FAA HISTORICAL CHRONOLOGY, 1926-1940

1926

May 20, 1926: President Calvin Coolidge signed the Air Commerce Act of 1926 into law.

May 23, 1926: Western Air Express (WAE) became one of the first U.S. airlines to offer regular passenger service,

Jun 11, 1926: The Ford Trimotor made its first flight..

Aug 11, 1926: William P. MacCracken, Jr., took office as the first Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Aeronautics.

Oct 1, 1926: Northwest Airways began service.

1927

May 20-21, 1927: Charles A. Lindbergh, a former air mail pilot, made the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic in an airplane, a Ryan monoplane dubbed the Spirit of St. Louis.

Jul 4, 1927: The Lockheed Vega first flew.

Oct 19, 1927: Pan American Airways began its operations with an air mail flight between the United States and Cuba.

1928

May 16, 1928: Transcontinental Air Transport (TAT) came into being.

Sep 18, 1928: The Graf Zeppelin, the most successful rigid airship ever built, first flew.

1929

Mar 2, 1929: Pan American-Grace Airways (Panagra) successfully bid to carry air mail

Mar 4, 1929: Herbert C. Hoover became President, succeeding Calvin Coolidge.

Jun 17, 1929: Delta Air Service made its first passenger flight, with a six-passenger Travel Air, from Dallas, Tex., to Monroe, La..

Aug 8-29, 1929: The Graf Zeppelin made the first round-the-world flight by a rigid airship, leaving from and returning to Lakehurst, N.J., in 21 days 7 hours 34 minutes

Sep 24, 1929: At Mitchel Field, N.Y., Army Lt. James H. Doolittle became the first pilot to use only instrument guidance to take off, fly a set course, and land

Oct 24, 1929: A stock market convulsion gripped Wall Street. The initial crash was followed by another severe break on Oct 29, and by a continuing slide that heralded the onset of the Great Depression. Aviation stocks, as others, were strongly affected.

Dec 2, 1929: Fifteen air carriers pooled $100,000.00 to set up the not-for-profit organization, Aeronautical Radio, Inc. (ARINC), to serve as the single coordinator of aeronautical communications for the air transport industry, using a common network of ground stations.

Dec 20, 1929: Pan American Airways placed orders for the Sikorsky S-40, a large four-engined flying boat. These were the first airplanes that Pan American christened "Clipper," the subsequent trade mark name of the airline's planes

1930

Jan 25, 1930: American Airways was formed out of a group of carriers that had operated separately under the Aviation Corporation (AVCO), a holding company chartered on Mar 3, 1929. American Airways changed its name to American Airlines on Apr 11, 1934.

May 15, 1930: Boeing Air Transport inaugurated the first airline stewardess service. The first stewardess was a registered nurse, Ellen E. Church, who has been described as the first female crew member aboard a commercial airliner.

Jul 19, 1930: Incorporation action took place as a first step in the merger of Transcontinental Air Transport and Western Air Express to form Transcontinental and Western Air (TWA), which later changed its name to Trans World Airlines on May 17, 1950. Western Air Express, meanwhile, had retained its corporate identity on some routes and evolved into Western Airlines, a name it adopted in 1941.

Sep 10, 1930: The Taylor E-2 Cub made its first flight. This design evolved into the famous Piper Cub, which was introduced in 1938 and became one of the world's most popular general aviation airplanes.

Dec 31, 1930: Airworthiness regulations for aircraft components and accessories became effective.

1931

Jul 1, 1931: United Air Lines was formally established as a management company coordinating four component air carriers that had already begun operating as a single entity. United was one of domestic aviation's "Big Four," which also included Eastern Air Transport, American Airways, and Transcontinental and Western Air (TWA).

Jul 27, 1931: A convention of "Key Men" involved in organizing the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) voted for affiliation with the American Federation of Labor.

Sep 5, 1931: The first instrument landing by a system incorporating a glide path was made at College Park, Md.

1932

May 21-22, 1932: Amelia Earhart became the first woman to make a solo crossing of the Atlantic by airplane, flying from Harbor Grace, Newfoundland, to Londonderry, Northern Ireland, in a Lockheed Vega.

Jul 2, 1932: Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first U.S. presidential candidate to fly when he chartered a Ford Trimotor from Albany to Chicago to address the Democratic National Convention.

1933

Feb 8, 1933: The Boeing 247 first flew. Often considered the first modern airliner, this single-wing airplane of all-metal construction was powered by two Pratt & Whitney Wasp air-cooled radial engines. It had a gross takeoff weight of 12,650 points and accommodated 10 passengers. The Aeronautics Branch type-certificated the plane on Mar 16, 1933, and it entered scheduled airline service on Mar 30, 1933.

Mar 4, 1933: Franklin D. Roosevelt became President, succeeding Herbert C. Hoover.

Mar 30, 1933: The Sikorsky S-42, a four-engine flying boat designed for Pan American Airways, made its first flight.

