This is a list of aviation-related events from 1946:
Events The American Section of the International League of Aviators resurrects the National Trophy, a Harmon Trophy awarded from 1926 to 1938 to the outstanding aviator of the year in each of the 21 member countries of the now-defunct League. It will be awarded until 1949 amid much controversy, with the awards going largely unrecognized. The Electric Boat Company purchases Canadair from the Government of Canada, an important step toward the 1952 founding of General Dynamics Corporation.Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 204. The Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la Sécurité de l'Aviation Civile (BEA), or Bureau of Investigation and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety, is formed as the French government agency responsible for investigating aviation accidents and incidents and making safety recommendations based on what is learned from those investigations. The Nicaraguan airline LANICA begins flight operations.
January Aeropostal Alas de Venezuela (LAV) inaugurates its second international route, offering service between Venezuela and Aruba in the Netherlands East Indies. The route connects LAV with KLM′s international route structure. January 1 A British South American Airways Avro Lancastrian becomes the first commercial flight to depart from London Heathrow Airport. East African Airways begins flight operations. Middle East Airlines begins flight operations, flying three de Havilland DH.89A Dragon Rapides between Beirut, Lebanon, and Nicosia, Cyprus. January 6 – Pennsylvania Central Airlines Flight 105, a Douglas DC-3-393, crashes while landing at Birmingham Municipal Airport in Birmingham, Alabama, killing three and injuring five of the 19 people on board. January 8 – The U.S. Joint War Plans Committee reports that by July 1946, as a result of post-World War II demobilization, the United States Army Air Forces will have only five heavy bomber groups in Europe, with only a 65-percent readiness level, and a reserve force of five heavy bomber groups in the United States, with only a 20-percent readiness level. It also reports that the United States Navy will have 13 aircraft carriers at a high state of readiness by that time. It finds that in the event of war with the Soviet Union, the only effective American response will be the delivery of atomic bombs by aircraft of the U.S. Army Air Forces and the United States Navy, and recommends atomic strikes by Army Air Forces B-29 Superfortress bombers based in England; Foggia, Italy; Agra, India; and Chengdu, Republic of China, on 17 Soviet cities to target administrative and research and development centers and aircraft and munitions factories, with an expectation of a B-29 loss rate of 35 percent. It recommends an inventory of 196 atomic bombs in order to carry out this campaign.Ross, Steven T., American War Plans 1945-1950: Strategies For Defeating the Soviet Union, Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass, 1996, , pp. 11, 15-17. January 10 – A Sikorsky R5 sets an unofficial helicopter altitude record of at Stratford, Connecticut. January 12 – The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff note that the use of atomic bombs alone will be insufficient to defeat the Soviet Union in the event of a war, and that substantial conventional air, ground, and naval forces will remain necessary.Ross, Steven T., American War Plans 1945-1950: Strategies For Defeating the Soviet Union, Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass, 1996, , p. 17-18. January 14 – Pan American Airways becomes the first airline to offer transatlantic Lockheed Constellation service, beating its rival Transcontinental & Western Air in providing transatlantic Constellation service by three weeks. January 18 – The most decorated United States Navy ship of World War II, the aircraft carrier , arrives at Bayonne, New Jersey, completing the second of her two round-trip voyages between the New York City area and Southampton, England, to bring American military personnel back to the United States as part of Operation Magic Carpet. She never puts to sea again.Isenberg, Michael T., Shield of the Republic: The United States Navy in an Era of Cold War and Violent Peace, Volume I: 1945-1962, New York: St. Martin's Press, , p. 88. January 26 – United States Army Air Forces Colonel William Councill sets a new U.S. transcontinental speed record of 4 hours 13 minutes in a Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star.Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 274. January 28 – Iraqi Airways begins flight operations, offering a service to Syria using five De Havilland Dragon Rapides.
February Misr Airlines, the future EgyptAir, ceases all flight operations until May because of three accidents in late 1945 and resulting strikes demanding that the airline acquire newer, safer aircraft. February 4 – Pan American Airways begins its first transatlantic landplane service, scheduling seven Douglas DC-4 flights per week from LaGuardia Airport in New York City to Hurn Airport at Bournemouth in England and two per week between LaGuardia Airport and Lisbon, Portugal. The flights to Bournemouth take 17 hours 40 minutes one-way and those to Lisbon take 20 hours 45 minutes one-way. The flights are a great advance over Pan Am's one-every-two-week Boeing 314 flying boat service from LaGuardia to Lisbon, which requires 29 hours 30 minutes one way, and the airline soon ends flying boat service. February 5 – Transcontinental and Western Air, the future Trans World Airlines, inaugurates its first international service, using Lockheed Constellations on the route New York City–Gander, Newfoundland–Shannon, Ireland–Paris, France.TWA History Timeline February 8 – Trans Australia Airlines is founded. It will begin flight operations in September. February 11 – After lengthy negotiations, American and British government representatives reach the Bermuda Agreement, the first bilateral agreement regulating international commercial air transport. Agreement also is reached for the International Air Transport Association (IATA) to coordinate and fix international air fares. February 14 – Using Douglas DC-4s, National Airlines launches both the first nonstop service between Miami, Florida, and New York City and the first four-engined commercial flights between the two cities. February 25–26 (overnight) – Jewish guerrillas attack three Royal Air Force bases in the British Mandate of Palestine simultaneously. The attacks destroy 22 Handley Page Halifaxes, seven Supermarine Spitfires, and four Avro Ansons.O'Connor, Derek, "spitfire vs. Spitfire," Aviation History, November 2014, p. 55.
