1937 in aviation

Updated on Dec 07, 2024

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This is a list of aviation-related events from 1937:

Events

Over Tushino airfield near Moscow, Soviet aircraft fly in precise formations spelling "LENIN,", "STALIN," and "USSR."

Cuba establishes a naval aviation arm.

Kawasaki Heavy Industries moves its airframe manufacturing business into a new subsidiary, the Kawasaki Aircraft Engineering Company Ltd.

January

January 12 - Adventurer and filmmaker Martin Johnson, of Martin and Osa Johnson fame, is killed along with four others in the crash of Western Air Express Flight 7 in mountainous terrain near Saugus, California.

January 19 - Howard Hughes sets a new record by flying from Los Angeles to New York City in 7 hours, 28 minutes and 25 seconds.

February

Manchukuo officially establishes the Manchukuo Imperial Air Force. In fact, it had existed unofficially since 1932.

February 3 – In the Spanish Civil War, a Nationalist (rebel) attack on Málaga begins, supported by an Italian "legionary" air force of about 100 aircraft.

February 18 – Nationalist ace Joaquín García Morato plays a major role in an air-to-air engagement in which a Nationalist force of Fiat CR.32 fighters defeats a Republican (loyalist) one of Polikarpov I-15s, shooting down eight I-15s. The battle gives the Nationalists temporary air superiority during the Battle of Jarama and demonstrates that the CR.32s could defeat the I-15s – which previously had dominated the CR.32s over Spain – if handled courageously and imaginatively.

March

March 5 – Imperial Airways opens a new flying boat base at Hythe, Hampshire, England.

March 8 – A Nationalist offensive begins against Guadalajara, Spain, with support by Italian forces, including 50 fighters and 12 reconnaissance planes.

March 17 – Amelia Earhart flies a Lockheed Electra from Oakland, California, to Wheeler Field, Territory of Hawaii, on the first leg of an attempted circumnavigation of the world, making the flight in 15 hours 47 minutes.

March 18 – The Bossi-Bonomi Pedaliante achieves the first sustained 1-km (0.621-mile) human-powered flight, with a catapult launch.

March 20 – As Earhart tries to leave Hawaii for the second leg of her around-the-world flight, her Electra is severely damaged in an aborted takeoff from Luke Field on Ford Island in Pearl Harbor, bringing her circumnavigation attempt to an end.

March 22

Spanish Nationalist leader Francisco Franco orders his National Aviation (Aviación Nacional) force to begin a bombing campaign against the Basques in northern Spain.

The 71-year-old English aviator and ornithologist Mary Russell, Duchess of Bedford, dies in the crash of her de Havilland DH.60GIII Moth Major into the North Sea off Great Yarmouth, England. Her body is never recovered.

March 25 – The Transcontinental and Western Air Douglas DC-2 NC13730 crashes nose first into a gully near Clifton, Pennsylvania, due to atmospheric icing during a flight from Camden Central Airport in Camden County, New Jersey, to Allegheny County Airport outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, killing all 13 people on board. Doris Hammons, the first TWA flight attendant – known at the time as an "air hostess" – killed in an airplane crash, is among the dead.

March 31 – A Spanish Nationalist ground offensive begins against the Basques, supported by 80 German aircraft based at Vitoria-Gasteiz and 70 Spanish Nationalist and Italian aircraft based elsewhere in northern Spain. Opposing them are 20 to 30 Basque aircraft. On the first day, German Junkers Ju 52s conduct the first terror bombing and strafing of an undefended town in Europe, killing 248 people in Durango.

March 31-April 4 – Supporting Nationalist forces, 40 to 50 aircraft per day bomb Ochandiano, Spain.

April

Flying a Breda Ba.88 Lince, Breda chief test pilot Furio Niclot sets two speed-over-distance world records, averaging 517 km/hr (321.25 mph) over a 100-km (62.1-mile) distance and 475 km/hr (295.15 mph) over a 1000-km (621-mile) circuit.

The Martin M-130 flying boat Hawaii Clipper completes Pan American World Airways' 100th transpacific flight without a single passenger fatality. It is considered a remarkable safety record at the time.

American Export Airlines is founded.

