This is a list of aviation-related events from 1929:
Events During the year, the greatest number of fatal civil aircraft crashes in United States history take place. Cubana de Aviación begins service. Pan American World Airways begins service. The Canadian Siskins aerobatic team is formed. The first official airmail delivery by bush pilot to the District of Mackenzie in Canada's western Arctic takes place. An airway beacon is built in St. Paul, Minnesota. It still exists in Indian Mounds Park. Aircraft Development Corporation changes its name to the Detroit Aircraft Corporation. Consolidated Aircraft Corporation absorbs the Thomas-Morse Aircraft Corporation.Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 95. In response to the creation of the Curtiss-Wright Corporation, the United Aircraft and Transport Corporation is formed as a holding company controlling the stock of the Boeing Airplane Company, the Chance Vought Corporation, the Hamilton Aero Manufacturing Company, and the Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Company, soon joined by the Sikorsky Aviation Corporation, the Stearman Aircraft Company, the Standard Steel Propeller Company, and several airlines managed by the new United Air Lines, Inc. management company. The Glenn L. Martin Company sells its factory in Cleveland, Ohio, and moves to a new one at Middle River, Maryland. The Imperial Japanese Navy begins to gather information on aerial techniques, training, and aircraft necessary for dive bombing.Peattie, Mark R., Sunburst: The Rise of Japanese Naval Air Power 1909–1941, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2001, , p. 40. The Royal Swedish Navy assigns a ship to aviation service for the first time.Layman, R.D., Before the Aircraft Carrier: The Development of Aviation Vessels 1849–1922, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1989, , p. 106. Saunders-Roe Limited, also known as Saro, is formed. United States Army Sergeant Ralph W. Bottriell makes his 500th and final parachute jump, the most by anyone in the world at the time. He then stops parachuting and becomes a ground instructor."Made 500 Parachute Jumps." Popular Science Monthly, November 1929, p. 65, mid page article.
January The Cierva C.8W autogyro makes the first autogyro flight in the United States, at Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. January 1 – The Government of Poland creates LOT Polish Airlines as a state-owned, self-governing corporation. January 1–7 – Carl Spaatz and four other United States Army Air Corps fliers set an endurance record of 151 hours aloft in the modified Atlantic-Fokker C-2A Question Mark. January 3 – Australian aviators Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm found Australian National Airways (ANA), the first airline of that name. It will begin scheduled services in January 1930. January 14 – The United States Department of Commerce's Aeronautics Branch receives the Aero Club of America Trophy (the future Collier Trophy) for 1928 for its outstanding development of airways and air navigation facilities. January 15 – The Fairchild FC-2W2 Stars and Stripes makes the first flight from Little America, a base Richard E. Byrd and his team had recently set up on the Ross Ice Shelf off Antarctica to support his planned attempt at the first flight over the South Pole. January 25 While circling at an altitude of over Little America off Antarctica, the Fairchild FC-2W2 Stars and Stripes sets a record for the longest distance for a two-way telegraphic connection between air and ground, maintaining continuous contact with San Francisco, California, and New York City. Pan American Airways and W. R. Grace and Company found Pan American-Grace Airways (Panagra). January 27 The Fairchild FC-2W2 Stars and Stripes makes it first significant flight over Antarctica. Richard Byrd discovers 14 mountains and an island during the five-hour flight. Aircraft from the United States Navy aircraft carrier carry out a successful simulated dawn raid on the Panama Canal in a training exercise. Despite facing a defending force including the aircraft carrier and shore-based U.S. Navy and United States Army aircraft, the strike force is judged to have "destroyed" the canal locks and airfields in the Panama Canal Zone. Admiral William V. Pratt describes the exercise as "the most brilliantly conceived and most effectively executed naval operation in our [i.e., U.S. Navy] history."Polmar, Norman, Historic Naval Aircraft: From the Pages of Naval History Magazine, Washington, D.C. : Brassey's, 2004, , pp. 41–43. January 29 – The Airways Division of the United States Department of Commerce turns on Beacon No. 25 at Miriam, Nevada, on the San Francisco–Salt Lake City Airway, completing the lighting of the Transcontinental Airway System in the United States by closing the final unlighted gap. January 30 – Inter-Island Airways, the future Hawaiian Airlines, is founded.
February Harold Pitcairn purchases the U.S. rights to all of Juan de la Cierva′s autogiro inventions and patents then in existence and establishes the Pitcairn-Cierva Autogiro Company.century-of-flight.net Century of Flight: History of the Helicopter: Contributions of the Autogyro February 1 – Regulations covering the entry and clearance of aircraft carrying foreign cargo and passengers into the United States issued by the United States Department of Commerce's Aeronautics Branch (predecessor of the Federal Aviation Administration) go into effect. February 4 – Henry Berliner and Temple Nach Joyce found the Berliner-Joyce Aircraft Corporation.Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 58. February 4–5 (overnight) – With Oscar Grubb aboard as flight engineer, Frank Hawks sets a transcontinental airspeed record for a flight across the continental United States while ferrying the Lockheed Air Express (registration NR7955) from the Lockheed factory in Burbank, California, to an air show in New York City, making the flight in 18 hours 21 minutes. The use of a NACA cowling increases the aircraft's maximum speed from .Allen, Richard Sanders, Revolution in the Sky: Those Fabulous Lockheeds, The Pilots Who Flew Them, Brattleboro, Vermont: The Stephen Greene Press, 1964, p. 53.Daniels, C. M., "Speed: The Story of Frank Hawks," Air Classics, Vol. 6, No. 2, December 1969, p. 47. February 19 — Flying the Fairchild FC-2W2 Stars and Stripes over Antarctica, Richard E. Byrd discovers an area he names Marie Byrd Land and claims it for the United States. Since 15 January, when Stars and Stripes began flights from Little America, Byrd's base on the Ross Ice Shelf, Byrd has used Stars and Stripes to explore and chart about of territory which he describes as "never before seen by human eye."
