Timeline of Strategic Aviation

Interwar Years

1919-1938

21 February 1919

Handley Page V/1500 Old Carthusian (J1936, 166 Squadron) - noteworthy as the first aircraft to fly from England to India - drops four 112 lb and 16 20 lb bombs over Kabul, Afghanistan while flying out of Risalpur, Pakistan.  This action plays a major role in ending the Third Afghan War.

Hoping to secure his tenuous grasp on the newly-won throne, King Amānullāh K. Barakzai I ordered an invasion of British India on 3 May 1919, declaring jihad in the hopes of rousing anti-British Islamists.  Amānullāh's timing was perfect.  The British Empire was deeply involved in the Russian Civil War and suffering from rebellions in Ireland and the Middle East.  Worse, the military was undergoing a drastic state of demobilization, with the RAF struggling to justify its existence in the midst of interservice bickering.  Colonial forces nevertheless managed to contain and repel the invasion with the aid of antiquated Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2s flying interdiction strikes.

While CG RAF India Brig Norman D. K. MacEwen previously approved the bombing of cities (namely Dakka, Jalabad, and Kabul), these raids were all miniscule in scale.  Regardless, this day's strike on Kabul - conducted by a single airplane - erupts the city into panic, with Amānullāh's concubines openly fleeing the palace grounds.  While airpower is by no means the sole deciding factor, Amānullāh's call for an armistice on 3 June cites his forces' inability to operate under British air supremacy.  Backed by British media publications like The New Statesmen, Amānullāh loudly decries the bombing of Kabul:

It is a matter of great regret that the throwing of bombs by Zeppelins on London was denounced as a most savage act, and the bombardment of places of worship and sacred spots was considered a most abominable operation, while now we see with our own eyes that such operations were a habit which is prevalent amongst all 'civilized' people of the West.

Regardless of these criticisms, the obvious success of airpower against Islamic insurrection has a marked effect on RAF policy in the coming years.

LCDR Albert C. Read and his crew of five, piloting Curtiss flying-boat NC-4, arrive in Plymouth, England after crossing the Atlantic Ocean out of New York, NY (30 days).  The crew of NC-4 are the first airmen to fly across the Atlantic.  The aircraft is a collaborative design by Glenn H. Curtiss and Lt John Cyril Porte, built in attempt to win the Daily Mail's 1913 prize of £10,000 for the first aircraft to cross the Atlantic.  Their efforts halted by the Great War, Curtiss built four flying-boats for the USN by drawing from Porte's successful Felixstowe F.2 design.  Unfortunately, the Daily Mail prize is altered after the war to demand a nonstop flight, which is outside the Curtiss flying-boat's capability.  The flight was launched regardless, establishing a string of resupply ships and bases across the Atlantic and earmarking four aircraft for the attempt.  The Curtiss flying boats are slow, heavy, and taxing on man and machine, and of the three launched, only one - NC-4 - actually completed the journey.  This achievement is quickly overshadowed by the first successful nonstop crossing two weeks later.

The Curtiss flying boat NC-4 is on display at the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, FL on indefinite loan from the Smithsonian Institution.

Capt John W. Alcock and Lt. Arthur W. Brown arrive in Clifden, Ireland after crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a modified Vickers Vimy out of St. John’s, NL (15 hrs, 58 mins).  They are the first airmen to cross the Atlantic nonstop.  In doing so, Alcock and Brown win a £10,000 prize (over 1.1 million ajdusted for inflation) offered by the Daily Mail in April of 1913.  British aircraft companies competed for this prize throughout the spring of 1919 but previous attempts by Short Brothers (18 April) and Sopwith Aviation (18 May) resulted in forced ditchings into the Atlantic.  Vickers Aircraft, the team supporting Alcock and Brown, had only one other competitor left, Handley Page, whose V/1500 was still undergoing maintenance when the Vickers aircraft departed.  Alcock and Brown are knighted for their achievement become national heroes, though Alcock is killed in an exhibition the following December.

Capt John W. Alcock and Lt. Arthur W. Brown's Vickers Vimy is currently on display in the London Science Museum in Great Britain.  The skin is removed from the port side of the aircraft to show its internal workings.

The AEF Superior Board on Organization and Tactics, chaired by CG Third Army MG Joseph T. Dickman, concludes on this date.  Convened on 27 April 1919 to study "lessons to be learned" from the Great War, the Dickman Board bases its findings on a series of minor boards, each representing a particular branch, with the "Superior" Board adding its own conclusions.  For the Aviation Section, this meant reports from CG Aviation Section MG Mason M. Patrick and a formal Aviation Board headed by BG Ben D. Foulois.  Regardless, the Dickman Board's conclusions are rather shortsighted:

The intimate association between the ground troops and the aerial units assisting or operating with them demands that these two elements be an integral part of the same command – and as a consequence, the corps and divisions must have Air units regularly assigned to them.  These units must move with them, and be considered just as much a part of the corps and division as the Infantry, Artillery and other arms. . . .  Nothing so far brought out in the war shows that Aerial activities can be carried on, independently of ground troops, to such an extent as to materially affect the conduct of the war as a whole.

This is violently contrasted when the American Aviation Mission submits its final report to Secretary of War Newton D. Baker, Jr. (D-OH) on 19 July.  Chaired by Assistant Secretary of War Benedict Crowell (D-OH), the mission conducted an extensive survey of Britain, France, and Italy, interviewing major figures in aviation.  Intended to modernize US aviation in the wake of its pitiful wartime performance, the War Department is thoroughly embarrassed by the report's conclusion calling for "[t]he concentration of the air activities of the United States, civilian, naval, and military, within the direction of a single governmental agency, created for the purpose coequal in importance and in representation with the Departments of the War, Navy, and of Commerce" - i.e., a Department of Aviation.  The implication of an independent aviation department results in not only written dissents from the mission's USN representative, CAPT Henry C. Mustin, but a public refutation from Baker himself:

The mission has in my judgment gone too far in suggesting a single centralized air service.  Army and Navy aviators are specialists in the art, both the airplanes and the pilots needed are of a different type from those needed in civil undertakings. . . a separation of the Air Service from the Army or the Navy would require coordination of their activities in time of war whereas effectiveness in military operation rests upon the concentration and singleness of authority, command, and purpose.

Mustin and Baker ask the mission's recommendation be set aside until the Joint Army/Navy Board on Aeronautics (a board designed to prevent wasteful spending by coordinating the services) is concluded.  Regardless, bills are produced by Rep. Charles F. Curry (R-CA) on 28 July and Sen. Harry S. New (R-IN) on 31 July calling for an independent air force.  As such, another board is convened under the same chairman, MG Charles T. Menoher, to opine on these bills.  Former CG 42nd Infantry Division, Menoher was appointed CG US Army Air Service upon its creation on 19 March 1919 (via executive order) in attempt to tie the service to the Army.  Naturally, no airmen are appointed to the Menoher Board and the resultant report is harsh in its condemnation of an independent air force:

The military and naval air forces should remain in integral parts of the Army and Navy and be completely under their respective controls both in peace and in war, no matter what may be the decision as to the establishment of a separate aeronautical department or agency. . . .  There should not be created any military air force independent of Army or Navy control.  

The Menoher Board is quick to dismiss the example of the RAF, ascribing its success to predecessors and noting how the British Army and Navy were now seeking its dissolution.  The board further argues that following European precedent is foolhardy, claiming that US success in the Great War was due to its refusal to train in trench warfare (actually a disastrous mistake).  With the war-of-words between Army aviators and the War and Navy Departments ever growing, the New and Curry Bills are never brought to a vote and both die in committee.  Attempting reconciliation, when the National Defense Act of 1920 formally recognizes the Air Service as a branch of the US Army (rather than as an adjutant) on 4 June 1920, and BG Billy L. Mitchell - the most outspoken advocate for an independent air force - is made XO under Menoher.  This arrangement does not go well.

Click here to read the Dickman Board's report on the AEF Aviation Section. 

Click here to read the Crowell Missions' report, and Mustin and Baker's dissents. 

Click here to read the New Bill (S 2693). 

Click here to read the Menoher Board's report on the New and Curry Bills.

The 643 ft RAF dirigible R-34, under the command of Maj George H. Scott, arrives in Minneola, NY after crossing the Atlantic Ocean out of East Fortune, Scotland (108 hrs).  The crew of the hydrogen-based Beardmore R-34 are the first airmen to cross the Atlantic nonstop from east to west and the first to cross the Atlantic via airship.  Upon arrival, Maj J. E. M. Pritchard parachutes from the dirigible, becoming the first European to arrive in the US via air (he is needed to instruct on handling the airship's landing).  Four days later, R-34 returns to England via a similar route.  R-34 is scrapped in 1921 when poor weather damages her beyond repair.

While R-34 no longer exists, a portion of her sister-ship, the forward-half of R-33's control car, is currently on display at the Royal Air Force Museum just outside of London.

The first flight of the Martin MB-2 takes place.  Using the experimental MB-1 as a basis, Glenn L. Martin was tasked with designing a bomber to replace the British Handley Page Type O and the Italian Caproni Ca. 3, establishing American independence from foreign manufacturers.  The MB-2 quickly becomes the mainstay of the USAAS under the designation NBS-1 (Night Bomber, Short-Range) – even though its range is quite long for the time – and some 130 NBS-1s are built before their retirement in 1929.  During their last year in service, NBS-1s are produced under contract by Curtiss Aeroplane & Motor (Glenn H. Curtiss) while Martin relocates its factory; these 13 aircraft are given the designation B-2 Condor.

While no Martin MB-2s currently survive, a replica is on display at the National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton, OH.

“Force Zed,” a RAF unit of 12 Airco DH.9s under Gp Capt Robert Gordon, bombs Medistie and the fortress of Jideli in British Somaliland.  The strike is part of a renewed attempt to pacify the Dervish Movement, an Islamist intifada that seeks to expel colonial/Christian influences and establish a fundamentalist Islamic state.  Led by S. Mohammed Abdullah Hassan - the so-called “Mad Mullah” - the rebellion raged continuously since 1899.  A tedious conflict, the British had conducted numerous joint operations with neighboring Ethiopia and long tried to extinguish the movement by pitting clan leaders against one another.  The Great War temporarily halted the conflict and Hassan had used the time to solidify his proto-state.

The use of airpower here is ingenious.  CNS Adm of the Fleet Lord David R. Beatty and CGS FM Sir Henry H. Wilson were relentless in their efforts to dismantle the newborn air force and CAS Air Mshl the Rt. Hon. Hugh M. Trenchard pleaded with Beatty and Wilson to forebear their critiques until the RAF was fully-established in a letter dated 17 November 1919, as well as a personal meeting the following month.  Beatty conceded, Wilson did not.  Salvation came with Colonial Secretary Lord Alfred Milner (LP), who turned to the RAF after the British Army estimated needing two divisions, operating under a £6 million budget, to put down the movement.  With the British government operating under the "10 Year Rule" - a defense budget based on a decade-long peace - Milner needed a cheap alternative.  It was here that Trenchard made his move, promising on 2 December to put down the movement at a fraction of the cost, securing Wilson's blessing by insisting that no new army units would be necessary to support RAF operations.

