World Aviation in 1927
15 January
Boeing wins the United States Post Office’s San Francisco to Chicago mail contract and establishes Boeing Air Transport to do the flying.
14 March
Pan American World Airways (Pan-Am) is formed.
8 May
Charles Eugène Jules Marie Nungesser, the French First World War fighter ace, goes missing in a Levasseur PL8, during an attempted east to west crossing of the North Atlantic.
20-21 May
Captain Charles Lindbergh makes the first solo, west to east transatlantic crossing in a specially-built Ryan NYP (New York to Paris) Monoplane, ‘Spirit of St Louis’.
It took Lindberg 33 hours 39 minutes to complete the flight from Long Island in New York to Paris in France. The distance covered was 5,778 kilometres (3,590 miles).
27 May
The first French aircraft carrier, ‘Béarn’, is finally completed after 7 years of construction.
4-6 June
Charles A. Levine becomes the first transatlantic passenger in an aircraft. The flight, in a Wright-Bellanca WB2 Columbia, from New York to Eisleben in Germany, is piloted by Clarence D. Chamberlain and covers a distance of 6,294 kilometres (3,911 miles).
5 June
The Society for Space Flight is formed in Germany. Amongst its founders and first members is a young Wernher von Braun, who would become one of the most important rocket developers and champions of space exploration between the 1930s and the 1970s.
28-29 June
Lieutenant A. Hegenberger and Lieutenant L. Maitland, fly from Oakland in California to Honolulu in Hawaii in a Fokker C2 monoplane.
17 July
United States Marine Corps (USMC) de Havilland DH4s attack hostile Nicaraguan forces surrounding the Marine Corps garrison at Ocotal in Nicaragua.
30 July
Don Juan de la Cierva becomes the first passenger to fly in an autogyro when he flies in the Cierva C6D, which had made its first flight the day before.
1-28 September
South African, Lieutenant R.R. Bentley flies a de Havilland DH60X Moth from London to Cape Town.
7 September
The Cessna Aircraft Company is established by Clyde V. Cessna.
14-15 October
Captain Dieudonné and Lieutenant Commander Joseph le Brix make the first non-stop aircraft crossing of the South Atlantic, in a Bréguet 19 Nungesser-Coli. They fly from Saint-Louis in Senegal to Port Natal in Brazil.
6 November
The first practice jump by paratroops is made by the Italian army over Cinisello.
16 November
The United States Navy’s second carrier, USS Saratoga, is commissioned.
14 December
The United States Navy’s third carrier, USS Lexington, is commissioned.