1917 in aviation

Years in aviation: 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920
Centuries: 19th century · 20th century · 21st century
Decades: 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s
Years: 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920

This is a list of aviation-related events from 1917.

Events

January

February

March

  • Royal Naval Air Service Handley Page O/100 bombers begin night attacks on German naval bases, railway stations and railway junctions, and industrial targets.
  • United States Navy Lieutenant Kenneth Whiting proposes to Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels that the Navy acquire a ship with an aircraft catapult and a flight deck. Although rejected on June 20, it is the first serious U.S. Navy consideration given to acquisition of an aviation ship since the American Civil War (1861–1865).
  • March 8 – Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, inventor of the practical dirigible, dies.
  • March 13 – The United States Army's 6th Aero Squadron is organized in the Territory of Hawaii, operating three Curtiss N-9 seaplanes.
  • March 16–17 (overnight) – The German Naval Airship Service attempts to bomb England for the first time in 1917, in the first use of new Zeppelins designed for high-altitude flight that the Service's commander, Peter Strasser, believes will be too high for British air defenses to reach. The five Zeppelins – at least three of which achieve altitudes of between 17,100 and 19,000 feet (5,212 and 5,791 meters) – mostly bomb open countryside and do only £79 in damage and kill no one. Disabled by mechanical failure, L 39 drifts over Compiègne, France, and is shot down by French antiaircraft guns with the loss of her entire crew, and L 35 is badly damaged while landing in Germany. The success of the Zeppelins in reaching high altitudes during a bombing raid encourages Strasser, who accompanies the raid aboard L 42, to plan a new bombing offensive.
  • March 21 – The flight of the World's First Drone. At the Royal Flying Corps Upavon base one of the de Havilland unmanned 22 foot span monoplane Aerial Target aircraft was launched off a pneumatically powered ramp and flew briefly under radio control from the ground. The ‘pilot’ (on the ground) was Henry Segrave. This was witnessed by dozens of generals from all of the allied nations probably in England for the Imperial War Conference. The inventor of the control system was Dr. Archibald Low, the officer commanding the RFC secret Experimental Works in Feltham, Middlesex.

April

  • Known as Bloody April. The Royal Flying Corps, while supporting the Arras offensive, loses 245 aircraft—140 in the first two weeks—out of an initial strength of 365. Aircrew casualties are 211 killed or missing and 108 captured. The opposing Germans lose only 66 aircraft.
  • April 6
  • April 13 – Royal Naval Air Service flying boats begin flying "Spider Web" patrols over the North Sea in the vicinity of the North Hinder light ship to detect German submarines in the area. The new patrol pattern, resembling a spider web, allows four aircraft to search a 4,000-square-mile (10,000-square-kilometer) area in about five hours, only half the time it takes a surfaced submarine to transit the area. The flying boats make 27 patrols in the next 18 days, sight eight German submarines, and make bombing attacks against three of them.
  • April 20 – The United States Navy's first airship, DN-1 flies for the first time at Pensacola, Florida. Tests of the highly unsuccessful DN-1 come to an end only nine days later.
  • April 24 – Flying a Halberstadt CL.II, Hauptmann Eduard W. Zorer, the commanding officer of Schutzstaffel 7 – a German escort squadron charged with using its two-seater aircraft to escort two-seat reconnaissance aircraft – drops down to an altitude of 60 feet (18.3 meters) to use machine-gun fire to support German troops counterattacking British trenches along the Gavrelle-Rœux road near Arras during the Battle of Arras. Under fire from hundreds of British rifles and machine guns, he and his pilot spray the British trenches with 500 rounds of ammunition before a hit in their engine forces them to withdraw. The incident represents the birth of close air support as a mission of the world's air forces.
  • April 26 – The Pacific Aero Products Company is renamed the Boeing Airplane Company.