The bombing this day nearly kills Hassan and has a massive psychological effect on the Dervish movement.  Three more forts are destroyed over the next five days, and ground forces already in theater occupy Jideli on 28 January and Taleh (Hassan's home fortress) on 9 February.  Fleeing to the Ethiopian Ogaden with a mere four followers, Hassan dies of natural causes on 21 December 1920.  Despite historical disagreement over the actual extent of its influence, the popular impression is that airpower pacified British Somaliland in three weeks, at a cost of £77,000, securing regional peace for the next 20 years.

The battleship USS Indiana (BB-1) is scuttled near Tangier Island, VA after being bombed in a series of tests questioning the effectiveness of aircraft in the anti-shipping role.  Headed by LCDR Harold T. Bartlett, Naval aviators hoped the tests would justify the use of aircraft beyond mere fleet auxiliaries, being approved by Capt. William D. Leahy - head of Office of Target Practice and Engineering Performance - the previous year.  Beginning on 12 October 1920, practice bombs, weighing 50 lbs each and filled with sand, were dropped by a series of three-plane elements, scoring 10 hits out of the 102 dropped.  These tests were followed by detonations of live charges on the Indiana's deck and at various distances from the water line.

When called before the House Committee on Appropriations on 4 January 1921 to discuss funds for the Army Air Service, XO USAAS BG Billy L. Mitchell produces a photograph of the damaged Indiana (which should have been secret) stating that

[W]e can tell you definitely now that we can either destroy or sink any ship in existence today.  All we want to do is have you gentlemen watch us attack a battleship. . . . I cannot answer for [the Navy].  Their whole training is that the armored ship is the mistress of the men whereas, actually, it is just as helpless as the armored knight was when the firearm was brought against him.  

Despite a series of statements and reports from Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels (D-NC) and others over the "improbability of a modern battleship being either destroyed or completely put out of action by aerial bombs" (to quote Leahy), Mitchell's argument builds traction in the media.  Mitchell had long championed an independent air force on the rationale that aviation, to quote a 1919 Congressional address, could "carry the war to such an extent in the air as to almost make navies useless on the surface of the waters."  Postwar demobilization was cutting hard into the US military's budget and the Navy was already wary of the argument that battleships were responsible for the arms race prior to the Great War.  With nations already working out treaties to limit the size of their navies, Mitchell's encroachment into their area of responsibility is seen as a genuine, if bothersome, threat.

As part of Project B, USAAS bombers sink the captured German battleship SMS Ostfriesland off the coast of Cape Henry, VA.

The Navy Department's rebuttals against XO USAAS BG Billy L. Mitchell in regard to the USS Indiana (BB-1) accomplished nothing - as far as public opinion was concerned, the burden of proof was theirs.   Congressional resolutions passed by Rep. Daniel Read Anthony, Jr. (R-KS) on 31 January and Sen. Harry S. New (R-IN) on 9 February called for the Joint Army/Navy Board to authorize live-bombing tests.  Such tests were approved on 28 February but the Navy was unwilling to turn over the elderly USS Kentucky (BB-6), instead stalling until the USS Alabama (BB-8) was ready.  In the meantime, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels (D-NC) invited the Army to participate in a similar Navy exercise, supposedly telling his staff:

I don't want to hear any more about sinking battleships with air bombs.  That idea is so damned nonsensical and impossible that I'm willing to stand bareheaded on the bridge of a battleship while that nitwit tries to hit it from the air.

Secretary of War Newton D. Baker, Jr. (D-OH) dithered in his response, and it was not until the election of Pres. Warren G. Harding (R-OH) and the appointment of a new Secretary of War, John W. Weeks (R-MA), that the Army was given the go-ahead to participate.   The tests were overseen by CAPT Alfred W. Johnson, the senior naval airmen of the US Atlantic Fleet (ADM Henry Braid Wilson, Jr.), while the Army's detachment, the First Air Brigade (Provisional) - based at Langley Field, VA - were under Mitchell's personal command.

Project B began on 21 June, with three British-built Navy Felixstowe F5Ls sinking the captured German submarine U-117 with a single 164 lb bomb each.  On 29 June, project aircraft were to locate and practice bomb the radio-controlled USS Iowa (BB-4).  Located by Army blimps, the Iowa was "bombed" by 23 F5L and Curtiss NC flying boats, scoring few hits due their bombardiers misjudging the Iowa's speed.  Army bombers abstained from the Iowa exercise but finally participated on 13 July, bombing the captured German destroyer SMS G102.  The attack began with 11 Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5s dropping four 25 lb fragmentation bombs each, followed by 16 Airco DH.4s dropping 100 lb bombs, and 15 Martin MB-2s dropping six 300 lb bombs each.  The MB-2s proved effective, sinking the destroyer within 20 minutes of arriving.

On 18 July, an alternating series of attacks were directed against the captured German cruiser SMS Frankfurt, with inspection teams boarding the ship at regular intervals.  After ten strikes against the Frankfurt, she was finally destroyed by a pair 600 lb bombs dropped by Army bombers.  20 July saw a similar series of tests against the battleship SMS Ostfriesland, with Navy and Marine aircraft dropping 23 230 lb bombs and the Army dropping 11 600 lb bombs to little effect.  However, this day sees eight MB-2s and three British-built Handley Page Type Os follow recommendations made by Russian-born aircraft designer MAJ Alexander de Seversky, who called for them to drop their seven 2,000 lb bombs not on the deck but against the waterline.  The tactic works.  The Navy protests the sinking, noting that Mitchell was supposed to be limited to 1,000 lb bombs and had not allowed observers to inspect the ship between each pair of attacks.

Mitchell follows the success of Ostfreisland with a mock attack on 29 July against New York City with one Handley Page Type O, one Italian-built Caproni Ca-36, and 15 MB-2s.  The New York Times plays up the stunt on 30 July with the headline "New York City 'Wiped Out' in Big War Game."

The hydrogen-based Short Brothers dirigible ZR-2 crashes over Hull, England.  While the US Navy had hoped to procure Germany’s surviving Zeppelins at the end of the Great War, Luftschiffbau Zeppelin employees sabotaged the surviving airships before any could be taken intact.  As a result, the Navy instead purchased the airship R-38 from Great Britain, at it was still undergoing construction at war's end.  Unfortunately, the crash of R-38 - now renamed ZR-2 - is later found to be the result of structural failure, embarrassing the British Air Ministry.  (44 dead, 5 survivors)

Zeppelin, the recognized expert in the field of dirigibles, takes advantage of this incident by offering their services to the US.  In an ingenious move by CEO Hugo Eckener, Zeppelin is able to avoid bankruptcy and the stifling regulations of the Treaty of Versailles by partnering with Goodyear Tire & Rubber of Akron, OH.  Through Goodyear, Zeppelin secures a contract for the US Navy airship USS Los Angeles (ZR-3), which later proves to be the most successful dirigible to see US military service.

USAAS aircraft sink the target battleship USS Alabama (BB-8) near Chesapeake Bay, MD.  Unlike Project B, the bombing of the Alabama is strictly an Army affair.  Secretary of War John W. Weeks (R-MA) previously requested the Navy provide the Army with the battleship USS Kentucky (BB-6) but the Navy instead offered the hardier USS Alabama, ignoring requests that a ship be provided prior to Project B.  The Alabama is attacked in a variety of manners - smoke, incendiary, fragmentation, strafing, night attacks, etc. - before being sunk by three Martin MB-2s carrying a pair of 1,100 lb bombs each and four MB-2s carrying a single 2,000 lb bomb each.

The sinking of the Alabama brings a temporary reprieve to XO USAAS BG Billy L. Mitchell's publicity campaign against battleships.  The Joint Army/Navy Board produced its report on Project B on 18 August, with Mitchell submitting a dissent on 29 August.  Both reports are published by the media and Mitchell's report, which advocates a unified Department of Defense, is seen by many as an attack on CSA GEN John J. Pershing.  On 15 September - one day after Mitchell's report is published in the New York Times - Menoher resigns as CG USAAS.  He is replaced by the former CG Air Section, AEF MG Mason M. Patrick on 5 October.  When Mitchell threatens to resign after Patrick outlines his expectations, Patrick calls his bluff.  Mitchell backs down and is placed on an inspection tour of Europe.

Click here to read the Joint Board's Report on Project B. 

Click here to read BG Billy L. Mitchell’s Dissent on the Joint Board’s Project B Conclusions

American barnstormers Wesley May, Frank Hawks, and Earl Daugherty perform the world’s first in-flight refueling over Long Beach, CA.  Hawks, piloting a Lincoln Standard, flies alongside Daugherty, piloting a Curtiss Jenny, allowing Wes May to wing-walk across the two aircraft while carrying a five gal fuel tank on his back.

The hydrogen-based US Army dirigible Roma bursts into flames over Norfolk, VA after hitting city power lines.  The 410 ft semi-rigid airship is the product of the Italian Stabilimento Costruzioni Aeronautiche (Aeronautical Construction Factory), who sold the airship to the US in 1921 as part of a postwar push to build the US's dirigible fleet.  Semi-rigid airships had a long history of technical difficulties and it was hoped that the Roma, the largest semi-rigid ever constructed, could alleviate such concerns.  This crash is the largest aviation disaster in US history up to this point and the Roma is the last hydrogen-based airship to be used by the US military, with all future designs using nonflammable helium.  (34 dead, 11 survivors)

AVM Sir John M. Salmond is assigned CINC British Forces in Iraq, placing the responsibility of Mandatory Iraq’s military occupation in the hands of the RAF.

Secretary of State for the Colonies the Rt. Hon. Winston L. Spencer-Churchill (CP) originally proposed using airpower as a frugal means of policing the Middle East in 1919.  His “air scheme” was hotly debated in the years since, particularly in light of a massive revolt in Mesopotamia (Iraq) that broke out in 1920.  Churchill’s crisis management was masterful, installing puppet regimes in Palestine and Iraq on the recommendation of T. E. Lawrence, and securing Jewish settlements in the face of Islamic antisemitism.  With British support for Middle Eastern occupation at an all-time low, and the government ever-more looking to cut back its budget, the RAF is only able to continue justifying its existence by securing Iraq and protecting it from Turkish encroachment.

RAF strategy is simple.  Aircraft, operating in conjunction with armored cars on the ground, serve as a hammer to enforce British policy.  If a particular area engaged in rebellion or terrorism, aircraft would drop warning leaflets, and if the actions continued, the offending areas were strafed and bombed.  By the mid-1920s, the mere appearance of British aircraft is enough to bring about the surrender of tribes and settlements.

LT Harold R. Harris becomes the first pilot to successfully bail out of an aircraft using a free-fall parachute when his Loening PW-2 suffers structural failure over Dayton, OH.  The parachute is designed by Leslie L. Irvin, a parachutist daredevil who, following the Great War, worked with the USAAS to develop a parachute that could be standardized throughout the military.  Despite a spelling error that renders his company "Irving Air Chutes," Irvin’s designs see use throughout the world, even starting the famous “Caterpillar Club” wherein airman forced to bail out of their aircraft receive special badges and ID cards as souvenirs.  Irvin later oversees the development of sheepskin flight jackets for high-altitude flight, with Great Britain being the first to adopt them in 1932 and the US introducing its own variant, the B-3, shortly afterward.