April 6–9 – Masaaki Iinuma (pilot) and Kenji Tsukagoshi (flight mechanic and navigator) fly the Mitsubishi Ki-15 J-BAAI Kamikaze 15,366 km (9,542 statute miles) from Tachikawa, Japan, to Croydon Airport in London in a record 94 hours 17 minutes 56 seconds, of which 51 hours 17 minutes 23 seconds is spent in the air at an average speed of 162 km/hr (101.2 mph). It is the first Japanese-built aircraft to fly to Europe.

April 12 – Sir Frank Whittle ground-tests the first jet engine designed to power an aircraft at the British Thomson-Houston factory in Rugby, England.

April 13 – Frank Hawks flies the Hawks Miller HM-1 Time Flies about 1,100 miles (1,771 km) from Hartford, Connecticut, to Miami, Florida in 4 hours 55 minutes. After lunch, he flies the plane from Miami to Newark, New Jersey, in 4 hours 21 minutes. The aircraft is damaged on landing at Newark and Hawks opts not to rebuild it.

April 20 – A new Nationalist advance begins in Vizcaya province in northern Spain, supported by a preliminary aerial bombardment.

April 26 – Four Heinkel He.111 and 23 Junkers Ju 52 bombers of the German Condor Legion attack Guernica, Spain, in the first example of "carpet bombing" to demoralize a civilian population. Over three hours, the bombers drop 45,000 kg (99,207 lbs) of bombs, destroying 70% of the city and killing at least 1,000, and perhaps as many as a third (over 1,600 people) of its inhabitants. Messerschmitt Bf 109 and Heinkel He 51 fighters also strafe the town to kill any inhabitants they see. The town burns for three days. The damage shocks Spanish Nationalist military leaders, and the Condor Legion engages in no further area bombing during the Spanish Civil War.

April 27 – Henrich Focke and Gerd Achgelis found the Focke-Achgelis company to design and manufacture helicopters at Hoykenkamp, Germany.

May

In the Spanish Civil War, the Republicans have the technological and numerical superiority in the air, with about 450 aircraft, including 150 Soviet and 50 other fighters and 60 Soviet and 40 other bombers; they have lost about 150 aircraft since the war began in July 1936. The Nationalists have a little less than 400 aircraft, with about 150 flown by Spanish pilots, about 100 in the German Condor Legion, and about 120 in the Italian "legionary air force."

May 6 – The Hindenburg disaster occurs when the German dirigible Hindenburg catches fire and is destroyed at the end of a transatlantic flight while attempting to dock with a mooring mast at Naval Air Station Lakehurst in Lakehurst, New Jersey. Of the 97 people on board, 35 are killed, as is one member of the ground crew.

May 8 – Lieutenant Colonel Mario Pezzi of Italy sets a new world altitude record of 15,655 meters (51,362 feet) in a Caproni Ca.161.

May 8–14 – Dick Merrill and his copilot Jack Lambie make the Hearst Publishing-sponsored "Anglo-American Goodwill Coronation Flight" – history's first transatlantic commercial round-trip flight – in the Lockheed Model 10E Electra Daily Express. Departing New York City on May 8 carrying photographs of the Hindenburg disaster to London so that Hearst newspapers can be the first in the United Kingdom to publish them, they return on May 14 with photographs of the May 10 coronation of King George VI so that Hearst newspapers can be the first to publish photographs of the coronation in the United States. Merrill will win the 1937 Harmon Trophy for the flight, and footage from the flight will be used to make the 1937 movie Atlantic Flight, in which Merrill and Lambie star.

May 10 – With its engine turned off, a Focke-Wulf Fw 61 helicopter makes the first landing for an Fw 61 using autorotation.

May 22 – The Spanish Republican Air Force sends fighters on a risky flight across Nationalist-controlled territory to Republican bases in northern Spain to support the Basque defense against Nationalist forces there; seven of them arrive safely. Over the next several weeks, 50 more Republican aircraft – Polikarpov I-15 and I-16 fighters and Polikarpov R-5 light bombers – will make the trip, with 45 arriving safely.

May 24 – A Spanish Republican air raid against Palma, Majorca, hits the Italian armed merchant cruiser Barletta – a unit of the non-intervention patrol around Spain.– killing six of her crew.

May 26 – Spanish Republican air raids by Soviet pilots narrowly miss the German patrol ship Albatross at Palma and damage the German "pocket battleship" Deutschland off Ibiza, killing 31 and wounding 66 aboard Deutschland.