May

  • May 1 – The German Navy Zeppelins L 43 and L 45 conduct reconnaissance patrols over the North Sea off the coast of Scotland, patrolling off the Firth of Forth and Aberdeen, respectively.
  • May 4 – The German Navy Zeppelin L 43 attacks a force of British light cruisers and destroyers in the North Sea near the Dogger Bank with three 50-kg (110-lb) bombs, hitting the light cruiser HMS Dublin with bomb splinters. It one of the few cases of an airship attacking warships.
  • May 7
  • May 11 – German ace Edmund Nathanael (15 victories) flying an Albatros D.V of Prussian Jagdstaffel 5 is shot down in flames and killed as the 9th of 21 victories of Scottish ace Captain William Kennedy-Cochran-Patrick of No. 23 Squadron RFC at Bourlon Wood in Belgium.
  • May 14 – Flying the Curtiss H.12 Large America flying boat 8666, Royal Naval Air Service Flight Commander Robert Leckie shoots down the German Zeppelin L 22 18 nautical miles (33 km) north-northwest of Texel Island. It is the first time that a flying boat shoots down a Zeppelin.
  • May 19 – The United States adopts an official national insignia for U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Marine Corps aircraft for the first time, a white star centered in a blue circle with a red disc centered within the star USAAC Roundel 1919-1941.svg; the U.S. Coast Guard does not adopt it. Except for an 18-month interruption in 1918-1919, the marking will remain in use until June 1942.
  • May 23–24 (overnight) – Six German Navy Zeppelins attempt a high-altitude raid on London and the south of England and encounter bad weather. They drop most of their bombs onto open countryside, killing one man, injuring no one else, and inflicting £599 in damage, and all return safely to Germany, although the raid reveals many mechanical problems and physical difficulties for crewmen during sustained high-altitude flights. Informed of the results of the raid, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany says, "In spite of this success, I am of the opinion that the day of the airship is past for attacks on London. They should be used as scouts for the High Seas Fleet and strategic reconnaissance, not for bombing raids on London." The Chief of the Naval Staff argues that the bombing campaign is tying down many British personnel, guns, and aircraft on home air defense duties, and Wilhelm II agrees to allow raids to continue if conditions are favorable.
  • May 24 – Turbulence throws the observer aboard a German Aviatik C.V, First Lieutenant Otto Berla, from his cockpit without a parachute. As he falls, an updraft forces the tail of the aircraft upward, and he punches through the plywood of the Aviatak's fuselage aft of his cockpit. The Aviatik's pilot returns him safely to base.
  • May 25

June

July

August

  • The Imperial German Army's air service, the Luftstreitkrafte, perfects close air support tactics during the Battle of Passchendaele, with close-air-support aircraft escorted by fighters attacking British troops with machine guns and hand grenades. The Germans discover that groups of four to six aircraft work best and that the ideal altitude from which to attack trenches is 150 feet (45.7 meters), while 1,200 to 1,500 feet (366 to 457 meters) is best for attacking larger targets like artillery batteries and reserve infantry concentrations. They find that line-astern formations are best to reduce the effects of enemy ground fire and line-abreast formations are best for fending off enemy fighters.
  • United States Secretary of War Newton D. Baker announces the completion of the first Liberty engine 28 days after its design began. Before the end of World War I, 13,574 will be manufactured, and total will reach 20,478 by 1919.