The first flight of the Vickers Virginia takes place.  Based on the Vickers Vimy, which it is intended to replace, the Virginia is considerably larger than its predecessor.  While the aircraft is accident prone – 67% of all Virginias are lost in accidents – and quickly outdated, Virginias are routinely assigned to frontline units as late as 1938.  A fabric-covered aluminum-airframe, the Virginia is the RAF's principle heavy bomber from 1924 to 1934 and some 124 Virginias are built prior to their retirement in 1941.

LT John A. Macready and LT Oakley G. Kelly pilot the first nonstop transcontinental flight across the US (their third attempt at doing so), flying from Long Island, NY to San Diego, CA in a Fokker T-2.  Macready and Kelly are awarded the year's MacKay Trophy for this feat - their third such win.  (26 hrs, 50 mins)

LT John A. Macready and LT Oakley G. Kelly's Fokker T-2 is currently on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.

The first flight of the Boeing PW-9 takes place.  Using captured examples of the formidable Fokker D. VII as a pattern, the PW-9 (Pursuit, Water-Cooled) is Boeing's first original fighter design and is intended to replace the clumsy Thomas-Morse MB-3.  While the PW-9 easily outclasses its rival, the Curtiss P-1, both companies are awarded contracts because the latter had made a private agreement with XO USAAS BG Billy L. Mitchell.  The PW-9 is such a success that it is also adopted by the Navy and Marine Corps under the designation FB-1, serving as the primary US fighter aircraft from 1925 to 1931.  Some 158 Boeing PW-9s are produced before their retirement in 1934.

Of the two surviving Boeing PW-9/FBs, the most complete is probably 26-820 at the National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA

PM the Rt. Hon. Stanley Baldwin (CP) approves the findings of the Salisbury Committee (Lord James E. H. Gascoyne-Cecil, chair), which recommends Great Britain adaopt a home air defense strength of 52 squadrons - 35 bombardment (394 aircraft) and 17 fighter (204 aircraft).

Established under the short-lived PM the Rt. Hon. A. Bonar Law (CP) administration, the Salisbury Committee reopened the question of keeping an independent air force.  Originally, the committee was to look into RAF reports on the growth of French airpower, but the Admiralty and War Office used the issue to question the existence of the RAF altogether.  The morality of "bombing women and children . . . [to] gain the acquiescence of the fathers and husbands" (to quote Sir Laming Worthington-Evans's 1921 critique) was questioned, as was the degree to which France could be considered a potential foe.  Reports on French airpower since 1921 noted lopsided ratios as high as 126:7 and 47:3, and with the Washington Naval Treaty being drafted at this time, the fact that there existed no arms treaty governing air strength was used by airmen to justify a renewed air defense program.

One argument in the RAF's favor was the dramatic success of the "air scheme" in the Middle East.  On 17 May, British forces occupied Sulaymaniyah after puppet governor Sheikh Mahmud Barzanji declared himself "King of Kurdistan."  Mahumd was removed from power with great efficiency, doing so while still keeping the region secure from Turkish incursion.  Likewise, the potential of another European war became serious on 11 January 1923 when France and Belgium occupied Germany’s Ruhr Valley, taking the area because of Germany's default on war reparations.  With the War Office and Admiralty unable to articulate how they would better handle air defense, the Salisbury Committee recommends the RAF be retained and its modest defense scheme implemented.  Despite this success, attacks on the RAF continue, reviving the question of service independence with the Colwyn Committee in 1925 (Lord Frederick H. Smith, chair), claiming the RAF was redundant before a committee designed to cut defense spending.  When the Colywn Committee’s findings (23 December 1925) echo that of Salisbury, Baldwin, in a speech to the House of Commons on 25 February 1926, demands that all discussion of disbanding the RAF henceforth cease.

The 35:17 bomber versus fighter ratio is noteworthy.  CAS Air Mshl the Rt. Hon. Hugh M. Trenchard viewed airpower as an inherently offensive weapon, often using football as an analogy to war - i.e., you cannot win if you only play defense.  As such, Trenchard advocated a strategy that opened with fighter aircraft in decisive battle, followed by a bombing campaign determined by whichever power projected its power the fastest.   By no means a skilled orator, Trenchard usually left discussions of RAF doctrine to subordinates he called "English merchants."  Regardless, in a speech given on 13 April 1923, Trenchard described RAF doctrine thusly:

[I]n the next great war with a European nation the forces engaged must first fight for air superiority and when that has been gained they will use their power to destroy the morale of the Nation and vitally damage the organized armaments for supplies for the Armies and Navies. . . . if we could bomb the enemy more intensely and more continually than he could bomb us the result might be an early offer of peace. 

It is important to note that this is not an argument for winning war through bombardment alone.  Rather, Trenchard advocated a strategy where, upon achieving air superiority, the RAF would bomb the enemy's industry to reduce morale, creating conditions favorable to forces on land and sea - a sort of psychological supremacy.

LT Lowell H. Smith and 1LT John P. Richter receive the first air-to-air refueling from a tanker aircraft (an Airco DH.4) while piloting another DH.4 above San Diego, CA.  On 28 August, they use this technique to break Macready and Kelly’s endurance record.  (37 hrs, 15 mins)

On 23 October 1923, Smith and Richter use this technique to fly across the US from Canada to Mexico.  They receive three aerial refuelings before reaching Tijuana.  (12 hrs)

The first flight of the Wittemann-Lewis XNBL-1 takes place.  Designed by Walter H. Barling, a former engineer for the Royal Aircraft Establishment, the bomber was based on a call from XO USAAS BG Billy L. Mitchell for an aircraft capable of sinking battleships without special modification (as was done to the MB-1s in Project B).  This required an emulation of Germany’s wartime Riesenflugzeuge (Giant Aircraft) program, resulting in a bomber that, even by modern standards, is massive in size.  Unfortunately, the contract requires the bomber be powered by surplus Liberty engines, leaving the six-engine bomber too underpowered to even fly over the Appalachian Mountains.  Outclassed by bombers already in service, “Mitchell’s folly” as it is soon called, is placed in storage until purposely burned in 1930.

Two of the Barling bomber's tires are currently on display at the National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton, OH.

The first flight of the dirigible USS Shenandoah (ZR-1) takes place.  The 680 ft Shenandoah is the US Navy’s first domestic-built dirigible and, with the United States having a virtual monopoly on the commodity, is also the first dirigible to use helium as its lifting agent (which is not combustible).  RADM William A. Moffett, chairman of the Navy's Bureau of Aviation, champions the use of dirigibles as fleet scouts, and the Shenandoah spends much of 1924 taking part in training exercises.

USAAS Martin MB-2s, flying out Langley, VA, bomb the target battleships USS Virginia (BB-13) and USS New Jersey (BB-16), sinking them off the coast of Diamond Shoals, NC.  The Army transport USAT St. Mihiel observes the exercise.

MG Mason M. Patrick assumed command of the USAAS with surprising vigor, earning his pilot’s license at the age of 59 and pushing for small advances toward independence.  Patrick managed to curtail the outspokenness of his XO, BG Billy L. Mitchell, by regularly placing him on special assignment.  These assignments included attending the Washington Naval Conference (12 November 1921 - 6 February 1922) - a series of arms limitation agreements which sought to reduce the size of the world's navies.  The Virginia and New Jersey were decommissioned just prior to the conference and in lieu of scrapping, the USAAS requested them for further target exercises.

These exercises were originally intended to disprove Navy criticisms from the bombing of the Ostfriesland and Alabama (BB-8).  As such, the battleships were to simulate combat conditions by being remote-controlled and sailed at full-steam, with their magazines completely stocked.  Unsurprisingly, the Navy refused to outfit the battleships in said manner.  While the exercise goes well, CSA GEN John J. Pershing nevertheless stymies press releases.  In truth, Mitchell had by now proven his point.  These demonstrations, along with the limitations imposed at the Washington Naval Conference, convinced the Navy on 1 July 1922 to order the cruisers Saratoga and Lexington (still under construction) be finished as dedicated aircraft carriers.

On 11 October, Mitchell marries his second wife and Patrick uses the occasion to place Mitchell on another assignment, coupling the honeymoon with an inspection tour of Hawaiʻi and East Asia.  Mitchell returns in 1924 with a report that predicts a future war with Japan, going so far as to say it will open with a sneak-attack on Pearl Harbor on a Sunday morning.  Not foreseeing the eventual rise of aircraft carriers, Mitchell predicts submarines will transport land-based aircraft to the islands of Midway and Niʻihau.  Aside from this misstep, Mitchell's report is startlingly accurate in its predictions.

Piloting an Airco DH.4 over San Antonio, TX, 1LT Paul T. Wagner is killed attempting to refuel while still in flight.  Performing for the Army Relief Fund Air Carnival at Kelly Field, the hose of the tanker aircraft becomes caught in the propeller of the receiver aircraft (piloted by 1LT Walter R. Peck).  The force shears the hose and breaks off the tanker's right wing, killing Wagner.  Wagner is 33 years old.  US experiments with in-flight refueling are brought to a temporary halt in the wake of this tragedy.

1LT Russell L. Maughan pilots a Curtiss P-1 from Long Island, NY to San Francisco, CA in 20 hrs, 48 mins (his third attempt at doing so).  The flight is the brainchild of XO USAAS BG Billy L. Mitchell, who awarded Curtiss a contract for the P-1 (which lost its trials against the Boeing PW-9) in exchange for the publicity of a “dawn-to-dusk” flight.  The angle is that the flight is not only made in a single day, but that it crosses timezones so fast that its participants both land and take off during daylight hours.  The P-1 (PW-8) is a development of the Curtiss CR racer, which won the 1921 and 1922 Pulitzer Trophy and set world speed records with Mitchell (224 mph) and Maughan (236 mph) in 1922 and 1923, respectively.  It is worth noting that the P-1 is the first fighter aircraft to be standard equipped with an external, jettisonable fuel tank (a 'droptank').  Some 202 P-1s are produced – including its P-2, P-3, P-5, and P-6 variants (all differing little beyond new engines) – prior to retirement in 1937.

The sole surviving Curtiss Hawk, P-6E 32-261, is on display at the National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton, OH on indefinite loan from the Smithsonian Institution.

A flight of four modified Douglas DTs, commanded by MAJ Frederick Martin and LT Lowell H. Smith, complete the first world aerial circumnavigation.  As with Curtiss Aircraft and the first transcontinental flight, the USAAS had Douglas Aircraft oversee preparations for a circumnavigational flight.  Douglas complied by altering their Navy DT torpedo bomber, increasing its fuel complement from 115 gal to 644 gal under the direction of engineer Jack K. Northrop.  One of the more interesting modifications called for the aircraft to have interchangeable fittings for wheels and floats, depending on need.  Four were produced for the flight, with enough spare parts to outfit an additional two aircraft.  Christened the Boston, Chicago, New Orleans, and Seattle, the aircraft departed Sand Point, WA on 6 April 1924.  Despite five engine and two wing changes, Seattle and Boston crashed during the flight, and a third aircraft (Boston II) was later assembled to join the other two.  Regardless, the flight is a media success and establishes Douglas as a major aircraft company.  (175 days)

The Douglas DT Chicago is currently on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.  Likewise, New Orleans is currently on display at the Museum of Flying in Santa Monica, CA.