Jul 1, 1933: The Douglas DC-1, a forerunner of the famed DC-3, made its first flight. Transcontinental and Western Air (TWA) purchased the only one of these monoplanes built by Douglas. The DC-2, an improved version of the DC-1, made its maiden flight on May 11, 1934, and promptly went into service with TWA. CAA type-certificated the plane on Jun 29

Aug 1933: The first practical variable-pitch propeller, developed by Frank W. Caldwell of Hamilton Standard Propeller Company in 1930, was introduced into airline service, on a Curtiss Condor biplane.

Dec 20, 1933: The Martin M-130 made its first flight. CAA type-certificated this four-engine, transoceanic flying boat designed for Pan American Airways, on Oct 9, 1935. The aircraft began service with Pan American on Nov 22, 1935.

1934

Feb 23, 1934: The Lockheed Electra L-10 first flew. On Aug 10, the Bureau of Air Commerce type-certificated the aircraft, which featured twin fins and rudders. Scheduled airline service with the L-10 began on Aug 11, 1934.

Jul 1, 1934: The name of the Aeronautics Branch was changed to Bureau of Air Commerce.

Jul 15, 1934: The Southwest Division of Varney Speed Lines began operations, flying a mail route between Pueblo, Col., and El Paso, Tex. The organization later evolved into Continental Air Lines, a name that it adopted on Jul 1, 1937.

Sep 5, 1934: Wiley Post, the first pilot to use a successful pressure suit, reached about 40,000 feet over Chicago.

Oct 15, 1934: The National Airline System, later known as National Airlines, began operations as a Florida intrastate carrier. National's transformation into a trunk airline began in 1944, when the Civil Aeronautics Board awarded it authority to serve the New York/Florida market.

1935

Jan 11-12, 1935: Amelia Earhart took off in a Lockheed Vega from Honolulu and landed in Oakland, Calif., 18 hours 15 minutes later--making the first solo flight from Hawaii to the U.S. mainland.

Aug 15, 1935: Pioneer aviator Wiley Post and humorist Will Rogers were killed when an aircraft piloted by Post -- a hybrid, pontoon-equipped Lockheed Orion-Explorer -- plunged into a lagoon on takeoff, 16 miles north of Point Barrow, Alaska.

Nov 22-29, 1935: Pan American Airway's China Clipper made the first transpacific air mail flight from San Francisco to Honolulu, Midway, Wake, Guam, and Manila.

Dec 17, 1935: The Douglas DC-3 first flew. One of the most successful aircraft in history, the

DC-3 was the first plane that allowed airlines to begin basing their profits squarely on passenger service rather than on carrying mail. The Bureau of Air Commerce certificated this aircraft on

May 21, 1936, and American Airlines became the first to place it in service (using the berth-equipped DST version) on Jun 25, 1936. By 1942, the DC-3 represented 80 percent of the U.S. airline fleet. When production of the DC-3 and its modifications ended in 1945, 10,926 aircraft had been built, 803 as commercial airliners, and the rest as military versions (called C-47 in the U.S. Army, R4D in the U.S. Navy, Dakota or Dakota I by the British).

1936

Jan 3, 1936: Executives of scheduled U.S. airlines met in Chicago to form the Air Transport Association of America as a separate trade association for air carriers.

Mar 24, 1936: At a meeting before a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee to ask for supplemental funds, Director of Air Commerce Eugene L. Vidal, convinced the committee of the necessity for the Federal Government to take over Air Traffic Control.

May 9, 1936: The German rigid airship Hindenburg moored at Lakehurst, N.J., after a nonstop transatlantic passage of 61 hours 38 minutes from Fiedrichshafen, Germany. The flight marked the inauguration of regularly scheduled transatlantic air service. The Hindenburg, which had first flown two months earlier, on Mar 4, made ten roundtrips between Germany and the United States during her 1936 season, carrying 1,021 passengers across the North Atlantic

Oct 21, 1936: Pan American Airways initiated regular weekly transpacific passenger service as the Hawaii Clipper took of from Almeda, near San Francisco, arriving at Manila on Oct 27. (See Nov 22-29, 1935, and Apr 28, 1937.)

Nov 1, 1936: Central Airlines and Pennsylvania Airlines merged to form Pennsylvania-Central.

Airlines. The company changed its name to Capital Airlines on Apr 21, 1948

Calendar year, 1936: For the first time in their history, U.S. domestic airlines carried a million or more passengers (l,042,042) in scheduled air operations in a single year.

1937

May 6, 1937: The German airship Hindenburg burst into flames while mooring at Lakehurst, N.J., the U.S. terminal for its regular transatlantic service, killing 35 of the 97 persons aboard. The tragedy signaled the end of serious efforts to use rigid airships in commercial air transportation

May 7, 1937: The first flight by a fully pressurized airplane, the Lockheed XC-35, occurred. The Army used the plane, a modified Electra, to test equipment and material for use in high altitude operations.

Jul 2, 1937: A Lockheed Electra 10E carrying navigator Fred J. Noonan and famed pilot Amelia Earhart was reported overdue at Howland Island in the Pacific, a stop on an eastward trip planned as the first flight to follow an equatorial path around the globe. A massive search failed to locate the aircraft, and theories as to its fate abound.