  • August 1 – The German Navy Zeppelin L 53 achieves an altitude of 20,700 feet (6,309 meters), a new record for an airship.
  • August 2
  • August 6 – Ground is broken on the United States Navy′s Naval Aircraft Factory at League Island Navy Yard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
  • August 7 – Dunning is killed on his third landing when the Pup falls over the side of Furious.
  • August 12 – In daylight, German Gotha G.IV bombers make the sixth attack on the United Kingdom of Operation Türkenkreuz, bombing Shoeburyness and Southend. In the fifth raid on July 22 and this raid, the Germans lose a combined five bombers, one of them shot down and the other four wrecked in crashes on landing as they return to their bases.
  • August 17 – Tasked to study how the United Kingdom's air forces could be best organized for the war with Germany and to consider whether they should remain subordinate to the British Army and Royal Navy, General Jan Smuts completes the Smuts Report. In it, he observes that an air service could be used as "an independent means of war operations," that "there is absolutely no limit to the scale of its future independent war service," that soon "aerial operations with their devastation of enemy lands and destruction of industrial and populous centres on a vast scale may be the principal operations of war, to which older forms of military and naval operations may become secondary and subordinate." He projects that by the summer of 1918 "the air battle front will be far behind the Rhine" while the ground front is still bogged down in Belgium and France and that air attacks on German industry and lines of communication could be an "important factor in bringing about peace." The report is the foundation of a new theory of warfare advocated by British bomber advocates and will inspire the creation of the independent Royal Air Force in 1918.
  • August 18 – The Luftstreitkrafte attempts the largest heavier-than-air raid against the United Kingdom of World War I, sending 28 Gotha bombers from their bases in Belgium to attack England despite predictions of unfavorable winds. After two hours in the air, they have only reached Zeebrugge on the Belgian coast, and it takes them another hour to reach the coast of England, where they find themselves 64 kilometers (40 miles) off course. With too little fuel to go on, the strike commander orders the bombers to abort the raid and return to base; two of them come down in the North Sea, two others crash-land in the neutral Netherlands, and others are lost in crash-landings in Belgium.
  • August 21 – Flying a Sopwith Pup fighter launched from a flying-off platform mounted on a gun turret of the Royal Navy light cruiser HMS Yarmouth, Royal Naval Air Service Flight Sub-Lieutenant B. A. Smart shoots down the German Navy Zeppelin L 23 in flames over the North Sea with the loss of her entire crew. Smart is recovered safely along with his plane's engine and one of its machine guns after he ditches his fighter in the sea.
  • August 21–22 (overnight) – Eight German Navy Zeppelins commanded by German Naval Airship Service commander Peter Strasser aboard L 46 attempt a high-altitude raid on England. Only L 41 crosses the British coastline; she bombs the Kingston upon Hull area, destroying a chapel and injuring one civilian.
  • August 22 – The Luftstreitkrafte sends 15 Gotha bombers to attack England in a daylight raid. Five turn back over the North Sea, and the remaining 10 encounter British fighter aircraft and heavy antiaircraft fire over the Isle of Thanet. Two Gothas are shot down immediately, and another is shot down over Dover. The losses prompt to Germans to halt daylight raids over the United Kingdom and switch to night bombing.