The first flight of the Fokker Trimotor takes place.  Arguably the first truly successful mass-produced airliner, the Trimotor is designed by Anton H. G. Fokker to win the Edsel B. Ford Reliability Trophy at the 1925 National Air Tour.  The product of a partnership between Henry Ford and aircraft producer William B. Stout, the Ford Reliability Tour seeks to promote its Stout Pullman airliner by staging a contest based over aircraft safety.  Fokker's response was to alter his F.VII design into a trimotor format, allowing the aircraft to continue flight in the event of an emergency engine shutdown.  Because of this feature, the Fokker Trimotor wins the 1925 Edsel B. Ford Trophy and quickly dominates the airline industry in the 1920s.  Two years later Ford and Stout introduce a new design obviously based on Fokker's Trimotor, resulting in a bitter lawsuit (which is only upheld in Europe).  Some 325 Fokker Trimotors are built prior to their retirement in 1932 following the crash of TWA Flight 599 on 31 March 1931.

BG Billy L. Mitchell's term as XO USAAS expires and Mitchell's rank reverts to COL, being assigned Air Officer, VIII Corps at Ft. Sam Houston near San Antonio, TX.  Mitchell is replaced by BG James E. Fechet.  Mitchell's command ambition was no secret and this 'demotion' is in response to inflammatory remarks made before the Lampert Committee, angering Secretary of War John W. Weeks (R-MA).

Upon assuming command of the USAAS, MG Mason M. Patrick was shocked at the "alarming condition" of US military aviation, submitting to Weeks recommendations for improvement on 7 February 1923.  In response to this, Weeks convened a board under MG William Lassiter to review Patrick's arguments.  Reporting their findings on 17 March, the board concluded that Patrick's recommendations were justified, echoing his calls for a 10-year reform program and moving control of combat aviation (i.e., non-observation units) from field command to theater command - a so called "General Headquarters" air force.  However, the Republican-majority Congress of the postwar years was vicious in its attempt to cut government spending, particularly under Pres. J. Calvin Coolidge, Jr. (R-VT), who assumed office after the death of Warren G. Harding (R-OH) on 2 August.  War Department Project 4 - the USAAS reform program - was ultimately doomed, as military spending was forced to adhere to the bare minimum called for in the National Security Act of 1920.  Anticipating this issue, the Lassiter Board recommended the Navy partner in Patrick's reform program, but Secretary of the Navy Curtis D. Wilbur (R-CA) balked at the 60-40 ratio favoring the Army.

Because of its growing controversy, the subject of USAAS reform and the Lassiter Board's endorsement thereof was attached to an investigation chaired by Florian Lampert (R-WI) which opened on 4 October 1924.  The Lampert Committee was originally intended to investigate claims by manufacturer James V. Martin that there existed an aircraft monopoly under the Manufacturer's Aircraft Association.  Martin was angry that one of his prototypes was scrapped after an engine failure, and the recent "Barling bomber" fiasco (the Wittemann-Lewis XNBL-1) certainly did not reflect well on Army procurement practices.  Mitchell - recently returned from his Pacific inspection tour - was among those called to testify on the subject of reform and was characteristically inflammatory, criticizing those he felt responsible for not carrying through Project 4.  Failing to substantiate his hyperbole when confronted, Weeks put Mitchell into 'exile.'

Click here to read the Lassiter Board's report on Air Service Reorganization. 

Click here to read the Lampert Committee of Inquiry's report on US Air Services Operations.

The USS Shenandoah (ZR-1) crashes in a storm near Caldwell, OH while flying a goodwill tour across the US (14 dead, 29 survivors).  The flight was protested by the airship's CO, LCDR Zachary Landsdowne, on account of the poor weather that was typical at this time of year over the Midwest - a fact later revealed to the press by Landsdowne's widow.  This disaster comes immediately on the heels of another publicity nightmare, when CDR John Rogers and his crew disappeared attempting to fly Naval Aircraft Factory PN-9 - a US variant of the Felixstowe F.5 - from CA to HI on 1 September.  Though Rogers and his crew are rescued by the submarine USS R-4 (SS-81) on 10 September, the flight's failure is an embarrassment in light of the recent success of the Army circumnavigation flight.  While these events result in a greater respect for meteorology, they also raise serious questions about the Navy and War Departments' understanding of military aviation.

When Secretary of the Navy Curtis D. Wilbur (R-CA) uses these failures as proof "that the Atlantic and Pacific are still our best defenses,” COL Billy Mitchell lashes out in the press against the "incompetency, criminal negligence and almost treasonable administration of the national defense by the War and Navy departments."  Overstepping the boundaries of acceptability, Mitchell's writings result in a highly-publicized court-martial which begins on 28 October.

COL Billy Mitchell is sentenced to five years suspension without pay after a lengthy court-martial (7 weeks, 2 days) convicts him of insubordination.  This court-martial is made under the recommendation of Pres. J. Calvin Coolidge, Jr. (R-VT) and is launched under the auspices of the US 96th Article of War, a 1917 catch-all passed against "all conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the military service."

Frank R. Reid (R-IL), who is at this time still a member of the Lampert Committee, serves as Mitchell's counsel and argues that said article is unconstitutional due to it violating Mitchell's right to free speech.  Despite a media circus that makes this one of the most heavily publicized trials of the 20th century, as well as Reid's spirited defense (he succeeds in having three of the thirteen judges removed on account of bias), Mitchell's arguments regarding airpower are deemed immaterial to the issue of insubordination.  Rather than accept the verdict, Mitchell resigns his commission.

Concurrent with trial, Coolidge appoints close-friend Dwight M. Morrow (R-NJ) to head an investigative board on 12 September to "look into the subject of airplanes" and preempt any potential scandal that might result from the court-martial and Lampert Committee.  Having completed its findings on 30 November (two weeks before the Lampert Committee), the Morrow Board succeeds in its goals.  The board completely rejects arguments airmen had trumpeted throughout the 1920s, such as unification of the Army and Navy air arms and replacing the Airco DH. 4.  Naturally, the concept of an independent air force with a strategic mission of its own is also dismissed:

Wars against high-spirited peoples never will be ended by sudden attacks upon important nerve centers such as manufacturing plants . . . .  The last war taught us again that man can not make a machine stronger than the spirit of man.  The real road to peace rests not upon more elaborate preparations to impress wills but rather upon a more earnest disposition to accommodate wills.  

Surprisingly, the Morrow Board also rejects a proposal from CG USAAS MG Mason M. Patrick to create a semi-autonomous Air Corps within the Army, similar to the Marine Corps in its relation to the Navy.  However, as a sort of balm to "avoid confusion of nomenclature," the board recommends creating an "Assistant Secretary of War for Air" and simply renaming the Air Service the "Air Corps" with the formal distinction in command.  These recommendations are made law on 2 July 1926, with F. Trubee Davison (R-NY), a former naval aviator, being the first to hold said office.

Click here to read the Report of the President's Aircraft Board (Morrow Board).

The first flight of the Ford Trimotor takes place.  Designed by William B. Stout of the Stout Metal Airplane Co., Stout first courted investment from Henry Ford in 1923 by writing: “For your one thousand dollars you will get one definite promise: you will never get your money back.”  It worked.  By 1925 Ford owned Stout’s company, overseeing production of the Ford Trimotor (after the failure of the Stout Pullman) and promoting it as the safest aircraft of the era due to its all-metal construction.  The airliner is indeed rugged and proves easy to maintain and fly, though an attempt to export the model to Europe results in copyright lawsuits that reveal its design origins in the Fokker Trimotor.  Ford’s interest in aviation wanes in the early-1930s with the advent of superior competition and the untimely death of Ford's favored private pilot, Harry J. Brooks.  Regardless, Ford’s investment in Stout results in many new aspects of aviation infrastructure, as Ford oversees the development of airports, hangars, airmail, and radio navigation throughout the US.

Owing to its rugged design, there are currently more airworthy Ford Trimotors than there are static displays.  The oldest of these airworthy survivors is 4-AT-B N1077, currently on display at the Goden Wings Flying Museum in Blaine, MN.  N1077 is the tenth Trimotor built, having come off the factory line in 1927.

Charles A. Lindbergh arrives in Paris, France after crossing the Atlantic Ocean in the custom-built Spirit of St. Louis out of New York, NY (33 hrs, 30 mins); he is the first airman to solo an Atlantic crossing nonstop.  In doing so, Lindbergh wins a $25,000 ($346,318 adjusted for inflation) reward offered by New York hotel tycoon Raymond Orteig on 22 May 1919.  Six airmen were killed attempting to claim the Paris/New York prize prior to Lindbergh’s success.

The Spirit of St. Louis is currently on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.

The prototype Keystone LB-5 Pirate explodes shortly after the right engine throws its propeller, soaking the airplane in shrapnel and gasoline.  Designed by the Huff-Daland Aero Corp. (later Keystone Aircraft), the bomber is intended to replace the Martin MB-2 and aged Airco DH.4, the latter of which was subjected to heated debate during BG Billy Mitchell’s court-martial.  Submitting to an Army demand that all future bomber aircraft be multi-engined, Keystone altered its previous designs to suit.  The reliability of the LB-5 (such as its ability to fly for a limited period on a single engine) was a major selling-point in this otherwise unimpressive design and Keystone found themselves building upon the LB-5 with the LB-6/LB-7 Panther despite the accident.  A new designation system, introduced in 1930, sees these Keystone bombers designated B-1, with dual-tail versions (rather than triple) being designated B-3.  For the next ten years, the B-3 and its variants – the B-4, B-5, and B-6 (all differing little beyond new engines) – serve as the mainstay of the USAAC.  Some 200 Keystone bombers are produced prior to their retirement in 1940.

No Keystone bombers are still in existence.

1LT Lester J. Maitland and 1LT Albert F. Hegenberger arrive in Wahiawā, HI after crossing the Pacific Ocean in the modified Fokker Trimotor Bird of Paradise out of San Francisco, CA (25 hrs, 50 mins).  Originally conceived by former XO USAAS BG Billy Mitchell as a way to promote the USAAC’s ability to defend the US and its protectorates, preparations for the flight had been underway since 1919.  Hegenberger was an engineering graduate of MIT and as such, worked to develop an early form of instrument navigation, successfully navigating an Airco DH.4 from Dayton, OH to Boston, MA on 6 September 1923 on instruments alone.  Since Bird of Paradise's flight was almost entirely over water, the exercise serves as the ultimate test of such equipment.  While the two men are awarded the year’s MacKay Trophy for their feat, they are overshadowed in the media by Charles A. Lindbergh’s flight the previous month.

The Junkers W.33 Bremen (D1167) arrives in Greenly Island, Canada after being the first heavier-than-air aircraft to cross the Atlantic Ocean east-to-west nonstop.  Crewed by Hermann Köhl, Ehrenfried G. Freiherr von Hünefeld, and Capt James M. C. Fitzmaurice, the flight was intended to fly from Dublin, Ireland to Long Island, NY but poor weather forced them to turn northwards.  Landing on a frozen reservoir, the crew of the sinking aircraft calls for US Army aircraft to retrieve the airplane and crew.  The crew is eventually picked up, with the aircraft later repaired, but a series of embarrassing USAAC mishaps in regard to inclement weather and low fuel reignites interest in in-flight refueling after the debacle.  (36 hrs)

The Junkers W.33 Bremen is currently on display in the banquet hall of the Bremen Airport in Germany, being on indefinite loan from the Henry Ford Museum.