June

The Latécoère 521 flying boat Lieutenant de Vaisseau Paris makes a nonstop flight from France to Natal, Brazil, then returns to France via the North Atlantic Ocean.

June 1 – Transcontinental and Western Air introduces sleeper berths for airline passengers in the United States.

June 3 – The Spanish Nationalist commander General Emilio Mola dies when his plane crashes on the hill of Alcocero de Mola, near Burgos.

June 11 – An aerial bombardment by German aircraft of the Condor Legion and Italian aircraft precedes a renewed Nationalist offensive against the Basque defensive perimeter around Bilbao, Spain.

June 12 – About 70 German and Italian aircraft attack Basque defenses around Bilbao over the course of several hours.

June 14 – German aircraft of the Condor Legion strafe refugees from Bilbao as they flee along the road to Santander.

June 18–20 – Soviet aviators Valery Chkalov, G. F. Baidukov, and A. V. Belyakov fly from Moscow in the Soviet Union to Vancouver, Washington, in the United States via the North Pole in a Tupolev ANT-25.

June 25 – Flying a Focke-Wulf Fw 61, Ewald Rohlfs sets two new helicopter world records, an altitude record of 2,439 meters (8,002 feet) and an endurance record of 1 hour 20 minutes 49 seconds.

June 26 – Flying a Focke-Wulf Fw 61, Ewald Rohlfs sets three new helicopter world records: a straight-line distance record of 16.4 kilometers (10.2 miles), a closed-circuit distance record of 80.604 kilometers (50.055 miles), and a straight-line speed record of 122.553 km/hr (76.105 mph) over a 20-kilometer (12.4-mile) course.

June 27 – The British Airline Pilots' Association is founded.

June 30 – During a 2¼-hour flight in the Bristol Type 138A, Royal Air Force Flight Lieutenant M. J. Adam sets a Fédération Aéronautique Internationale-homologated world altitude record of 16,440 meters (53,937 feet). The cockpit canopy cracks, but he is saved by his pressure suit.

July

July 3 – Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappear over the Pacific Ocean on a flight from Lae, New Guinea, to Howland Island, and are never seen again.

July 3–6 – Pan American World Airways and Imperial Airways flying boats conduct joint survey flights over the Atlantic Ocean in preparation for the commencement of regular services.

July 6 – A Spanish Republican offensive against Brunete begins, supported by 300 aircraft; the Republicans will use Polikarpov I-15 fighters at night for the first time during the battle, opposing night-bombing German Heinkel He 111 bombers. The Nationalists redeploy German aircraft of the Condor Legion from north to central Spain to support Nationalist ground forces around Brunete.

July 7

The Marco Polo Bridge Incident begins the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Curtiss receives the largest order placed with an airplane manufacturing company since 1918 when the United States Army Air Corps orders 210 P-36 Hawks

July 8 – Varney Speed Lines is renamed Continental Air Lines, which later will be changed to Continental Airlines.

July 11

The Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy agree that if a full-scale war breaks out with China, the army will have the responsibility for operations in northern China and the navy in central and southern China.

German Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters appear over the battlefield around Brunete, Spain, proving themselves much more effective than Republican Polikarpov I-15 fighters, although outnumbered by the I-15s.

July 12–14 – Soviet aviators Mikhail Gromov, A. B. Yumashev, and S. A. Danilin establish a new unrefueled flight distance record of 10,148 kilometers (6,302 miles), flying from Moscow in the Soviet Union to San Jacinto, California, in the United States via the North Pole in a Tupolev ANT-25, covering the distance in 62 hours 17 minutes.

July 18 – Supporting Nationalist forces, German fighters of the Condor Legion begin to dominate the air over the Battle of Brunete, shooting down 21 Republican aircraft during the day. The Nationalists will hold the advantage in the air over central Spain for the rest of the Spanish Civil War.

July 21 – Arbitrating the Royal Navy's request that control of British naval aircraft be transferred to it from the Royal Air Force for the first time since the dissolution of the Royal Naval Air Service in 1918, Sir Thomas Inskip recommends to the British Cabinet that the Royal Navy have full control of its aircraft. His decision, which becomes known as the "Inskip Award," will take nearly two years to implement.

