This is a list of aviation-related events from 1934:
Events Sir Alan Cobhams Flight Refuelling Ltd. develops the looped-hose aerial refueling system, a weighted cable let out of a tanker aircraft and grabbed by a grapnel fired from the receiving aircraft. It is the first practical aerial refueling system, and will not be replaced until the probe-and-drogue system is perfected in 1945.Crosby, Francis, The Complete Guide to Fighters & Bombers of the World: An Illustrated History of the Worlds Greatest Military Aircraft, From the Pioneering Days of Air Fighting in World War I Through the Jet Fighters and Stealth Bombers of the Present Day, London: Hermes House, 2006, , p. 46. At Yokosuka, Japan, the Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy hold the first of three annual interservice competitions in air combat techniques.Peattie, Mark R., Sunburst: The Rise of Japanese Naval Air Power 1909–1941, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2001, , p. 44. The Mitsubishi Aircraft Company Ltd. is merged back into its parent company, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.Francillon, René J., Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1979, , p. 23. Franco-British Aviation (FBA), which had ceased the design and development of aircraft in 1931 due to a lack of post-World War I civilian orders for its aircraft, sells its workshops to the Bernard Aircraft Company and goes out of business. It had been founded in 1913.Gunston, Bill. World Encyclopedia of Aircraft Manufacturers: From the Pioneers to the Present Day. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Pub. (2nd ed.), 2005, .
January January 1 – Jean-Pierre Bonnot and Robert Auguste Michel Jeanpierre complete an overnight flight in the Latécoère 300 flying boat Croix-du-Sud begun the previous day from the Étang de Berre in France with their arrival at Saint-Louis, Senegal. The flight sets a world seaplane record for nonstop "distance in a broken line." January 10–11 – A flight of six United States Navy Consolidated P2Y flying boats sets a new nonstop straight-line distance record of , as well as a new nonstop distance record for formation flying, in a flight from San Francisco, and Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii. They also set a new speed record for this crossing of 24 hours 35 minutes, averaging . Future Admiral Marc Mitscher pilots one of the aircraft. January 15 – On the final leg of a flight that began on 5 January in Saigon, French Indochina – with stops at Karachi, British India; Baghdad, Iraq; Marseille, France; and Lyon, France – the Air France Dewoitine D.332 Emeraude (registration F-AMMY) strikes a hill and crashes in a violent snowstorm at Corbigny, France, while flying from Lyon to Paris–Le Bourget Airport outside Paris, killing all ten people on board. The director of Air France, Maurice Noguès, and the governor-general of French Indochina, Pierre Pasquier, are among the dead. The aircraft is on a proving flight for an Air France route from Paris to Saigon and had left Paris on 21 December 1933 and arrived at Saigon on 28 December 1933 before beginning its return flight, and it crashes only from its final destination.Aviation Safety Network: Accident Description January 24 – A fire levels a storage barn containing seven airplanes at Bellanca Field in New Castle, Delaware. The fire destroys the Wright-Bellanca WB-2 monoplane Miss Columbia, which in 1927 had made the second nonstop transatlantic flight by a fixed-wing aircraft — which also set an unrefueled distance record and was the first transoceanic flight with a passenger — then in 1930 had become the first airplane to make two nonstop transatlantic flights. Retired in 1934 and considered one of the most significant aircraft in aviation history, Miss Columbia had been slated for transfer to the Smithsonian Institution the next day.The Chamberlin Collection. Luvaas, Mearl. Archivist. Undated advertisement for An Aviation Archeological Expedition To the Wilds of Delaware July 19–21, 1991 (Fri., Sat., Sun.) January 30 – Soviet aeronauts Pavel Fedosenko, Andrey Vasenko, and Ilya Usyskin take the hydrogen-filled high-altitude balloon Osoaviakhim-1 on its maiden flight to a record-setting altitude of , where it remains for twelve minutes. The 7-hour 14-minute flight – during which the balloon travels ( from its launch site – ends in tragedy when the crew loses control of the balloon during its descent and the gondola disintegrates and crashes near the village of Potizh-Ostrog in Insarsky District of Mordovian Autonomous Oblast in the Soviet Union, killing the crew.Account at www.astronautix.com http://www.navalhistory.org/2010/11/20/world-record-flight Vaeth, Joseph Gordon, "When the Race for Space Began," Proceedings, August 1963, reproduced at navalhistory.org Naval History Blog.
