World Aviation in 1911 - Part 2

Part 1

16 May
Delag passenger carrying Zeppelin LZ8 'Ersatz Deutschland' is destroyed in a docking accident, but there are no casualties.

21 May
French Minister of War Maurice Berteaux is killed and Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe is injured when a Train monoplane crashes in Paris at the start of the Paris-Madrid air race.

18 June
The Circuit of Europe air race starts in Paris.

21 June
Edouard Nieport flies at 87mph in his Nie-2N monoplane.

28 June
An English aviator, Tom Sopwith, makes the first charter flight, when hired by the firm Wanamaker's to deliver a pair of spectacles to Mr W.A. Burpee. Mr Burpee was a passenger on the liner Olympic, which had left New York harbour on a transatlantic voyage. Sopwith, flying his Howard Wright biplane overhauled the liner, then several miles out to sea, and dropped the carefully wrapped package onto the deck.

1 July
The first United States Navy (USN) aeroplane, a Curtiss A1 Triad hydro-aeroplane, is flown.

6 July
The Aerotechnical Institute of Saint-Cyr, France, opens in a building rented from Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe.

7 July
Lieutenant de Vaisseau Conneau wins the Circuit of Europe air race in a Blériot monoplane.

21 July
Whilst on a solo flight in a Farman, Denise Moore becomes the first woman to be killed in an aeroplane when she crashes at Chalons in France.

2 August
Harriet Quimby becomes the first American female pilot.

3 August
A Voisin biplane lands on the River Seine using the aircraft's amphibious landing gear.

8 September
Emmanuel Helen wins a Michelin cup at Etamples in France, covering 777 miles in 14 hours 4 minutes 40 seconds, with 3 stops.

15 September
Edouard Nieport dies after making an emergency landing during army manoeuvres in the Ardennes in France.

17 September
Calbraith P. Rodgers begins the first coast-to-coast flight across the USA, from New York to Pasadena, in a Burgess-Wright aeroplane. He completes the flight on 5 November.

19 September
The first airmail service in Italy starts between Bologna, Venice and Rimini.

23 September
The first official airmail flight in the USA is piloted by Earle L. Ovington in his Blériot monoplane, flying from Nassau Air Park to Mineola in Long Island. It is also the first airmail to fly on a set route.

25 September
Pole Scipio del Campo pilots the Cywinski and Zbieranski biplane on a flight for 12½ miles.

9 October
Eugene Ely, a Curtiss pilot, is killed in an air show at Macon in Georgia, USA.

10 October
Morane-Saulnier, an aircraft manufacturing company, is founded by Leon Morane and Louis Saulnier.

10 October
A new bombsight and dropping device designed by Riley E. Scott at College Park, USA, is tested by Lieutenant T.D. Milling at Maryland.

17 October
Zee Yee Lee becomes the first Chinese pilot to qualify for a Royal Aero Club certificate (No.148), flying a Bristol Boxkite on Salisbury Plain.

22 October
Capitano Carlo Piazza of the Italian Army becomes the first pilot to use an aeroplane in war. He flies a Blériot monoplane from Tripoli to Azzia, on a reconnaissance mission over Turkish forces, during the Italo-Turkish campaign in Libya.

25 October
Captain Tokugawa makes the first flight of the Japanese Kai-1 biplane, in Japan.

1 November
2nd Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti of the Italian Air Flotilla becomes the first aviator to drop bombs from an aeroplane in war when he drops Cipelli grenades on Turkish forces at Taguira Oasis and Ain Zara.

26 November
Charles Weymann pilots the Nieuport monoplane to win the military aviation trials at Reims in France.

Also this year...
The Romanian Aviation Group is formed at Chitila.

Part 1