March March 2 Seeking a safe route across the Andes between Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Santiago, Chile, to avoid the detour aircraft routinely made to avoid the mountains, a Latécoère 25 piloted by Jean Mermoz and carrying his mechanic, Alexandre Collenot, and Count Henry de La Vaulx as passengers is caught in a downdraft and forced to land on a 300-meter-wide (986-foot-wide) plateau at an altitude of . The three men spend four days repairing and lightening the plane and clearing a path to the edge of the plateau, after which they roll it off the edge, Mermoz dives to gain airspeed, and they arrive safely in Santiago. The event is celebrated widely. The United States Department of Commerce's publication Domestic Air News reports that the United States Post Office Department has awarded the air mail contract for the route from Cristóbal in the Panama Canal Zone to Santiago, Chile, to Pan American-Grace Airways (Panagra). It is the longest air mail route in the world at the time. March 13 – The Spanish government airline CLASSA is formally established as a company, formed by the merger of Iberia and several other Spanish airlines. March 17 – The Colonial Western Airways Ford 4-AT-B Trimotor NC7683 suffers a double engine failure during its initial climb after takeoff from Newark Airport in Newark, New Jersey. It fails to gain height and crashes into a railroad freight car loaded with sand, killing 14 of the 15 people on board the aircraft. At the time, this is the deadliest airplane accident in American history.Aviation Safety Network: Accident Description March 19 – The newly completed Ford 5-AT-B Trimotor NC9674, which had made its first flight only five days earlier, crashes when its wing strikes the ground on landing while it returns to Ford Airport in Dearborn, Michigan, during a Ford Motor Company flight prior to delivery to its customer. All four people on board die.Aviation Safety Network: Accident Description March 21 – Bernt Balchen pilots the Fairchild FC-2W2 Stars and Stripes from Little America, Richard E. Byrd's base on the Ross Ice Shelf, over Antarctica to rescue Byrd and two other members of his expedition. Byrd and the other two men previously had rescued Balchen and two scientists after their plane — the Fokker Super Universal The Virginia (NC4453) — was destroyed in a storm, then remained behind when Balchen and the two scientists flew back to Little America aboard Stars and Stripes. Byrd and the other two men then had been stranded by new storms until the weather improved and allowed Balchen to return to pick them up. March 30 – Imperial Airways commences the first scheduled air service between the United Kingdom and British India.
April April 2–6 – Flying a biplane in support of rebel forces during the Escobar Rebellion in Mexico, Irish pilot Patrick Murphy makes a number of bombing raids against Naco in the Mexican state of Sonora in which he mistakenly drops bombs across the border in the United States on three occasions, damaging several buildings and destroying a car in neighboring Naco, Arizona. It is the first time in history that U.S. territory has come under aerial bombing attack by a foreign aircraft. April 21 – A United States Army Air Corps Boeing PW-9D fighter, 28-037, performing stunts over San Diego, California, attempts to pass in front of the Maddux Air Lines Ford 5-AT-B Trimotor NC9636, which is on a scheduled passenger flight from San Diego to Phoenix, Arizona. The PW-9D strikes the Trimotor's cockpit, and both aircraft crash, killing the PW-9D pilot and all five people aboard the airliner.Aviation Safety Network: Accident Description April 24–26 – Royal Air Force Squadron Leader Arthur G. Jones-Williams and Flight Lieutenant Norman H. Jenkins make the first non-stop flight from the United Kingdom to British India, using a Fairey Long-Range Monoplane. The flight, from RAF Cranwell to Karachi, covers nonstop in 50 hours 48 minutes, falling short of the world nonstop flight distance record.O'Connor, Derek, "Going Long," Aviation History, March 2016, p. 53.
May May 9 – The United States Government establishes the Interdepartmental Committee on Airways to study and pass on applications for the extension of civil airways in the United States. The six-member committee consists of three representatives each from the United States Department of Commerce and the United States Post Office Department. May 16 – At the first Academy Awards ceremony, the first award in history for Outstanding Picture (later renamed "Best Picture") goes to an aviation-themed film, the 1927 silent film Wings about two fighter pilots in World War I.Anonymous, "Today in History," The Washington Post Express, May 16, 2013, p. 26. May 20 – The Peruvian Armys aviation branch and the Peruvian Navys Naval Aviation Corps are combined to form the Peruvian Aviation Corps, forerunner of the Peruvian Air Force. May 25 – The Spanish government airline CLASSA officially assumes all the rights, obligations, fleets, and staff of Iberia and the other airlines that merged to form it.