July 25 – The Battle of Brunete ends. During the 20-day-long battle, the Republicans have lost about 100 aircraft, while the Nationalists have lost 23. The appearance of the German Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter and Heinkel He 111 bomber and the Italian Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 bomber in numbers during the battle signals the end of Republican air superiority in the Spanish Civil War.

August

August 6

In response to a request by Spanish Nationalist leader Francisco Franco for the Italian armed forces to attack ships in the Mediterranean Sea bringing aid to the Republicans, Italian aircraft based on Majorca bomb a British, a French, and an Italian merchant ship near Algiers.

Pan American Airways receives the Collier Trophy for "establishment of the transpacific airline and the successful execution of extended overwater navigation and the regular operations thereof." Chief Executive Officer Juan Trippe accepts the trophy on behalf of the company from President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

August 7 – Italian aircraft from Majorca bomb a Greek ship in the Mediterranean Sea.

August 12 – Majorca-based Italian aircraft sink a Danish cargo vessel in the Mediterranean Sea.

August 14

On the second day of the Battle of Shanghai, Nationalist Chinese aircraft attack Imperial Japanese Navy ships anchored in the Huangpu River during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Vice Admiral Kiyoshi Hasegawa orders Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carriers to begin strikes against the coast of China, beginning several months of such operations.

A Nationalist offensive in northern Spain against Basque forces defending Santander, begins, supported by 70 German – including the latest models, being evaluated in combat for the first time – 80 Italian, and 70 Spanish Nationalist aircraft. Republican forces opposing them have only 33 fighters – only 18 of them modern Soviet aircraft – and 11 reconnaissance planes. The Nationalist aerial bombardment will overwhelm the defenders of Santander, which will fall to the Nationalists on August 26.

August 14–15 - Imperial Japanese Navy Mitsubishi G3M bombers based at Taihoku on Formosa and Ōmura on Kyūshū conduct over-ocean raids on Nationalist Chinese bases 400 to 500 miles (644 to 805 km) inland, demonstrating an operational range that astonishes both foreign observers and those of the Imperial Japanese Army. It is the first transoceanic bombing raid in history.

August 15 - Deutsche Luft Hansa begins seaplane services between the Azores and New York with the assistance of seaplane tenders stationed along the route.

August 24 – The Republicans launch an offensive against Nationalist in forces in Aragon, supported by about 200 aircraft; the opposing Nationalists have only 15 Heinkels. The Nationalists redeploy 20 Fiat CR.32 fighters commanded by the ace Joaquín García Morato, 20 Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 bombers, and 20 cargo aircraft from northern Spain to the area to bolster the defense.

August 26 – Majorca-based Italian aircraft bomb a British merchant ship off Barcelona, Spain.

September

The Mitsubishi A5M (Allied reporting name "Claude") fighter enters service, allowing the Imperial Japanese Navy to gain air superiority in the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Japanese soon gain control of the skies over Shanghai.

A French military leader tells the British that "a veritable forest of guns" over the Maginot Line will prevent the German Luftwaffe from intervening in a land war between France and Germany.

September 1

Supported by 250 aircraft, Spanish Nationalist forces begin an offensive against Republicans in Asturias. The absence of the Condor Legion, which is deployed in Aragon, is felt; Nationalist progress is slow for the first six weeks.

Air Canada, Canada's largest airline, begins operations.

September 17 – At a conference at Nyon, Switzerland, to address Italian attacks on merchant ships in the Mediterranean Sea attended by Bulgaria, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Romania, the Soviet Union, and Turkey, delegates agree that a British and French naval patrol in the Mediterranean west of Malta previously authorized to sink submarines suspected of attacking merchant ships also will be authorized to attack aircraft suspected of engaging in anti-shipping strikes. The agreement is in response to Italian attacks on merchant ships by aircraft based at Majorca.

September 19–22 – Imperial Japanese Navy Mitsubishi A5M ("Claude") fighters conduct a successful campaign to eliminate Chinese air resistance over Nanking.

October

Imperial Japanese Navy bomber operations against Nanking resume, and continue through the autumn.

The French assure General John Vereker, the British Chief of the General Staff, that they plan to reinforce their antiaircraft artillery in the Maginot Line to counter Germany's superior aircraft such that Germany "would require an unrealizable supremacy of machines to get over the antiaircraft defenses."