CPT Charles E. K. Smith and Charles T. P. Ulm arrive in Brisbane, Australia after crossing the Pacific Ocean in the Fokker Trimotor Southern Cross out of Oakland, CA (10 days).  Carrying a crew of four, the aircraft is fitted with a propeller-driven generator powering four transmitters and three receivers, allowing the crew to keep in contact with the surface throughout the flight.  The crossing has a massive impact in popularizing radio-navigation and Smith is later knighted for this feat; he later disappears in 1935 attempting to fly from Australia to Great Britain.

The Fokker Trimotor Southern Cross is currently on display as part of a special memorial at the Brisbane Airport in Queensland, Australia.

The first flight of the Boeing P-12 takes place.  The US Navy had shown a marked preference for air-cooled radial engines, ordering from Boeing redesigned PW-9s under the designations F2B/F3B.  As such, the P-12 is designed to use the same engine as the F2B/F3B - the Pratt & Whitney R-1340 - mounted on a smaller and lighter airframe.  This proves to be a vast improvement, so much so that the design is ordered for Army service as well.  In the end, the P-12 becomes the most heavily produced American fighter of the Interwar period.  Some 366 P-12s are built before their retirement in 1934.

Of the six surviving Boeing P-12/F4B-4s, the most complete is probably 31-559 at the National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton, OH.

The Fokker Trimotor Question Mark lands after being aloft for 150 hrs, 40 mins over Los Angeles, CA.  Commanded by MAJ Carl A. Spaatz, the five-man crew (including future aviation luminaries Ira C. Eaker, Elwood R. Quesada, and Harry E. Halverson) were to use in-flight refueling as a means of staying airborne indefinitely.  The name Question Mark was intended as a joke, the idea being that the project was to continue until the airplane could no longer fly – which in fact, it eventually did, landing only after the left engine failed due to mechanical fatigue.

The hydrogen-based dirigible Graf Zeppelin (LZ 127) lands at Lakehurst, NJ after having circumnavigated the earth (12 days, 11 hrs).  The brainchild of company CEO Hugo Eckener and newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, the flight produces a series of firsts, including the first circumnavigation by airship, the first nonstop flight across the Pacific, the fastest circumnavigation yet accomplished, and the first woman to fly a circumnavigation (passenger Lady Grace M. L. Drummond-Hay).  The publicity rekindles public interest in dirigibles and the Graf Zeppelin conducts several more publicity flights over the next eight years.

Eckener emerges during this period as perhaps the single most powerful man in the aviation industry.  A rare example of a German business booming in the Interwar years, the Zeppelin brand becomes synonymous with luxury and safety - the latter always being Eckener's primary goal.  In 1932 he declines an offer to run for president, instead endorsing Paul L. H. A. Von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg for a second term.  Eckener's hostility to the Nazi party leaves him blacklisted by the German media and, shortly after Hindenburg's death in 1934, the Zeppelin company is nationalized by the German government.  As a result, Zeppelin airships are immediately drafted into propaganda flights, suffering a marked drop in safety standards.

1LT Jimmy H. Doolittle pilots a Consolidated NY at Mitchel Field in New York, NY, taking off, circling, and landing while completely shrouded inside the cockpit.  2LT Ben S. Kelsey accompanies Doolittle as a safety precaution, holding his hands aloft so observers can note that Doolittle was at the controls.  Several flights are made to prove the effectiveness of “instrument flying” and Doolittle is later awarded the Harmon Trophy for this feat.

Doolittle’s record-breaking flight is conducted via the Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics, financed by mining magnate Daniel Guggenheim.  Doolittle, an Army reservist, earned the world’s first doctorate in aeronautics in 1925 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and set up a research facility with professor William G. Brown shortly thereafter.  Starting with instruments developed by COL William C. Ocker and Sperry Gyroscope such as turn-and-bank indicators, Doolittle oversees the further development and standardization of directional gyros and artificial horizons.

The US stock market begins to crash in what is now known as “Black Thursday.”  Following the arrest of Clarence C. Hatry and three others on account of fraud and forgery in Great Britain, the subsequent London stock market crash of 20 September 1929 greatly destabilized the US market.  Vain attempts to thwart a recession in the US persist throughout the week, with the market finally bottoming out on 29 October due to an abhorrent lack of action from the Federal Reserve.  Socialist government programs (intended to alleviate the recession's effects) throughout the following decade only impede economic recovery and the stock market does not return to its peak closing until 23 November 1954.

The effects of the stock market crash and the subsequent Great Depression cannot be overstated in regard to their impact on military aviation development.

The first flight of the Handley Page Heyford takes place.  A novel design wherein the fuselage is mounted to the top wing, high above the bottom wing, the Heyford is intended to replace the Vickers Virginia as part of the RAF's expansion in the 1930s.  The Heyford’s competitor, the Fairey Hendon, is a far more advanced design, being an all-metal monoplane.  However, the crash of the Hendon prototype in 1931 delays service trials, with Fairey Aviation's sluggishness after the disaster allowing Handley Page Aircraft to win the contract instead.  By the time Fairey Aviation is ready to mass-produce the Hendon in 1936, both the Hendon and Heyford are obsolete, with some 125 Heyford seeing active service.

No examples of either the Handley Page Heyford or Fairey Hendon are still in existence.

The 777 ft British hydrogen-based dirigible R101 crashes near Allonne, France on its maiden flight to Karachi, India (modern Pakistan).  R101 and its sister R100 are the product of the Imperial Airship Scheme, a program to provide aerial passenger and mail service throughout the British Empire.  The election of PM the Rt. Hon. J. Ramsay MacDonald (LP) in 1929 resulted in a highly publicized competition wherein the two airships were designed and constructed under opposite schemes: R100 was a private venture by Vickers Aircraft while R101 was a government one overseen by the Air Ministry.  Despite being the more modern design, R101 is completed first, its construction being overseen by Lt-Col Vincent C. Richmond and making its first flight on 14 October 1929.  R100, by contrast, is more traditional, its design being overseen by Barnes N. Wallis and making its first flight on 16 December 1929.  Suffering from engine problems and caught in a heavy rainstorm, R101's journey to Karachi was problematic from the very beginning.  This horrific disaster destroys political support for government spending on dirigibles and the entire program is cancelled, with R100 being scrapped the following year.  (48 dead, 6 survivors)

CSA MG Douglas MacArthur and CNO ADM William V. Pratt clarify the Joint Army/Navy Board’s 1926 guidelines for service responsibilities by giving land-based USAAC bombers the job of coastal defense.

Despite the creation of an Assist Secretary of War for Air, the Army had been lax in its efforts to expand the Air Corps.  Aviation was a drain to the Army’s budget, but with the Washington Naval Treaty in full effect, the Navy was more willing to experiment with its air branch.  Since the Navy Department had rejected CG USAAC MG Mason M. Patrick’s call for Army and Navy aviation to partner their budgets to avoid duplication, there was a growing possibility that the Navy might completely take over the role of coastal defense.  This was a legitimate concern as the Navy's budget called for its shore-based complement to grow from 334 aircraft in 1927 to 583 over the next five years.  Sensing that the issue gave credence to the Lassiter Board's call for a Department of Defense, the Army tenaciously fought against this encroachment.

The 1926 Joint Army/Navy Board had attempted solve the question of coastal defense by limiting Navy shore-based aircraft to "those primarily designed and ordinarily used for scouting and patrolling." The problem however was interpretation – the Navy argued that its aircraft were multipurpose, allowing them to classify torpedo bombers, for example, as scouts.

For the price of one Navy long-range patrol plane the Army calculated it could buy three pursuit planes, or three attack planes, or one and one-half bombers. With the costs of the Army Air Corps five-year plan cutting deeply into budgets of other branches of the Army, it appeared to Army leaders that the Navy should either find a more important Navy need for the money. . . or allow funds to be diverted to the Army Air Corps five-year program.  (Tate, 1998)

Years of board meetings and even a Congressional intervention had come to nothing as the various parties involved could never elucidate a clear answer.  As such, the agreement reached by MacArthur and Pratt – both newly-appointed – is a welcome relief.  Pratt was eager to bring the issue to a conclusion, if only because Secretary of the Navy Charles Francis Adams III (R-MA) and Pres. Herbert C. Hoover (R-CA) disliked one another and Pratt wanted to avoid Hoover's involvement.  The USAAC takes up the mantle of coastal defense with evangelical zeal, using the mission as a means of expanding its bomber complement.  By contrast, the Navy is not a fan of the agreement, and its terms are quickly repudiated after Pratt’s retirement in 1934.

Click here to read the MacArthur-Pratt Agreement.

TWA Flight 599 from Kansas City, MO to Los Angeles, CA, a Fokker Trimotor, crashes in a field on the first leg of its flight to Wichita, KS (8 killed).  The crash ignites a firestorm of media attention as one of the passengers is Knute K. Rockne of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, recognized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s as the football coach with the highest winning percentage in history (a record that still stands).  Investigation into the crash reveals that it was caused by moisture breaking apart the wood laminate in the wings.  The US Department of Commerce immediately grounds all Fokker Trimotors, eventually passing legislation requiring greater maintenance standards.  The long-term effects of this event sees a greater expectation from the American people in regard to the government’s role in aviation safety, the near bankruptcy of TWA, and the rapid growth of all-metal monoplane aircraft designs.

The first flight of the Boeing B-9 Death Angel takes place.  Developed from the experimental Boeing 200 Monomail, the privately funded B-9 is the first all-metal monoplane bomber designed for the USAAC.  The bomber proves equal to the Boeing P-12 and frighteningly close to the Curtiss P-6 in speed, and exercises conducted the following year find the bomber almost impossible for US fighters to intercept.  Only seven B-9s are built as the USAAC finds preference in the Martin B-10 the following year, with the B-9 being retired on 26 April 1935.

No Boeing B-9s remain in existence.

The US Air Corps Tactical School (ACTS) formally relocates from Langley Field, VA to Maxwell Field, AL.

Originally formed in 1920 following the Armed Forces Reorganization Act (which formally recognized the Air Service as a ‘combatant arm’), the school is intended to teach the specialized air roles developed in the Great War.  Following the court-martial of BG Billy L. Mitchell in 1925, the school’s curriculum became increasingly dominated by bombardment – after all, strategic bombardment is the one subject which could justify an independent air arm.

The school’s Maxwell Field location is intimately associated with the ‘industrial web theory,’ a term coined by ACTS instructor MAJ Donald Wilson.  Said theory is influenced by the economic realities of the Great Depression, and a possibly apocryphal story claims it was inspired by a class being cancelled because the closing of a single factory, which denied a single part, had grounded its entire complement of aircraft.  The idea that a small part like a spring, once denied, could paralyze an enemy force, becomes the foundation of US airpower thinking in the Interwar years.

