This is a list of aviation-related events from 1914.
The outbreak of World War I accelerates all aspects of aviation which in turn changes war in a twofold way. The aeroplane turns the sky into a new battlefield and eliminates the distinction between frontline and hinterland, with the civilian population far behind the frontline also becoming a target. The war results in the deaths of approximately 20,000 flyers, most of them trained pilots.
Events The Austro-Hungarian Navy formally creates an air arm.Layman 1989, p. 13. Fiat establishes its Società Italiana Aviazione subsidiary, beginning its involvement in the manufacture of aircraft.Chant, Chris 2000, p. 48. The Yokosuka Naval Arsenal begins to produce seaplanes, the first manufacture of naval aircraft in Japan.Peattie 2001, p. 23. The Aeromarine Plane and Motor Company is founded in Keyport, New Jersey, with Inglis M. Uppercu as president.Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 37.
January 1 January The Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps is given the responsibility for the operation of all British military airships. The Royal Navy retained control of all British airships until December 1919.Thetford, Owen, British Naval Aircraft Since 1912, Sixth Edition, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1991, , p. 10. The St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line starts services between St. Petersburg and Tampa, Florida, becoming the first airline to provide regular services with heavier-than-air aircraft, with Anthony Jannus conveying passengers in a Benoist XIV flying boat. A.C. Pheil is the first airline passenger. 2 January – Riding as a passenger in an airplane piloted by the British aviator Gustav Hamel, Trehawke Davies becomes the first woman to experience an aerobatic loop.Daniel, Clifton, ed., Chronicle of the 20th Century, Mount Kisco, New York: Chronicle Publications, 1987, , p. 179.
February The Sikorsky Ilya Muromets sets a load-to-altitude record, lifting 16 people to . 1 February – The Aero Club of America announces plans to sponsor an around-the-world airplane race.Daniel, Clifton, ed., Chronicle of the 20th Century, Mount Kisco, New York: Chronicle Publications, 1987, , p. 180. 3 February – German aviator Bruno Langer sets a new flight endurance record, flying nonstop for 14 hours 7 minutes.Fischer, William Edward Jr., "The Development of Military Night Aviation to 1919" 7 February – Karl Ingold sets a new world flight endurance record, flying nonstop for 16 hours 20 minutes in an Aviatik biplane. The flight, from Mulhouse to Munich, Germany, covers a distance of . 8–10 February – Berliner, Haase and Nikolai fly 3,053 km (1,896 statute miles) in their free balloon from Bitterfeld to Perm. This record stands until 1950. 11 February – Flying an LFG Roland Pfeilflieger biplane, German aviator Bruno Langer attempts to break the flight endurance record Karl Ingold set on 7 February, but falls 20 minutes short, landing at Kreuz after 16 continuous hours in the air.
March 1 March – Pioneer of Argentine aviation Jorge Newbery (b. 1875) is killed in a crash at Estancia "Los Tamarindos" while performing aerobatics prior to an attempt to cross the Andes by air.
April 20 April Howard Pixton wins the Schneider Trophy at Monaco. Pixton averages over the course in a Sopwith Schneider. Three U.S. Navy aircraft depart Pensacola, Florida on board the battleship USS Mississippi to take part in American military operations at Veracruz, Mexico. They will fly reconnaissance missions until 12 May. 25 April – The first combat flight by a U.S. Navy aircraft takes place. It is a flight to observe Mexican positions during the Veracruz Incident.Swanborough, Gordon, and Peter M. Bowers, United States Navy Aircraft Since 1911, Second Edition, London: Putnam, 1976, , p. 2.
May The Royal Navy purchases an unfinished merchant ship for a complete redesign as the United Kingdoms first ship designed specifically for aviation activities. She will become the seaplane carrier Ark Royal.Layman 1989, p. 45. 8 May – A civilian pilot, René Caudron, makes the first French shipboard takeoff in an airplane from a ramp constructed over the foredeck of the seaplane carrier Foudre, using a Caudron G.3 amphibian floatplane.Layman 1989, p. 17. 19 May – Performing aerobatics in a Morane-Saulnier monoplane over the hippodrome at Riga in the Russian Empire, Russian pilot Lydia Zvereva becomes the first woman to execute a loop. 23 May – German-born British aviator Gustav Hamel disappears aged 24 over the English Channel while returning from Villacoublay in a new 80 hp Gnome Monosoupape engined Morane-Saulnier monoplane he has just collected, and intended to compete with in the Aerial Derby the same day (postponed).