The French Farman F.223.1 Laurent Guerrero (registration F-APUZ) sets a record for aircraft in its class by flying 1,000 km (621 miles) with a 10,000-kg (22,046-pound) payload.

October 15 – The Condor Legion is redeployed to assist the Spanish Nationalist offensive in Asturias, which immediately speeds up greatly. German pilots led by Adolf Galland experiment with the "carpet bombing" of Asturian positions, in which the Germans fly in close formation very low, approach the enemy positions from the rear, and release their bombs simultaneously.

October 20 – The Spanish Republican Navy submarine C-6 is scuttled at Gijón, Spain, after suffering damage in a Nationalist air attack.

October 21 – Nationalist aircraft sink the Basque Auxiliary Navy destroyer Ciscar at Gijón.

October 25 – Flying a Focke-Wulf Fw 61, Luftwaffe test pilot Hanna Reitsch sets a new helicopter straight-line distance world record with a 108.974-kilometer (67.673 miles) in a flight in Germany from Bremen to Berlin.

November

To disrupt the Soviet Union's efforts to supply China during the Second Sino-Japanese War, Imperial Japanese Navy bombers begin strikes on Lanchou. Navy and Imperial Japanese Army bomber strikes on Lanchou will occur for the next several years.

November 5 – The German Ministry of Aviation authorizes the Heinkel firm's P.1041 design as the winner of the "Bomber A" strategic bomber competition for the Luftwaffe, issuing the airframe type number 8-177 to it. It simultaneously requires the new design to be capable of medium-angle dive bombing attacks – which Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, the commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe, would not be rescind until September 1942.

November 16 – A Sabena Junkers Ju 52 en route from Cologne to London via Brussels crashes near Ostend, Belgium, killing all 11 people on board. Among the dead are the Grand Duke and eight-months pregnant Grand Duchess of Hesse and their two small sons.

November 20 – The French Farman F.223.1 Laurent Guerrero (registration F-APUZ) sets out on a history-making flight from Istres, France, to Santiago, Chile, where it arrives to great fanfare 2 days 10 hours 41 minutes later.

November 22 – Heinkel He 119 V4, the fourth prototype of the German Heinkel He 119, makes a world record flight for an aircraft of its class, recording an air speed of 505 km/h (314 mph) with a payload of 1,000 kg (2,205 lb) over a distance of 1,000 km (621 mi).

November 23 – During the Great Purge, Soviet Air Force commander-in-chief Comandarm Yakov Alksnis is arrested.

December

Flying a Breda Ba.88 Lince, Breda chief test pilot Furio Niclot sets two speed-over-distance world records, averaging 554 km/hr (344.24 mph) over a 100-km (62.1-mile) distance and 524 km/hr (325.6 mph) over a 1000-km (621-mile) circuit.

Major air battles take place between Imperial Japanese Navy and Nationalist Chinese aircraft over Nanchang on December 9 and December 22, during which the Japanese claim the destruction of 29 Chinese aircraft in the air and 25 on the ground.

December 9 – During combat over Nanchang, an Imperial Japanese Navy Mitsubishi A5M ("Claude") fighter loses a third of its right wing when it is rammed by a Nationalist Chinese Curtiss Hawk, but flies 200 miles (320 km) back to base without further mishap.

December 12 – The Panay Incident occurs, when Imperial Japanese Navy Yokosuka B4Y (Allied reporting name "Jean") bombers and Nakajima A4N fighters sink the U.S. Navy gunboat USS Panay (PR-5) and three nearby Standard Oil tankers on the Yangtze River near Nanking.

December 15 – A Spanish Republican offensive in the area of Teruel, Spain, begins. The ensuing Battle of Teruel will last until February 22, 1938, and involve 120 fighters, 80 bombers, and 100 other aircraft on the Republican side and 150 fighters, 100 bombers, and 110 other aircraft on the Nationalist side.

December 29 – A Spanish Nationalist counteroffensive against Republican forces during the Battle of Teruel begins with the support of German aircraft of the Condor Legion. The Condor Legion has had to redeploy in order to support the counteroffensive, and its personnel are becoming weary of the constant changes of front required by Nationalist military operations.

December 30 – The French Latécoère 521 flying boat Lieutenant de Vaisseau Paris sets a world record by carrying a payload of 18,000 kg (39,682 pounds) to 2,000 meters (6,562 feet) over Biscarosse, France.