• September 29 — Dieudonne Costes and Maurice Bellonte arrive in Manchuria in a Breguet 19, having set a new distance record of 7,905 km (4,912 miles) from Le Bourget, France.

October 1929

• October 2 — First flight of the Acme Sportsman.

• October 20 — The airfield at the Naval Air Station Glenview, located in Glenview, IL, was dedicated, and its hangar was deemed the largest in the world.

November 1929

• November 6 — First flight of the Junkers G.38.

• November 11 — Hawaiian Airlines, founded as Inter-Island Airways, commenced operations.

• November 26 — First flight of the Vickers Type 177.

• November 27-28 — Richard Evelyn Byrd and crew make the first flight over the South Pole in a Ford Trimotor.

December 1929

• December 28 — First flight of the Mitsubishi B2M.

Works Cited

1. Gunston, Bill, et al. Chronicle of Aviation. Liberty, Missouri: JL Publishing Inc., 1992. 14-17
2. Parrish, Wayne W. (Publisher). "United States Chronology". 1962 Aerospace Yearbook, Forty-Third Annual Edition. Washington, DC: American Aviation Publications, Inc., 1962, 446-469.
3. Wikipedia, 1929 in aviation
4. Shupek, John (photos and card images), The Skytamer Archive. Skytamer.com, Whittier, CA