The theory’s logical extrapolation works thusly:

-if the goal is the destruction of specific targets, air strikes require the sort of precision only possible in daylight

-if operations are flown in daylight, it must be assumed that the bombers will be fired on by AAA, requiring higher altitudes for greater security

-while some amount of defensive armament is advisable, speed is the bomber's greatest asset; based on the early warning systems of the period, it is unlikely that a bomber force can be spotted, with its course accurately predicted and intercepted, before already on egress

-should the bombers be intercepted, they must be able to defend themselves when outside of fighter range, as the only way a fighter can carry as much fuel as a bomber would be to make it as large and ungainly as the bomber

-similarly, since fighters lack the range to stay with the bombers, it is unlikely the enemy's air force can be destroyed through combat attrition; as such, air supremacy must be attained through strategic paralysis of industries crucial to the enemy air effort

Fighter theorists bitterly resist the escort role pushed by the bombardment theorists, instead advocating combat air patrols akin to those of the Great War.  Both arguments would eventually be nullified with the large-scale development of radar early-warning systems.  Even with the onset of war in 1939 and realization of these new technologies, the theories formed at the ACTS provide a foundation for the US air offensives in the Second World War.

The ACTS is often criticized by historians for its ‘failure of imagination’ in regard to long-range escort.  This is unfair.  It should be remembered that, while external fuel tanks were developed in the 1930s, the idea of jettisoning them to enter combat was unthinkable in peacetime, particularly in the midst of economic recession.  More importantly, it is inaccurate to describe US strategic airpower thinking during the Interwar years as 'doctrine.'  There is a difference between ‘doctrine’ and 'theory,' as the former implies an official codification, complete with tactics, equipment, and exercises, which never occurred in the Interwar years.  Despite the ACTS adherence to the industrial web theory, no funding was officially granted to develop such a strategic bomber, no tactics were developed for interlocking formations, and little funding was granted to the development of bombsights, oxygen systems, and powered gun turrets.

Nine Keystone B-3A and B-5 bombers fail to locate the USS Mount Shasta (ID 1822) off the coat of NC in a highly publicized exercise designed to garner support for the USAAC’s new role in coastal defense.  Another attempt three days later also falters in bad weather, though the ship is eventually located and attacked with various lightweight bombs (as heavier bombs are unavailable).  The ship is sunk by the US Coast Guard.

The Navy immediately make public the Mount Shasta debacle, a fallout made worse by its timing.  Pres. Herbert C. Hoover (R-CA) was pressing hard for the military to cut its spending in the wake of recession, going so far as to send representatives to the upcoming 1932 Geneva Disarmament Conferences.  It is at this conference that members of the American delegation record CSA MG Douglas MacArthur call for the disillusion of military aviation altogether.  Naturally, this pushed the Air Corps - notably, the now retired Billy Mitchell - to favor Franklin D. Roosevelt (D-NY) for president in 1933, though this backfires when his administration cuts military spending far more than his predecessor.

Japanese forces guarding the Minamimanshū Tetsudō (South Manchuria Railway) outside of Běidàyíng, China - which had been granted to Japan in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) - stage an explosion that is later termed the "Mukden Incident."  The brainchild of Rikugun Taisa Seishirō Itagaki and Rikugun Chūsa Kanji Ishiwara, this false-flag event is intended to justify an invasion of northeastern China, using Manchuria as a "lifeline" for Japan's Depression economy.  Chinese resistance in the region crumbles on 27 February 1932, with the Japanese establishing a puppet state (Manchukuo) under former Qing emperor Puyi Aisin Gioro on 1 March.  The invasion is popular with the Japanese people, so much so that dissent is openly mocked.  On 15 May 1932, militarists assassinate Naikaku-sōri-daijin (Prime Minister) Inukai Tsuyoshi for failing to grant Manchukuo diplomatic recognition, though an attempt to murder Charlie Chaplin that night, who is visiting from the US, fails.

A 1932 investigation headed by the Rt. Hon. Lord Victor A. G. R. Bulwer-Lytton sees the League of Nations condemn Japan’s actions.  However, bound by debt and the 1921 Washington Naval Conference’s tacit allowance for Japanese hegemony in the region, the League does little more than protest.  The Japanese withdraw from the League on 27 March 1933 and abandon the Washington Naval Treaty in 1936.  For many, 18 September 1931 signifies the beginning of the Second World War.

Clyde E. Pangborn and Hugh Herndon, Jr. arrive in Wenatchee, WA after crossing the Pacific Ocean in the Bellanca CH-400 Miss Veedol out of Misawa, Japan (41 hrs, 13 mins).  Pangborn and Herndon are the first airmen to cross the Pacific nonstop, winning the $25,000 ($420,379 adjusted for inflation) prize offered by the Asahi Shimbun (Morning Sun Newspaper).  The flight is nearly thwarted when Japanese officials arrest the duo, confiscating their belongings on accusations of spying.  Pangborn and Herndon were released on a $1,000 bail on the condition they never return to Japan; it is later revealed that the Kokuryūkai (Black Dragon Society) had tried to foil the airmen in favor of a Japanese record attempt.

Miss Veedol is later sold to gynecologist Leon Martocci-Pisculli, renaming the aircraft American Nurse.  Pisculli hopes to set a record flying from New York to Rome, studying the relation between carbon monoxide and air fatigue (his pet theory for the loss of so-many record holder attempts).  Accompanied by pilot William Ulbrich, nurse Edna Newcomer, and a woodchuck named Tail Wind, American Nurse disappears over the North Atlantic on 13 September 1932.

While the wreckage of Miss Veedol/American Nurse remains missing, her original propeller is currently on display at the Wenatchee Valley Museum & Cultural Center in Wenatchee, WA.

The first flight of the Martin B-10 takes place.  Boasting an internal bombbay, retractable landing gear, engine cowlings, enclosed cockpit, and a Plexiglas-covered Scarff ring nose gun, the design is so revolutionary that the Glenn L. Martin Company wins the 1932 Collier Trophy.  Even in performance the bomber supersedes expectations, being easily faster than the mainstays of the USAAC’s fighter force.  The USAAC capitalizes upon the B-10’s success, continuously using them in public relations events as they become the US’s primary bomber aircraft.  Some 121 B-10s are built for the US, with an additional 45 built in other variants such as the B-12, B-13, and B-14, staying in service all the way up through 1940.

The sole surviving Martin B-10 is on display at the National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton, OH.

The first flight of the Boeing P-26 Peashooter takes place.  Developed by Boeing as a companion to the Boeing B-9 and heavily influenced by the P-12, the P-26 is the first all-metal monoplane fighter accepted by the USAAC.  Some 151 P-26s are built, and even though it is quickly outclassed by other aircraft over the next three years, the fighter proves popular among pilots and remains the USAAC's primary fighter aircraft until 1938.

Two original Boeing P-26 Peashooters currently survive, with 33-135 on display at the National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA.  The other, 33-123, is a flyable example, currently based at the Planes of Fame Museum in Chino, CA.

Ernst L. Kramer of C. Lorenz AG patents a system in which pilots can be guided while landing in poor visibility.  This “blind-landing” system is remarkably ingenious in its simplicity.  A 33.3 MC transmitter placed at the end of the runway is routed through a set of three antennas, each broadcasting a simple Morse code-like signal.  If the pilot veers too far to the left, he heard dots, and too far to the right, dashes, but if on course he hears a steady signal.  As the aircraft gets closer, a pair of marker beacons indicates the distance to the runway, generally at 3 km and 300 m distance, allowing the pilot to calculate his descent.

A demonstration is held for the International Aviation Conference the following January, with subsequent conferences establishing international standards for the system’s use.  The Lorenz blind-landing system soon sees regular service throughout world.

PM the Rt. Hon. Stanley Baldwin (CP) gives a speech in the House of Commons titled "A Fear for the Future."  The speech is part of a series of debates regarding disarmament, a topic of considerable attention in the years following the Great War.  The recent Geneva Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armament, which had open on 1 February 1932, floundered over global concerns over current events.  These events included Soviet military buildup in the face of famine, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, and the recent dominance of the German National Socialist Party (or Nazi Party) following the election of 31 July.

Baldwin centers his concerns on the growing capabilities of military airpower, uttering a phrase that comes to exemplify Interwar thinking on strategic airpower: “the bomber will always get through.”  Often taken out of context, Baldwin’s words are meant to stress that, in modern warfare, the civilian populace can no longer consider itself removed from death and destruction.  Disarmament, regardless of its noble intensions, cannot guarantee complete security.

Click here to read Stanley Baldwin's "A Fear for the Future" speech.

The first flight of the Boeing 247 takes place.  Using the knowledge gained from the experimental Boeing Monomail (1930) and Boeing B-9, the 247 is in many ways the first modern airliner.  A twin-engine all-metal monoplane, the 247 boasts an autopilot, trim-tabs, de-icer boots, retractable landing gear, a heated sound-proof cabin, a fully cantilevered wing, and the ability to fly on one engine.  Unveiled at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair, the 247 goes on to make its inaugural flight on 22 May 1933, flying from San Francisco, CA to New York, NY in a record 19.5 hrs, winning the 1934 Collier Trophy for excellence in design.  Despite boasting that passengers no longer need to change planes on cross-country flights, Boeing’s inability to meet demand, combined with the aircraft’s small passenger size, results in the aircraft quickly falling out of favor after the arrival of the Douglas DC-1 later that year.  Some 75 Boeing 247s are built throughout the 1930s, with some carriers using them well into the 1960s.

Of the four surviving Boeing 247s, the most original example is 1953, displayed in its original United Airlines colors at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.

The Goodyear-Zeppelin USS Akron (ZRS-4), a helium-based dirigible, is ripped apart by a thunderstorm off the coast of NJ.  Originally launched in 1931, the 785ft Akron and her sister-ship USS Macon (ZRS-5) were built as flying aircraft carriers carrying five Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawks each, launching and retrieving the fighters through a belly-mounted trapeze system.  Intended to operate as fleet scouts, the Akron was assigned to the Atlantic while the Macon, completed in 1933, was assigned the Pacific.  The loss of the Akron is the largest airship disaster in history, killing all but three of its 76-strong crew due to a lack of emergency equipment.  Among those killed is RDML William A. Moffett, the Navy's chief aviation proponent, and NAS Sunnyvale in CA is later renamed NAS Moffett Field in his honor (73 dead, 3 survivors).

On 12 February 1935, the Macon also crashes in bad weather, though tragedy is averted thanks to lessons-learned from the Akron disaster, loosing just two of its 83-man crew.  Regardless, the loss of the Akron and Macon so quickly after their introduction, as well as the airship program's greatest proponent, ends further US experiments with dirigibles.

Wiley H. Post arrives in Brooklyn, NY after circumnavigating the world in the Lockheed Vega Winnie Mae; Post is the first man to accomplish this feat solo (7 days, 18 hrs).  One of the most eccentric and beloved airmen of the Interwar period, Post had already achieved notoriety for circumnavigating the globe on 1 July 1931, breaking the Graf Zeppelin's record by doing so in eight days.  Missing an eye and from a rural background, rumors arose that his navigator, Harold C. Gatty, was actually the one most responsible for the achievement.  Gatty was indeed the most respected aerial navigator in the world but to prove his own mettle, Post repeated the flight alone using a prototype autopilot by Sperry Gyroscope (used to hold the airplane level) and radio direction finder (used to track and follow radio signals).

