Page:Aeronautics and Astronautics Chronology 1915-1960.pdf/8



January 15: New official American one-man duration record of 8 hours 53 minutes set by Lt. B. Q. Jones in a Martin tractor biplane at San Diego, Calif.


 * First transcontinental telephone conversation, New York to San Francisco, by Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas A. Watson.

January 19-20: First German aerial bombing of Britain, by two Zeppelins, thereby opening up a new era in the exploitation of aeronautics. During World War I, a total of 56 tons of aerial bombs was dropped on London and 214 tons on the rest of Britain.

During January: First air-to-air combat, German airman killed by rifle fire from Allied aircraft. In February a machine gun mounted on a French aircraft, Lieutenant Garros as pilot, first shot down a German aircraft.

February 24: Macy automatic pilot tests were begun at San Diego, Calif.

During February-March: Anthony H. G. Fokker perfected synchronizing gear to allow machinegun to be fired through rotating propeller.

March 3: The Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (later the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics or NACA) was established by a rider to the Naval Appropriations Act, "…to supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of flight, with a view of their practical solution." The sum of $5,000 a year was appropriated for 5 years. The total appropriation for naval aeronautics was $1 million.

March 4: Congress passed an appropriation bill of $300,000 for Army aeronautics for fiscal year 1916.

April 2: President Wilson appointed the first 12 members of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). Throughout the entire history of the NACA until October 1958, members served without compensation.

April 16: Navy AB-2 flying boat successfully catapulted from a barge, Lt. P. N. Bellinger as pilot.

April 23: The Secretary of War called the first meeting of the NACA in his office. Brig. Gen. George P. Scriven, Chief Signal Officer, was elected temporary Chairman, and Dr. Charles D. Walcott, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, was elected first Chairman of the important NACA Executive Committee.


 * American altitude record of 10,000 feet for seaplanes was established in Burgess-Dunne AH-10 by Lt. P. N. Bellinger over Pensacola, Fla.

May 31: First German Zeppelin raid on London. British employed rockets in their defenses around London.

June 1: Navy let first contract for lighter-than-air craft in ordering one nonrigid airship from Connecticut Aircraft (later the DN-1).

June 8: U.S. Patent Office granted patent (No. 1142754) to Glenn H. Curtiss covering the arrangement of a step or ridge incorporated in the hull of flying boats.

During June: First year of formal graduate study in aeronautical engineering was completed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and one master of science degree was awarded.

July 7: Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels, in a letter to Thomas A. Edison said that the Navy required "machinery and facilities for utilizing the natural inventive genius of Americans to meet the new conditions of warfare." This letter prompted creation of Naval Consulting Board of civilian advisers which functioned throughout World War I, and which included in its organization a "Committee on Aeronautics, including Aero Motors."

July 10: Naval Aeronautic Station, Pensacola, tested sextant equipped with a pendulum-type artificial horizon and reported that pendulum type was unsatis 3