February February 1 – South African Airways is founded. February 3 – Deutsche Luft Hansa begins the first regular airmail service across the Atlantic Ocean, between Berlin and Rio de Janeiro. February 6 – A new Inter-Departmental Advisory Committee on Aviation meets to study the establishment of a uniform United States Government aviation policy. It consists of representatives of the United States Department of Commerce, United States Department of War, United States Department of the Navy, United States Post Office Department, and Interstate Commerce Commission. February 7 – Germany begins a regular air mail service between Africa and South America, employing Dornier flying boats catapulted from depot ships. Dornier Do 26s will later fly the route without the assistance of ships, and various Dornier flying boats will complete over 300 crossings before the outbreak of World War II brings the service to an end in 1939.Mondey, David, ed., The Complete Illustrated History of the Worlds Aircraft, Secaucus, New Jersey: Chartwell Books, Inc., 1978, , p. 34. February 9 – At the direction of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Postmaster General of the United States James Farley cancels all U.S. Air Mail contracts due to alleged improprieties — in what becomes known as the "Air Mail scandal" — by Postmaster General Walter Folger Brown during the Hoover Administration. United States Senate and U.S. Post Office Department investigations have concluded that Brown had bypassed competitive bidding requirements and colluded with large airlines in awarding air mail contracts to them in a series of conferences — derided by critics as "Spoils Conferences" – that had begun in May 1930. Then contract cancellations are to go into effect on February 19. February 10 – Noting that the previous day's cancellation of air mail contracts had created an emergency, President Franklin Roosevelt issues an executive order directing United States Secretary of War George Dern to make available whatever United States Army Air Corps planes and pilots were necessary to carry air mail. Army Air Corps chief Major General Benjamin D. Foulois recxeives orders to begin the Army Air Corps's air mail effort in 10 days. February 14 – At New Orleans, Louisiana, Steve Wittman, flying the Nicholas-Beazley Pobjoy Special, sets a world speed record for a Category 4 light landplane over a distance of , averaging . February 17 – Flying the Avro 618 Ten Faith in Australia, Australian aviator Charles Ulm carries the first official air mail from New Zealand to Australia, flying from Auckland to Sydney in 14 hours 10 minutes. February 18–19 – The American World War I ace Eddie Rickenbacker and a Transcontinental & Western Air team including Jack Frye, "Tommy" Tomlinson, Larry Fritz, Paul E. Richter, Si Morehouse, Harlan Hull, John Collings, and Andy Andrews sets a new record for a transcontinental flight across the United States, flying the Douglas DC-1 from Burbank, California, to Newark, New Jersey, in 13 hours 4 minutes. February 19 – The United States Army Air Corps begins flying U.S. airmail in the wake of President Roosevelts cancellation of all U.S. Air Mail contracts.Bauman, Richard, "Link to the Future", Aviation History, May 2014, pp. 50-51. February 26 – In the first week of U.S. Army Air Corps delivery of U.S. Air Mail, five Army aviators have been killed in accidents. The death rate highlights the lack of training of most U.S. Army pilots in night and bad-weather flying.
March March 7 – Juan de la Cierva lands a Cierva C.30 autogyro on the Spanish Navy seaplane carrier in the Mediterranean Sea off Valencia, Spain. It is the first time a rotorcraft lands on the deck of a ship. He achieves another first a half an hour later when he takes off from Dédalo′s deck after a takeoff run of only , the first time that a rotorcraft takes off from the deck of a ship."The first Dedalo was an aircraft transportation ship and the first in the world from which an autogyro took off and landed." Naval Ship Systems Command, US: Naval Ship Systems Command technical news.1966, v. 15-16, page 40Layman, R.D., Before the Aircraft Carrier: The Development of Aviation Vessels 1849–1922, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1989, , p. 105.Wikipedia Spanish seaplane carrier Dédalo article. March 9 – All air operations of the United States Customs Service are transferred to the United States Coast Guard.A Chronological History of Coast Guard Aviation: The Early Years, 1915–1938. March 10 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the temporary curtailment of air mail service by the United States Army Air Corps. Since February 10, when he issued his order to the Army Air Corps to carry air mail, 10 Army fliers have died in accidents, four of them on the air mail routes themselves and six others in air-mail-related flight training exercises and in flights ferrying personnel for air mail duty. March 19 – The U.S. Army Air Corps resumes carrying air mail on reduced schedules. March 22 The wreckage of the Pan American-Grace Airways (Panagra) Ford 5-AT-C Trimotor San José (registration NC403H) – which had crashed on Chile's Cerro El Plomo in the Andes Mountains during a severe snowstorm on 16 July 1932, killing all nine people on board, and subsequently been buried in ice and snow – finally is discovered.Aviation safety Network: Accident Descriptionplanecrashinfo.com ACCIDENT DETAILS The Panagra Ford 5-AT-C Trimotor NC407H suffers engine failure and crashes on takeoff at Lima-Callao International Airport at Lima, Peru, killing three of the 15 people on board.Aviation Safety Network: Accident Description March 30 – In France, Raymond Delmotte, flying a Caudron C.430 Rafale monoplane, sets a world speed record for a Category 1 light landplane over a distance of , averaging .
April Six Soviet and two American airmen rescue the crew of the Soviet commercial icebreaker Chelyuskin from the ice of the Chukchi Sea, where the ship had sunk on February 13.Hardesty, Von, Red Phoenix: The Rise of Soviet Air Power 1941–1945, Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1982, , p. 48. April 1 – Flying a Sikorsky S-42 flying boat, Pan American Airways chief pilot Edwin Musick, Sikorsky test pilot Boris Sergievsky, and technical advisor Charles Lindbergh set eight world seaplane records in a single flight. They average over a closed-circuit distance of , setting seaplane records for speed over that distance and for speed with a payload, with a payload, and with a payload over that distance in a closed circuit. They also average over a closed-circuit distance of , setting seaplane records for speed over that distance and for speed with a payload, with a payload, and with a payload over that distance in a closed circuit. April 11 On his eighteenth attempt to break the world altitude record, Renato Donati of the Italian Regia Aeronautica (Royal Air Force) sets a new record of 14,432.956 metres (47,352.219 feet) in a Caproni Ca 113.Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, , p. 198. American Airways changes its name to American Airlines.