The Lockheed Vega Winnie Mae is currently on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.

Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt's (D-NY) Executive Order 6591 goes into effect, placing the USAAC under the control of Postmaster General James A. Farley (D-NY) and giving the Army responsibility for delivering airmail.  Roosevelt’s rash decision is the result of the so-called “Airmail Scandal.”

Partially due to the Post Office’s safety struggles delivering airmail but more-so to encourage the growth of commercial aviation, an act sponsored by Rep. M. Clyde Kelly (R-PA) in 1925 allowed the Post Office to subsidize private airlines to deliver the mail.  Since rates were determined on the basis of weight, airliners began to carry junk mail and freight to raise profits.  This forced the creation of another act in 1930, sponsored by Sen. Charles L. McNary (R-OR) and Rep. Lawrence H. Watres (R-PA), that fixed rates according to aircraft capacity.  This act gave Postmaster General Walter F. Brown (R-OH) unprecedented authority, allowing him to grant ten year contracts to any airline with at least two years of service and more importantly, the power to force mergers between airline companies.  Brown’s goal to consolidate the carriers into three major corporations resulted in a series of painful mergers, dividing the routes between the north for United Airlines, center for Transcontinental Western Airlines (TWA), and south for American Airlines.  These forced mergers were termed "Spoils Conferences" when their existence was made public.

The spoils conferences were revealed by conservative radio host Fulton Lewis, Jr. after a 1931 bid between Ludington and Eastern Airlines over an east-coast route resulted in Eastern, the larger carrier, winning despite Ludington's cheaper bid.  When Congressional investigation led by Sen. Hugo L. Black (D-AL) revealed the involvement of former Assistant Secretary of Commerce William P. MacCracken, Jr. (R-IL) - now a lawyer representing several aviation-related clients - MacCracken refused to testify, telling the airlines to destroy subpoenaed documents.  This damning action helped pass the Air Mail Act on 12 June.  The Air Mail Act nearly destroys the US aviation industry by breaking up the holding companies sustained by carrying the mail.  Virtually all the major carriers were subsidiaries of aircraft manufacturers and it was the success of these air mail routes that sustained sister companies producing engines, propellers, and air frames throughout the Depression.  While the majority of airline companies manage to eventually regain their old routes under new names, Boeing's United Airlines (the largest carrier) is denied the same luxury and Bill E. Boeing resigns from his namesake company on 18 September.

Conservatives decry Roosevelt turning the mail over to the Army as a socialist takeover of private business, which is a rather accurate sentiment.  In protest of Roosevelt's announcement on 9 February, Eddie V. Rickenbacker of Eastern Airlines and W. Jack Frye of TWA pilot a Douglas DC-1 from Burbank, CA to Newark, NJ one day before the takeover goes into effect (13 hrs, 4 mins).  Averaging 210 mph, the DC-1, deemed City of Los Angeles, beats the previous transcontinental record by five hours time.  The obvious success of the flight serves as a source of embarrassment to the Roosevelt administration when, in the coming months, the USAAC struggles to operate with equal efficiency.  The DC-1 is a prototype competitor to the Boeing 247 and is used as the basis for the DC-2 (first flown on 11 May 1934) and DC-3 (first flown on 17 December 1935).  Without a doubt the most successful prop-driven airliner in aviation history, some 805 DC-2/DC-3s are produced and, while production stops in 1942, many remain in use to this day.  (13 hrs, 5 mins)

Due to its omnipresent use in the civilian airline industry and military, numerous examples of Douglas DC-2/DC-3s still survive both as flyers and as static museum displays.  Perhaps the most complete example of a DC-3 is Delta Airlines's Ship 41 (3278) - the company's first DC-3 to carry passengers - which is on display at the Delta Flight Museum in Atlanta, GA.

Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt (D-NY) relieves the USAAC of mail-carrying duty and returns its responsibility back to civilian firms.  MG Benjamin D. Foulois had assured Roosevelt of the Army’s ability to handle the mail without consulting CSA MG Douglas MacArthur, and the results of doing so proved disastrous.  Army aircraft were, by civilian standards, outdated and their pilots far less experienced than their civilian counterparts, lacking equipment and training for long-distance navigation and night operations.  As a result, Army pilots carrying the mail suffer 66 accidents and 13 deaths in a period of less than five months.

This highly publicized debacle coincides with yet another battle over Air Corps appropriations.  Despite the Lassiter Board’s call for a “General Headquarters” air force, the concept had never been implemented because it was seen as only being necessary in wartime.  When MacArthur began a reorganization in 1933 to prepare the US for a possible war, Army planners requested the USAAC provide an estimate and Foulois produced a call for some 4,459 aircraft - an astounding figure considering that the Air Corps Act of 1926 had called for a peacetime strength of 1,800 (which  had still not been met).  A review board chaired by MG Hugh A. Drum whittled Foulois's number down to 2,072, decrying that the Air Corps was being funded at the expense of the Army's other branches:

The Committee . . . is most emphatically of the opinion that the War Department should take no action and Congress make no appropriations toward carrying out the recommendations contained herein for any increase in the Air Corps over 1,800 serviceable planes which will be at the expense of other arms and branches of the military establishment.  (Collins to Foulois, 1934)

Airpower was expensive and the Air Corps had long pointed to poor equipment and training as evidence of inadequate funds.  The fallout of the Air Mail Scandal seemed to bear this out.  In response, Secretary of War George H. Dern (D-UT) called for an investigative committee under Newton D. Baker, Jr. (D-OH).  Attempts to convey impartiality are shattered when Orville Wright and Charles A. Lindbergh refuse to take part (they claim it to be a show trial), and in the end only a single airman of note - MAJ Jimmy H. Doolittle (the first man to earn a doctorate in aeronautics) - is placed on a committee largely composed of Drum Board members.  Naturally, despite a dissent from Doolittle, the Baker Board endorses the Drum Board's conclusions.

The Drum Board endorses the concept of a GHQ Air Force but its motivation is rather shrewd.  A pair of bills being debated in the House suggested separating the Air Corps budget from the rest of the Army and increasing the Navy's air arm by 1,184 aircraft.  Considering that the Army's air arm was currently at 1,570 (147 bombers), there was an unacceptable possibility the Navy might become the dominant US air arm.  As such, the Drum Board's proposals are made with the understanding that the GHQAF was to be subject to the General Staff in peacetime.  While this grants the newly activated GHQAF (CG MG F. Max Andrews) a somewhat greater degree of autonomy (US air units no longer report to Army corps commanders), the Air Corps is now more divided than ever.  Being part of the Air Corps but not actually under its control, the GHQAF exercises command over tactical air units while the Air Corps itself controls service, supply, and training.  Foulois, as CG USAAC, is held responsible for the air mail scandal and a congressional investigation spearheaded by Rep. William N. Rogers (D-NH) threatens to withhold funding until Foulois's relief.  Foulois's confrontational personality during these proceedings fails to endear and in 1935 he voluntarily accepts early retirement.   Foulois's replacement is MG Oscar M. Westover, former XO to MG Charles T. Menoher and a firm believer in keeping the Air Corps under Army control.  It is likely that this is a major factor in his selection and in the coming years, Westover clashes constantly with Andrews.

The Boulton & Paul Overstrand enters operational service with RAF 101 Squadron.  The Overstrand is a variant of the company’s Sidestrand, an aircraft which had been in service since 1926.  The Sidestrand was created to answer the Air Ministry’s call (Specification 9/24) for an all-metal twin-engine bomber.  Though its bombload was limited, the Sidestrand proved to be a surprisingly fast and agile to its size.  These attributes proved problematic as aerial gunnery was already difficult in the ever-growing airspeeds of combat aircraft.  As a solution to this, the Overstrand is the first aircraft to utilize a powered gun turret.

Up until this time, aerial gunnery was limited to variations of the Great War Scarff ring, using Plexiglas molds to shield the gunners from the wind.  However, speeds were increasing to the point that a simple windscreen was not enough to keep the gun on target; note these milestones for example:

• 200 mph – France’s Joseph Sadi-Lecointe, 1922
• 300 mph – Italy’s Mario de Bernardi, 1928
• 400 mph – Great Britain’s George H. Stainforth, 1931.

Designed by John Dudley North and taking up the aircraft’s entire nose, the Boulton & Paul turret mounts a single .303 Lewis MG, its elevation controlled by hydraulics and its rotation via air compression.  The change was dramatic - almost overnight, the accuracy of RAF gunners in mock attacks increased from 15% to 55%.  28 Overstrands see service (four of which are converted Sidestrands), all being assigned to 101 Squadron, before their retirement as training aircraft in 1941.  The Overstrand is also noteworthy as the last biplane bomber to see service with the RAF.

No Sidestrands or Overstrands currently still exist, though a replica Overstrand turret is currently on display at the Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum of Flixton, England.

Wiley H. Post arrives in Cleveland, OH in his Lockheed Vega, Winnie Mae, out of Burbank, CA, having covered 2,035 mi in a shocking 7 hrs 19 mins.  Partnering with B. F. Goodrich Tires, this is the latest of a series of exercises designed to push the limits of high-altitude flight.  Winnie Mae is modified to carry a turbocharger and jettisonable landing gear, and using various specially-designed pressure suits, Post is able to reach altitudes as high as 50,000 ft.  This flight is flown at an average altitude of 35,000 ft, cruising not in the troposphere but the stratosphere.  In doing so, Post's experiments have discovered the jet stream, allowing Winnie Mae, designed to cruise at around 165 mph, maintain an average speed of 279 mph.

Post is by no means the first person to reach the stratosphere.  In fact, LT John A. Macready and MAJ Rudolf W. Schroeder held the distinction of being the first heavier-than-air pilots to enter the stratosphere (33,000 ft).  Piloting a LUSAC-11 modified to carry a turbocharger and supplemental oxygen (a first for the US), Schroeder managed to reach 33,113 ft before oxygen failure while Macready, piloting the same aircraft, managed to reach 34,508 ft without issue on 18 September 1921.  However, Post's accomplishment dramatically highlights the possibilities of stratospheric flight to the world.  Sadly, Post is killed this same year on 15 August, touring Alaska with famed comedian Will P. A. Rogers in a modified Lockheed Orion.

The Lockheed Vega Winnie Mae is currently on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, as well as the third and most successful of Post’s pressure suits.  In reference to Schroeder and Macready, the sole surviving LUSAC-11 is on display at the National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton, OH.

The first flight of the Douglas B-18 Bolo takes place.  Designed to meet a USAAC call to replace the Martin B-10, the minimum requirements are that it cruise at 200 mph, carry 2,000 lbs of bombs, and have a range of 2,000 mi.  Douglas bases the B-18 on their successful DC-3 airliner, which was introduced the previous year.  The bomber features enclosed Scarff rings above and in the nose, and can carry nearly twice the bombload of the B-10.  Performance-wise the B-18 still lags behind the B-10 and Boeing B-17 (a competing design) and the B-18 falls particularly short in reaching the Army's required range .  However, the crash of the B-17 prototype, combined with the B-18's cheaper production cost, leads to the B-18 being selected as the USAAC’s primary bomber for the remainder of the 1930s.  Some 350 B-18s are built, and despite an attempt to improve the design in 1939 with the B-23 Dragon, the B-18 is retired in 1944 after seeing limited service as a trainer and patrol bomber.