September

  • In a second bombing raid against Constantinople, the sole Handley Page O/100 in the Mediterranean is forced down in the Gulf of Xeros by engine failure and its crew taken prisoner by Ottoman forces.
  • The Commander in Chief of the Grand Fleet, Admiral David Beatty, proposes an aerial torpedo attack by 120 Sopwith Cuckoo torpedo bombers launched from eight converted merchant ships against the German High Seas Fleet at its moorings in Germany. Training for the raid takes place in the Firth of Forth, but the war will end before it can be carried out.
  • September 3 – The United States Army's 1st Aero Squadron arrives in France.
  • September 3–4 (overnight) – After the losses suffered in the face of improving British air defences in the August 22 daylight raid against England, the Imperial German Army's air service, the Luftstreitkrafte, decides to experiment with night raids, sending five Gotha bombers to attack Chatham Dockyard in Kent. The raid kills 152, including 130 Royal Navy recruits who die in a direct hit on their barracks in the highest death toll inflicted by a single aerial bomb during World War I. The German bombers find that British night defenses are weak.
  • September 4–5 (overnight) – The Germans attempt a second heavier-than-air night raid against the United Kingdom, sending 11 Gotha bombers to raid London. Nine of the planes reach England, but only five reach London. British aircraft fly 18 defensive sorties, but fail to make contact with the German aircraft; the British flights, however, demonstrate the feasibility of using the Sopwith Camel as a night fighter. One Gotha fails to return, probably shot down by antiaircraft guns at Fort Borstal in Rochester.
  • September 11 – French ace Capitaine Georges Guynemer goes missing in action while flying a SPAD XIII during combat with German aircraft near Poelkapelle, Belgium. Kurt Wisserman of Jasta 3 is credited with shooting him down, but Guynemer's body is never found. Guynemer has 54 kills at the time of his death.
  • September 15 – Flying a Fokker Dr.I, German ace Oberleutnant Kurt Wolff is shot down and killed in a dogfight with Royal Flying Corps Sopwith Camels north of Wervicq, Belgium. His 33 kills will tie him with Leutnant Otto Koennecke and Leutnant Heinrich Bongartz as the 20th-highest-scoring German ace of World War I.
  • September 17 – While on convoy escort duty in the Atlantic Ocean, the United States Navy armored cruiser Huntington has her kite balloon blown away in bad weather. For rescuing the balloonist, a shipfitter from her crew is awarded the 3rd Medal of Honor of World War I.
  • September 22 – A Royal Naval Air Service Curtiss H-12 flying boat piloted by Flight Sub-Lieutenant N. Magor sinks the German submarine UB-32 in the North Sea. It is the only confirmed instance of a British aircraft sinking a German submarine without the assistance of surface ships during World War I.
  • September 23 – During an epic 10-minute dogfight against six Royal Flying Corps SE.5s of No. 56 Squadron, the German ace Werner Voss, flying a Fokker Dr.I triplane, is shot down and killed by the British ace Arthur Rhys-Davids north of Frezenberg, Belgium. At the time of his death, Voss has 48 victories and is the second-leading German ace behind Manfred von Richthofen at the time; Voss will be the fourth-highest-scoring German ace of World War I.
  • September 24–25 (overnight)
    • Nine German Navy Zeppelins set out to attack the middle and north of England. Only L 35 makes a deep penetration of England, dropping her bombs near Rotherham. Total damage inflicted by the raid is £2,210.
    • Sixteen German Gotha bombers set out to raid the United Kingdom. Thirteen reach England; five of them reach London, while the other eight bomb Dover and other targets in Kent.
  • September 25–26 (overnight) – Fifteen German Gotha bombers set out to bomb London, but only three reach the city. One of the bombers comes down in the North Sea, probably the victim of a British Sopwith 1½ Strutter flown by Douglas Bell and George Williams of the Royal Flying Corps's No. 78 Squadron.
  • September 28 – In accordance with an agreement between Italy and the United States for the United States to receive bomber aircraft from Italy and United States Army Air Service cadets to receive flight training from the Royal Italian Army's Military Aviation Corps in exchange for raw materials from the United States, the first 46 American cadets arrive at Foggia, Italy, for training. Another 250 soon join them, and almost 500 American aviators will receive training in Italy – primarily at Foggia – before the war ends in November 1918.
  • September 28–29 (overnight) – Twenty-seven German bombers – 25 Gothas and two Zeppelin-Staaken R.VI bombers – attempt a raid on England, but most turn back due to bad weather. Those that do reach England drop bombs that injure three people and inflict £129 in damage. Three Gothas are lost, and six others are damaged while landing. It is the first time that the new giant Zeppelin-Staaken Riesenflugzeuge, operated by the German Riesenflugzeug Abteilungen ("Giant Airplane Detachments") Rfa 500 and Rfa 501, take part in bombing operations against the United Kingdom; they are the largest bombers ever used in bombing Britain, including those used by Germany and Italy during World War II.
  • September 29–30 (overnight) – Seven Gothas and two Zeppelin-Staaken R.VIs set out to raid England. Their bombs kill 40 people and injure 87. One Gotha is lost. By this time, the population of London is so alarmed by the German night raids that up to 300,000 people seek shelter in London Underground stations at night, while others leave the city to seek overnight accommodation elsewhere or to sleep in open fields in the countryside.
  • September 30-October 1 (overnight) – Eleven Gotha bombers raid England.