1938

Jan 1, 1938: An Airport Traffic Control Section was created in the Airways Operation Division of the Bureau of Air Commerce. The new section was to standardize airport control tower equipment, operation techniques, and personnel. Forty airport control tower operators had been certificated by Jun 30, 1938.

Jun 7, 1938: The Boeing 314 first flew. On Jan 25, 1939, the Civil Aeronautics Authority type-certificated the aircraft, and the airliner entered service with Pan American Airways on May 20, 1939. Made to the specification of Pan American for transoceanic travel, the four-engine flying boat had a gross empty weight of 50,286 pounds and a maximum carrying capacity of 74 passengers and 10 crew members. In 1939, the 314 became the largest production airplane in regular scheduled service in the world.

Jun 23, 1938: President Roosevelt signed the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938 into law.

Jul 10-14, 1938: With a crew of four, Howard Hughes flew a Lockheed L-14 around the world from Floyd Bennett Field, N.Y., and back with stops at Paris, Moscow, Omsk, Yakutsk, Fairbanks, and Minneapolis. This celebrated flight of 14,824 miles took 3 days 19 hours, about half the time achieved by Wiley Post over a similar course in 1934

Jul 17, 1938: Douglas Corrigan took off from Floyd Bennett Field, N.Y., on a 28-hour solo flight to Dublin, Ireland. The pilot had failed to receive clearance for a transatlantic flight, and his persistent claim that he had intended to fly to California earned him the sobriquet “Wrong Way” Corrigan.

Dec 31, 1938: The Boeing 307 Stratoliner, the first airliner with a pressurized cabin, made its initial flight. Derived from the B-17 bomber, this long-range transport had four engines and a carrying capacity of 33 passengers. CAA type-certificated the aircraft on Mar 13, 1940, and on Jul 8, 1940, it entered scheduled service with Transcontinental and Western Air. Besides the prototype, which was lost in a crash, Boeing built only 9 Stratoliners: 5 for TWA, 3 for Pan American, and 1 for Howard Hughes.

1939

Apr 18, 1939: The minimum age requirement for a private pilot's license was increased from 16 to 18 years.

May 15, 1939: The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA), an organization devoted to the interests of general aviation, was founded.

Jun 28, 1939: Pan American Airways inaugurated the first regularly scheduled transatlantic passenger airline service by heavier-than-air craft (see May 19, 1939). A Boeing 314 flying boat made the flight from New York to the Azores, Lisbon, and Marseilles. Pan American opened passenger service between New York and Southhampton, England, on Jul 8. The outbreak of World War II in Europe soon forced curtailment of these routes, and by Oct 3, 1939, only the New York to Lisbon portion was operating.

Jul 6, 1939: Eastern Air Lines began the world’s first scheduled air mail service by a rotary winged aircraft, using a Kellet autogiro to fly from the roof of the Philadelphia Post Office to the airport at Camden, N.J. This experimental service lasted about one year

Sep 1, 1939: Germany invaded Poland, beginning World War II.

Nov 30, 1939: CAA issued Private Pilot's License No. 93258 to Major Dwight D. Eisenhower, U.S. Army (Infantry), at Fort Lewis, Wash. He had begun his flight training while on the staff of General Douglas MacArthur in the Philippines. Although he let his license expire, Eisenhower became the first Chief Executive to have held an airplane pilot's license.

1940

May 2, 1940: President Roosevelt gave final approval for development of a version of the instrument landing system (ILS) favored by CAA. Deployment of the system was delayed, however, by continued disagreements with the military and by World War II defense priorities. ILS did not become available for civil airliners until after the war.

May 13, 1940: The VS-300, precursor of today's fully mature helicopter, made its first free flight, at Stratford, Conn. As designer Igor I. Sikorsky continued to improve the aircraft, which employed a single main rotor, it set records that included a world flight endurance record of over 1 hour, 32 minutes on May 6, 1941. The VS-300's first flight in its final configuration took place on Dec 8, 1941.

Jun 30, 1940: The reorganization of the Civil Aeronautics Authority, under President Roosevelt's Reorganization Plans III and IV, went into effect. The five-man board was transferred to the Department of Commerce and renamed the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB). The Air Safety Board was abolished and its accident-investigating functions assigned to the new CAB

Jul 8, 1940: TWA employed the first flight engineer in U.S. scheduled domestic passenger service, on the Boeing 307B Stratoliner. The flight engineer took over system support functions, including the operation of the pressurization system, from the pilots.

Aug 19, 1940: CAA presented Orville Wright honorary Pilot Certificate No. 1 during a National Aviation Day ceremony dedicating the Wright Memorial at Dayton, Ohio

Calendar Year 1940: CAA obtained the first of 15 Cessna T-50 Bobcats, which became the agency's primary flight inspection aircraft during World War II. The T-50s were retired after the war, when CAA began receiving surplus Beech 18s and DC-3s.