Six Douglas B-18 Bolos currently survive, the most complete being 37-469, which is currently on display at the National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton, OH.

The first flight of the Curtiss-Wright P-36 Hawk II takes place.  Designed to a meet a 1935 call for a new USAAC single-engine fighter, the P-36 fails to outperform the Seversky P-35 during service trials.  However, because Sevesrky is unable to mass produce the P-35 as expected, Curtiss wins a contract to produce the P-36 as well.  The P-36 proves unpopular, the fighter being underpowered and constantly hampered by structural issues.  As such, USAAC leaders encourage experiments with liquid-cooled engines - largely on the basis of Reginald J. Mitchell's designs at Supermarine - eventually resulting in the P-40 Warhawk in 1938.  Other tests include an attempt to install a turbocharger for high-altitude flight but the results are poor and the project is wisely abandoned.  Some 1,005 P-36s are built, the vast majority (778) being sold to other nations during the Second World War, with the US retiring the P-36 from service in 1941.

Five Curtiss P-36s currently survive, two of which (38-210 and French No. 82) are airworthy, being housed at the Fighter Collection in Duxford, UK.  The only one still in the US is 38-001 - the first P-36A to enter US service - and is currently on display at the National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton, OH.

The first flight of the Seversky P-35 takes place.  The P-35 is developed from the SEV-3 racer, Seversky’s first aircraft and the amphibian speed record holder for 1933 and 1935.  When the USAAC called for a new all-metal monoplane fighter in 1935, Seversky simply sent an altered SEV-3.  Despite delays, which Seversky and Curtiss-Wright use to alter their designs, the Seversky P-35 wins the contract.  Unfortunately, the ability of Seversky to mass-produce the aircraft, particularly in light of recent events in Europe, is questionable as Seversky suffers a reputation for sluggish production and poor financial management.  These criticisms are well-founded and, because of this, the competing Curtiss P-36 is also granted a contract.  Some 196 P-35s are produced, with most being delivered to foreign markets before retired in 1942.  These foreign sales include 20 which are sold to Japan, who use it against the Chinese in 1938, alienating whatever favorability Seversky still had within the US military.  Upon embarking on a P-35 sales tour of Europe, company CEO MAJ Alexander N. P. de Seversky is ousted by the board of directors, renaming the company Republic Aviation in 1939.

The P-35 is also notable as the first military aircraft to be flown by a woman.  Seeking to publicize the P-35, de Seversky encourages famed air racer Jackie Cochran to attempt various speed records in the fighter.  The most notable of these is a dual record on 3 December 1938 wherein Cochran pilots a P-35 from New York, NY to Miami, FL in 4 hrs 12 mins, while de Seversky pilots another from New York to Havana, Cuba in 5 hrs 3 mins.  While Seversky had hoped to highlight the fighter's potential as a long-range escort, the fighter's significant alterations and de Seversky's damaged reputation sour any further interest in the design.

Four Seversky P-35s currently exist, with one, 41-17529, still in flying condition at the Planes of Fame Air Museum in Chino, CA.  The oldest and most complete is 36-404, currently on display at the National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton, OH.

The Boeing 299 prototype (X13372) crashes on takeoff, killing two of its five-man test crew.  Intended to meet a USAAC demand dated 8 August 1934 to replace the Martin B-10, Boeing scaled down elements of its 294 (XB-15) design - still under construction - to save money and time in the design process.  This resulted in a four-engine airframe, and to avoid the stigma associated with such aircraft, Boeing incorporated aspects of its 247 airliner and worked to make the aircraft relatively easy to handle.  As a result, the 299's performance far outclassed its rivals.  First flying on 22 July 1935, the 299 was christened “flying fortress” by the Seattle Times.  On 20 August 1935, the newly-designated B-17 flew from Seattle, WA to Wright Field, OH in a record 9 hrs, 3 mins, averaging 252 mph – a shocking performance far beyond any bomber of the period.

This day's accident is later determined to be the fault of Army test-pilot MAJ P. Peter Hill, who forgot to release the gust locks prior to takeoff.  The effect of this crash is substantial.  Government inquiries result in the creation of mandatory pre-flight checklists and a demand that flight testing be performed by corporate test pilots already familiar with their aircraft.  While the USAAC states their preference for the B-17, ordering 65 on the belief that its longer range is better suited for coastal defense, CSA GEN Malin Craig cancels the order, instead ordering 133 of the cheaper, smaller Douglas B-18.

Boulton & Paul Aircraft purchases a pair of powered gun turrets from the Societe d’Applications des Machines Motrices (Motor Machine Applications Co.), with a further option to purchase the patent rights should they choose to do so.  The turrets are purchased at a price of 250,000 F (roughly $768,707 adjusted for inflation), paying 10£ per turret in licensing for the first 125, after which Boulton & Paul purchases the patent.  Duly impressed with the SAMM turret, the British Air Ministry issues a call for a turret-based fighter, the result of which, the Boulton & Paul Defiant, makes its first flight on 11 August 1937.

The Defiant is by no means the first turret-based fighter, with that dubious honor going to the Hawker Demon - a fighter variant of the Hawker Hart light bomber.  The Demon carried a turret designed by automotive designer Archibald G. Frazer-Nash, who partnered with E. Grattan Thompson to form the engineering firm Nash & Thompson in 1929.  Frazer-Nash's turret for the Demon used hydraulics powered by the aircraft's engines, the rear gunner being protected by a sliding back-piece that shielded him from the wind.  The SAMM turret is more advanced.  Designed by J. B. Antoine de Boysson - a French designer who made his reputation as a consultant in Japan - the SAMM turret is likewise hydraulically powered, but differs in being a self-contained unit, the idea being that the turret could be easily removed and replaced for maintenance.  de Boysson had developed his turret in response to France's desire to produce Douhet-type 'battleplanes,' but failed to generate sufficient interest to mass-produce his turret (de Boysson supposedly sold his design out of disgust when French officials demanded a bribe for the contract).  Conducting tests using a SAMM turret in a converted Overstrand, the SAMM design proves far superior to the previous pneumatic design.

Frazer-Nash and Boulton & Paul become the mainstays of British powered turret development.  The Armstrong Whitworth Whitley and Vickers Wellington medium bombers, which soon enter service, are both equipped with hydraulically powered nose and tail turrets, though efforts to implement upper and lower turrets stall over concerns of aerodynamic drag.

The US takes an interest in powered tail turrets - after all, attacking from the rear is the fifth rule of the Dicta Boelcke.  However, similar concerns over performance result in the US largely dismissing powered turrets in favor of remote 'fire control' systems.  The concept is simple, the idea being that an aerial gunner could remotely fire his weapon without the need for redesigning the airframe so he could be physically nearby (which would make it less aerodynamic).  This is not as far-fetched as it seems.  The experimental Bell XFM-1 Airacuda, for example, is first flown on 1 September 1937, and uses a pair of engine-mounted, electrically-powered barbettes, both aimed and fired by the pilot.  Regardless, this concept does not make it past the design phase before the outbreak of war.

CG GHQAF MG F. Max Andrews utilizes a legal loophole to obtain 13 Boeing B-17s outside of normal acquisition funding.  The new bombers are designated YB-17 to indicate their special status and see constant use in USAAC publicity stunts.  A 14th YB-17 is modified as a testbed for engine turbochargers.  These turbochargers have a marked effect on performance (37,000 ft service ceiling), and the B-17 becomes the first military aircraft to enter production with turbochargers as standard.  For Boeing, this limited contract is nevertheless a godsend, saving the company from bankruptcy.  The Air Mail scandal had whittled a company of 1,700 people down to 700 in less than a year, this at the same time when Douglas introduced its shockingly successful DC-3.  However, despite popular perception, US strategic airpower remains stagnant and when Germany invades Poland in 1939, the GHQAF still only has 13 B-17s.

GHQAF Boeing YB-17s test-bomb the USS Utah (BB-31) as part of Joint Exercise No. 4.  A test of the US military’s ability to work together in repelling a hostile fleet off the coast of CA, USN aircraft located the battleship on the 12 August, relaying its position to land-based YB-17s and Douglas B-18s.  However, the position given was off by some 50 mi, resulting the Army bombers being unable to locate the Utah.  Given the proper coordinates, the Army bombers attack again the following day, approaching at low altitude (400 ft) to keep from losing the ship in the fog.  The attack was a success but the Navy protested the approach, so the attack is repeated this day at 18,000 ft.  When exercise reports omit the GHQAF's success, leading CG GHQAF MG F. Max Andrews reveals the details to WCAU Philadelphia – home station of Harold T. H. “Boake” Carter, a popular critic of the Roosevelt administration.

As part of a publicity stunt conceived by CG GHQAF MG F. Max Andrews, three US Boeing YB-17s intercept the Italian ocean liner SS Rex while she is still 620 mi from the American coast.  When media coverage of the 1938 Northeast Maneuvers turned sour upon the revelation that the USAAC’s target fleet was composed of nonexistent ships (the USN was busy with its own maneuvers on the west coast), Andrews concocted the Rex's interception as a way to prove Army bombers could locate vessels at sea.  Famous as the Westbound Blue Riband holder (1933-1935), the Rex is a high-profile choice.  Because of the spectacular failure of the Shasta incident (1931) and the cover-up of the Utah exercise (1937), a live radio broadcast is conducted from the lead bomber.

The flight is a huge success and is the highlight of the Northeast Maneuvers, which also include mock attacks on New York, NY and the first voluntary air raid blackout (Farmingdale, NY).  Despite this success, a dubious verbal order from CSA GEN Malin Craig and Secretary of War Harry H. Woodring (D-KS) restricts all future USAAC operations to within 100 mi of the US coast.  Future GHQAF exercises that violate this order are carried out with the understanding that they are not to be publicized.

The first flight of the Boeing 307 Stratoliner takes place - the first fully-pressurized production aircraft.  The 307 is based on the Boeing B-17, using its wings and newly-turbocharged engines (now standard) to reach altitudes far higher than its contemporaries.  Unlike the ever popular DC-3, the Stratoliner's pressurization allows it to cruise above oxygen level, with marketing emphasizing the lack of turbulence at these altitudes, nicknaming the 307 the "flying cloud."  However, the Stratoliner program is not without difficulties.  The bulbous fuselage of the 307 affects yaw control, with the prototype crashing on 18 March 1939 with members of the Dutch Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij (Royal Aviation Co.) aboard.  Aerodymnacist George S. Schairer rectifies this issue by redesigning the vertical stabilizer, the resulting large-tail design becoming standard on all following Stratoliners and B-17s (starting with the E model).  A publicity stunt by TWA owner Howard R. Hughes, Jr. (the airliner's first buyer) to circumnavigate the world in a 307 is cut short, along with the Stratoliner’s entire career, with the outbreak of the war in 1939.  Only ten Stratoliners are built prior to retirement in 1947, though smaller carriers operate them as late as 1975.

The sole-surviving Boeing 307 Stratoliner is currently on display at the National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA.  The 307 purchased by Howard R. Hughes, Jr. still partially exists as a converted houseboat christened Cosmic Muffin.

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