World Aviation in 1935

11-12 January
Amelia Earhart flies solo in a Lockheed Vega from Hawaii to California in 18 hours 15 minutes and becomes the first person to fly this route.

3 February
It is announced that Dr Hugo Junkers, one of the pioneers of all metal construction, has died.

12 February
United States Navy dirigible (steerable airship) USS Macon crashes into sea of California, but fortunately only two crew members are killed.

9 March
It is announced in Germany that the Luftwaffe has been established.

16 March
Germany repudiates the disarmament clauses of the Versailles Treaty, announcing a huge re-armament programme and re-introducing conscription.

28 March
The first successful flight of one of Dr Robert Goddard’s rockets takes place in the United States.

2 May
France concludes an alliance with the Soviet Union.

5 May
Amelia Earhart makes non-stop flight from Mexico City to Newark in New Jersey, in 14 hours 19 minutes.

16 May
Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union conclude an alliance.

18 May
The world’s worst air disaster to date occurs when ANT-20 Maxim Gorky collides with another aircraft near Tushino, causing the death of 56 people..

26 June
The first flight of the Breguet-Dorand Gyroplane Laboratoire helicopter in France.

15 August
Will Rogers and Wiley Post are killed in a take-off crash near Point Barrow in Alaska.

19 September
Konstantin Tsiolkovski, the early Russian rocket pioneer dies.

3 October
Italy invades Abyssinia without warning, using aircraft from the beginning of the invasion.

11 November
Captains A.W. Stevens and O.A. Anderson, with the help of the National Geographic Society, establish a new balloon world altitude record. Following an ascent from Rapid City in South Dakota their balloon Explorer II reaches 22,066 metres (72,395 feet).

22 November
Captain Edwin C. Musick, senior captain of Pan American World Airways, inaugurates its first transpacific airmail service using Martin M130 flying boats.

17 December
Douglas choose this famous date, the anniversary of powered flight, to make the first flight of their new Douglas Sleeper Transport (DST). Better known as the DC3, Dakota or C47 this aircraft arguably becomes the most famous transport aircraft in history.

27 December
The United States Air Corps (USAAC) drops bombs to divert a lava flow off Mauna Loa at Hilo in Hawaii – the first recorded use of aerial bombs for this purpose.