June 6 June – The third annual Aerial Derby – postponed from 23 May due to poor weather – is held, sponsored by the Daily Mail. Eleven participants fly over a 94-mile (151-kilometer) circuit beginning and ending at Hendon Aerodrome in London with control points at Kempton Park, Esher, Purley, and Purfleet. Walter Brock is the overall winner for the second consecutive year, completing the course in 1 hour 18 minutes 54 seconds in a Morane-Saulnier G with a handicap of 20 minutes 24 seconds. The outbreak of World War I during the summer will prevent the event from being held again until 1919. 8–9 June – Flying a Morane-Saulnier monoplane, Eugène Gilbert departs Villacoublay and flies via Peronne, Rheims, Saint-Dizier, Gray, Joigny, Beaune, Vienne, and Nimes to Mirande, where he lands short of his goal of reaching Pau due to fuel exhaustion. He continues on 9 June, taking off from Mirande and flying via Pau, Saint-André-de-Cubzac, Romorantin, Angers, Evreux, and Calais to Villacoublay, where he lands having covered a distance over two days of in 39 hours 35 minutes. The flight will win him the 1914 International Michelin Cup for the fastest time of the year over a circuit of about . It is the last International Michelin Cup awarded until 1921. 9 June – Using a ramp constructed over the foredeck of the seaplane carrier , French Navy Lieutenant de vaisseau (Ship-of-the-Line Lieutenant) Jean de Laborde attempts Frances second airplane takeoff from a ship and the first by a French naval aviator, but crashes. 20 June – While the Austro-Hungarian airship Militärluftschiff III (or M.III) hovers over Fischamend testing new camera equipment, an Austro-Hungarian Army pilot tries to loop M.III in a Farman biplane. The airplane strikes the top of the airship, tearing a hole and igniting the escaping hydrogen gas. Both aircraft are destroyed, and both men in the airplane and all seven men aboard M.III are killed. It is the end of the Austro-Hungarian airship program.Phythyon, John R., Jr., Great War at Sea: Zeppelins, Virginia Beach, Virginia: Avalanche Press, Inc., 2007, p. 44. 23 June – The first flight of the flying boat America, which businessman Rodman Wanamaker has ordered with a goal of sponsoring the first transatlantic flight, occurs at Hammondsport, New York.Daniel, Clifton, ed., Chronicle of the 20th Century, Mount Kisco, New York: Chronicle Publications, 1987, , p. 140. The outbreak of World War I five weeks later will prevent the transatlantic attempt from taking place. 24 June – At Johannistal, Germany, German aviator Gustav Basser sets a new flight endurance record, flying nonstop for 18 hours 10 minutes.Anonymous, "Record Duration Flight," Knoxville Journal and Tribune, June 25, 1014. 25 June – After his first attempt of the day to fly over Mount Whitney in the Sierra Nevada range in California fails due to strong winds, Silas Christofferson succeeds in his second attempt, setting a U.S. altitude record of 30 June – A Sikorsky Ilya Muromets airplane takes off from Saint Petersburg for Kiev for its first long-range test flight, a world record with a distance of some and just one fuel stop.
July 1 July The Naval Wing of the British Royal Flying Corps is separated from the RFC and established as a separate service, the Royal Naval Air Service, under the control of the Royal Navy. The United States Navy establishes its first air department, the Bureau of Aeronautics.Layman 1989, p. 112. 6 July – The French aviation pioneer Georges Legagneux is killed while flying over Saumur, France, when he enters a dive, never pulls out of it, and plunges into the Loire. 10–11 July – German Reinhold Böhm flies his Albatros-biplane 24 hours and 12 minutes without refueling and nonstop. This one-man-flight record lasts until 1927.Skytamer, accessed August 21, 2010New York Times, July 13, 1914, p. 3 11 July – London–Paris return air race won by the American Walter L. Brock.The Daily Telegraph (London) 13 July 1914. 18 July – The United States Congress creates an Aviation Section in the United States Army Signal Corps. 22 July – The Austro-Hungarian Navy battleships Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand, Radetzky, and SMS Zrínyi each transport one flying boat from Pola to the Gulf of Cattaro. The following day they carry out a reconnaissance of the border with Montenegro. These are the first operational flights in Europe by naval aircraft. 28 July World War I begins as Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia, following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand a month earlier. Royal Naval Air Service Squadron Commander Arthur M. Longmore successfully releases a 14-inch (356-mm) torpedo from a Short Admiralty Type 81 floatplane. This may be the first successful aerial launch of a torpedo,Sturtivant, Ray, British Naval Aviation: The Fleet Air Arm, 1917-1990, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1990, , p. 215. although Captain Alessandro Guidoni of Italys drop of a dummy torpedo from the experimental Pateras Pescara monoplane in "mid-1914" may have been earlier.Chant, Chris 2000, p. 13. 30 July – Flying the Blériot XI-2 monoplane Ca Flotte, Norwegian aviator Tryggve Gran makes the first crossing of the North Sea by aeroplane, flying from Cruden Bay, Scotland, to Jæren, Norway, in 4 hours 10 minutes. Unknown date – Republic of China uses airplanes to bomb targets in the Bai Lang Rebellion.Air Warfare: an International Encyclopedia: A-L Walter J. Boyne, 2002
August
French military aviators "attempted to destroy buildings near Wesel; others have been seen in the district of the Eifel; one has thrown bombs on the railway near Carlsruhe and Nuremberg."Germany's Declaration of War with France, 3 August 1914 https://www.firstworldwar.com/source/germandeclarationofwar_france.htm Imperial German Navy Rear Admiral Paul Behncke, Chief of the Naval Staff, urges that the navys Zeppelins begin attacks on London, arguing that Zeppelin attacks "may be expected, whether they involve London or the neighborhood of London, to cause panic in the population which may possibly render it doubtful that the war may be continued."Murray, Williamson, Strategy for Defeat: The Luftwaffe 1933-1945, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama: Air University Press, 1983, no ISBN, pp. 3-4. As World War I breaks out, neutral Italy has 28 combat-ready aircraft and 18 military aircraft in reserve.Gooch, John, Mussolini and His Generals: The Armed Forces and Fascist Foreign Policy, 1922-1940, Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press, 2007, , p. 52. Italy will join the war on the side of the Allies in May 1915. 1 August – The Russian Empire enters World War I with Russia's declaration of war on Austria-Hungary. 3 August France and Belgium enter World War I when Germany invades Belgium and declares war on France. The Imperial German Navy leases the cargo-passenger ship Answald for conversion into Germanys first seaplane carrier, SMS Answald, designated Flugzeugmutterschiff I (Airplane Mothership I).Layman 1989, p. 22-23.