October

  • At Ochey, France, the British Royal Flying Corps forms its first wing dedicated to long-range bombardment of targets in Germany. It will later become VIII Brigade.
  • The United States Marine Corps divides its Marine Aeronautical Company into two units, the First Aviation Squadron equipped with land planes and the First Aeronautical Squadron equipped with seaplanes. The latter unit is intended for antisubmarine patrols from the Azores.
  • October 1
  • October 1–2 (overnight) – Eighteen Gotha bombers of the Imperial German Army's air service, the Luftstreitkräfte, set out to raid the United Kingdom. Eleven of them reach England. British antiaircraft guns fire 14,000 rounds at them without scoring a single hit. The intensity of German air raids over the past week have created a shortage of antiaircraft shells and worn out the barrels of many antiaircraft guns, and falling fragments from antiaircraft shells have killed eight people and injured 67 in England.
  • October 7 – L 57, a German Navy Zeppelin modified to be able to make a long-distance flight from Yambol, Bulgaria, to Mahenge, German East Africa, to deliver medical supplies and munitions to German ground forces there, and as such the largest airship ever built at the time at 743 feet (226.5 meters) and carrying 2,418,700 cubic feet (68,490 cubic meters) of hydrogen gas, is wrecked and destroyed by fire while attempting to take off for a test flight in poor weather.
  • October 19 – The U.S. Army opens Love Field in Dallas, Texas as a flight training base. The airfield is later converted to civil use, becoming the primary commercial airport for the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex until 1974, and continues to serve as an important regional airport.
  • October 19–20 (overnight) – The German Navy dispatches 13 Zeppelins on a high-altitude raid against the middle of England, and they encounter an unexpected gale. Two never leave their sheds; the other 11 set out for England and become lost in the storm. Most bomb open countryside, although L 41 damages the Austin Motor Works at Longbridge and L 45 bombs Northampton and London, killing 24 and injuring nine people. The British use muzzled antiaircraft guns around London to avoid guiding Zeppelins to the city, and the attack becomes known as the "Silent Raid." Although 73 British planes take off to intercept the raid, none have the ability to reach the Zeppelins' operating altitude. The storm scatters the Zeppelins widely across Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France during their return flights and only six reach Germany safely. L 55 sets an altitude record for airships of 24,000 feet (7,315 meters) during her homebound flight before being damaged beyond repair in a hard landing in Germany; L 44 is shot down in flames by French artillery over the Western Front with the loss of all hands; L 49 lands in France and is captured along with her entire crew; L 45 lands in France and is destroyed by her crew, who are captured; and L 50 makes a hard landing in France, after which 15 of her crew manage to get off the airship and are captured and she drifts away and crosses France before disappearing over the Mediterranean Sea with four men still aboard.
  • October 29–30 (overnight) – Three German Luftstreitkräfte bombers set out for the first heavier-than-air raid on England in four weeks. Two divert to Calais, France, due to bad weather; the third reaches England and bombs the Essex coast.
  • October 30 – The German ace Leutnant Heinrich Gontermann is performing aerobatics when the upper wing of his Fokker Dr.I fighter breaks off. He is fatally injured in the subsequent crash. His 39 victories will tie him with Leutnant Carl Menckhoff as the 13th-highest-scoring German ace of World War I.
  • October 30–31 (overnight) – Twenty-two German Gotha bombers set out to raid London, with the newly developed 4.5-kg (9.9-lb) incendiary bombs included in their bombloads. Fewer than half the bombers reach the London area; they bomb the city's eastern suburbs, but many of the incendiary bombs fail to ignite. The rest of the planes bomb Kent, where they destroy a gasometer in Ramsgate but achieve little else. Five of the bombers crash while attempting to land upon returning to their bases. Bad weather will prevent another raid against England until December.

November

December

  • The Imperial German Army's air service, the Luftstreitkräfte, begins to operate a radio-equipped Rumpler C.IV off the coast of England to report weather conditions and reduce the chance of adverse weather interfering with Luftstreitkräfte bomber raids against the United Kingdom.
  • Imperial German Navy Zeppelins make daily reconnaissance patrols over the Heligoland Bight throughout the month.
  • December 5–6 (overnight) – After weeks of unfavorable weather, the Luftstreitkräfte makes its first heavier-than-air raid against the United Kingdom since October 1917. Nineteen Gotha and two Riesenflugzeug bombers attack in several waves, causing £100,000 in damage, mostly in London, but inflicting few casualties. British antiaircraft guns shoot down two Gothas and their crews are captured; a third bomber and its crew go missing. It is the last German bombing raid against the United Kingdom until January 1918.
  • December 6 – Chikuhei Nakajima and Seibi Kawanishi found the Japan Aeroplane Manufacturing Work Company Ltd. It is the first aircraft manufacturing company in Japan.
  • December 7 – The Battle of Cambrai comes to end, with 10 German ground-attack squadrons having provided close air support to German ground forces during the 17-day battle. German ground-attack aircraft have played a key role in halting the British advance, convincing the Luftstreitkrafte of the need for a permanent ground-attack force.
  • December 9 – Romania signs an armistice with the Central Powers, withdrawing from participation in World War I.

First flights

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

  • December 9 – Schaefer & Sons R.S.
  • December 10 – Junkers J 8, prototype of the Junkers CL.I

Entered service

January

February

March

April

May

June

August

November

December

Retirements

April

November


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