March March 3 – The second jet fighter to serve in the Royal Air Force, the De Havilland Vampire, enters service with 247 Squadron. March 8 – The Bell 47 receives the worlds first type certificate awarded to a civil helicopter.David, Donald, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Nobles Books, 1997, , p. 109. March 9 – The United States Army Air Forces establish the Air Materiel Command. March 10 – The Australian National Airways Douglas DC-3 VH-AET crashes into Frederick Henry Bay off Seven-Mile Beach south of Cambridge Aerodrome just after takeoff from Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, killing all 25 people on board. At the time it is the second-deadliest aviation accident and deadliest civil aviation accident in Australian history. March 12 – The U.S. Army Air Forces redesignate the Army Air Forces School at Maxwell Field, Alabama, as the Air University. March 14 – The Royal Canadian Navy commissions its first aircraft carrier, , which the United Kingdom has transferred to Canada. She will serve until replaced by in 1948. March 18 The U.S. Army Air Forces Martin B-26B Marauder Flak-Bait flies for the last time, landing at Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. First flown in April 1943, the plane operated for two years in the 449th Bombardment Squadron over Belgium, France, Germany, and the Netherlands during World War II, logging 725 hours of combat flying time in 202 bombing missions and five decoy missions — including operations during the Normandy landings, Operation Crossbow, and the Battle of the Bulge — and shooting down one German plane. It suffers over a thousand hits during the war, returning to base twice on one engine (once with the disabled engine on fire), once with its electrical system knocked out, and twice with its hydraulic system shot out, but only one crew member is wounded and none killed. Its 207 combat sorties are the most of any U.S. Army Air Forces aircraft that survived World War II.Spenser, Jay P., "Flak Bait: Biography of an Intrepid Marauder," Airpower (vol. 8, no. 5, Sept. 1978), pp. 36–57. Orvis Nelson Air Transport makes its first flight, an Air Transport Command contract flight between San Francisco and Honolulu using a C-54 Skymaster. It will incorporate as Transocean Air Lines on May 21. March 21 – A major reorganization of the United States Army Air Forces creates the Strategic Air Command, the Air Defense Command, and the Tactical Air Command. March 23 – The Royal Netherlands Navy commissions its first aircraft carrier, the escort carrier HNLMS Karel Doorman (QH1). Formerly the British carrier , she will serve until replaced in 1948 by the fleet carrier HNLMS Karel Doorman (R81). March 29 – Maszovlet (the Hungarian-Soviet Civil Air Transport Joint Stock Company) is founded as Hungary's first post-World War II airline. In November 1954 it will be renamed Malév Hungarian Airlines. March 31 The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff assess that a U.S. atomic arsenal and bombers capable of delivering it promptly could deter the Soviet Union from launching a war.Ross, Steven T., American War Plans 1945-1950: Strategies For Defeating the Soviet Union, Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass, 1996, , p. 18. Transcontinental and Western Air inaugurates international service from the United States to Rome, Athens, and Cairo.
April April 5 Brewster Aeronautical Corporation is dissolved by its shareholders. A Fleet Air Arm Vickers Wellington, HE274, crashes into a residential area in Rabat, Malta during a training exercise, killing all 4 crew members and 16 civilians on the ground. April 9 - The Indonesian Air Force is founded by Indonesian Republican forces in the Netherlands East Indies. Initially it is equipped with a limited number of small aircraft left behind by Japanese military forces at the end of World War II.Sejarah Indonesia: An Online Timeline of Indonesian History: The War for Independence 1945 to 1950
May Pacific Ocean Airlines initiates air passenger service between the continental United States and Hawaii.Aviation Hawaii: 1940-1949 Chronology of Aviation in Hawaii Misr Airlines, the future EgyptAir, resumes flight operations. It had suspended flights in February because of three accidents in late 1945 and resulting strikes demanding that the airline acquire newer, safer aircraft. May 1 – Transcontinental and Western Air inaugurates international service from the United States to Lisbon and Madrid. May 16 – A Viking Air Transport DC-3 NC53218 on a flight to Atlanta returned to Byrd Field at Richmond, Virginia with a rough engine when it crashed and burned, killing all 27 on board. The crew failed to: inspect the engines despite trouble on the prior flight, identify the right engine as the trouble, retract the landing gear after an earlier landing attempt and feather the propeller on the failed engine. The captain was on the job a week and allowed himself to be persuaded by the first officer (part owner of the company) to continue into adverse weather.