1917 in aviation

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

Events

• During her 30 November 1916-24 February 1918 cruise, the Imperial German Navy commerce raider Wolf carries a Friedrichshafen FF.33e seaplane nicknamed Wölfchen ("Little Wolf" or "Wolf Cub"), which during 1917 singlehandedly captures at least four of the 37 enemy ships Wolf captures and sinks during her cruise. Wölfchen makes between 54 and 56 flights, the most by any World War I shipboard aircraft.^[1]
• The Aircraft Committee of the Royal Navy's Grand Fleet decides to phase balloon ships out of naval service. The balloon ships are returned to mercantile service, or converted into balloon depot ships (to inflate and maintain balloons for use by other ships) or seaplane carriers.^[2]
• The Imperial Russian Navy operates the world's second-most-powerful seaplane carrier force, behind only that of the British Royal Navy.^[3]
• The Gallaudet Aircraft Company changes its name to Gallaudet Aircraft Corporation.^[4]
• The French Army's Service Aeronautique experiments with the use of a Breguet 14 as an air ambulance for rapid casualty evacuation on the Western Front.^[5]

January

• The Thomas Brothers Aeroplane Company merges with the Morse Chain Works to form the Thomas-Morse Aircraft Corporation in Ithaca, New York.^[6]
• January 9 - The Royal Navy seaplane carrier Ben-my-Chree is sunk by Ottoman artillery while in harbor at Castelorizo Island, becoming the only aviation ship of any nationality sunk by enemy action during World War I.^[7]
• January 27 - A French air raid on Freiburg, Germany takes place.

February

• The Royal Flying Corps's No. 100 Squadron, the first British night fighter squadron, is formed.
• Germany begins the Operation Türkenkreuz ("Turk's Cross") bombing campaign against England.^[8]
• The United States Army forms the 7th Aero Squadron for service in the Panama Canal Zone.^[9]
• February 13 – Over the Gulf of Mexico off Pensacola, Florida, United States Marine Corps aviator Francis Thomas Evans, Sr., performs an aerobatic loop in a Curtiss N-9 floatplane, becoming the first person to loop a seaplane – a feat previously believed impossible in an N-9 even by the N-9's manufacturer. He will receive a Distinguished Flying Cross for the achievement in 1936. However, the recovery techniques he discovers when the N-9 stalls and spins – previously thought impossible to recover from in an N-9 – during some of the day's loop attempts prove of far greater importance and have been in use ever since.^[10]
• February 26 – In anticipation of a possible entry by the United States into World War I, U.S. Marine Corps aviator Alfred A. Cunningham receives orders to establish, equip, and command an aviation company for a Marine Corps advance base force at the Philadelphia Navy Yard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.^[11]

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.^[12]
• 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).^[13]
• March 8 – Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, inventor of the practical dirigible, dies.^[14]
• March 13 – The United States Army's 6th Aero Squadron is organized in the Territory of Hawaii, operating three Curtiss N-9 seaplanes.^[15][16]

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.
• April 6
  • The United States enters World War I, declaring war on Germany.
  • United States Marine Corps aviation has a total strength of seven officers and 43 enlisted men.^[17]
• 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.^[18][19]
• 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.^[20]
• April 26 – The Pacific Aero Products Company is renamed the Boeing Airplane Company.^[21]

May

• May 7 – British ace Major Edward Mannock claims his first kill.
• May 7 – British ace Captain Albert Ball (44 victories) is killed in a crash following a dogfight with Lothar von Richthofen, who also crashes but survives.
• May 9 – French ace René Fonck shoots down six German aircraft in a day.
• 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.^[22]
• 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 ; the U.S. Coast Guard does not adopt it.^[23] Except for an 18-month interruption in 1918-1919, the marking will remain in use until June 1942.
• May 20 – A Royal Naval Air Service Curtiss H-12 Large America flying boat bombs and sinks the German submarine U-36 in the North Sea near the North Hinder light ship while flying a "Spider Web" patrol.^[24] U-36 becomes the only German submarine sunk by an aircraft during World War I.
• May 25 – A mass air-raid by 21 Gotha G.V bombers attacks Folkestone in Kent, England, killing 95 people and injuring 174. Seventy-four British aircraft take off to intercept, but shoot down only one Gotha. It is the first of 22 German heavier-than-air raids on England during World War I.^[25][26][27]
• May 25 – French ace Lieutenant René Dorme is killed in action. His 23 victories will tie him with Lieutenant Gabriel Guérin for ninth-highest-scoring French ace of World War I.^[28]

June

• Birdseye B. Lewis and Chance M. Vought found the Lewis & Vought Corporation, which later would become the Chance Vought Corporation.^[29]
• U.S. Army Colonel Raynal Bolling leads the Bolling Mission to Europe to examine the practicality of constructing British and French fighters in the United States. It leads to the establishment of the Engineering Division of the U.S. Department of War's Bureau of Aircraft Production to test its recommendations and to the manufacturing of the de Havilland DH.9 bomber and Bristol F.2B fighter in the United States.^[30]
• An attack prior to the Battle of Messines Ridge on a British supply train by German aircraft disrupts the supply of British ammunition, forcing British artillery to cease firing after three hours.^[31]
• At Naval Air Station Pensacola in Pensacola, Florida, the United States Navy armored cruiser Huntington lofts a kite balloon, the first U.S. Navy ship to do so.^[32]
• June 5 – Royal Flying Corps Lieutenants Harold Satchell and Thomas Lewis of No. 20 Squadron shoot down and kill German ace Leutnant Karl Emil Schäfer. His 30 victories will place him in a tie with five other pilots as the 28th-highest-scoring German ace of World War I.^[33]
• June 5 – The United States Navy's First Aeronautical Detachment disembarks from the collier USS Jupiter in France under the command of Kenneth Whiting. It is the first U.S. military unit to arrive in Europe.^[34]
• June 6 – The world's first landplane designed for use as a torpedo bomber, a Sopwith Cuckoo, is completed for the Royal Naval Air Service.^[35]
• June 13 – 14 German Gotha bombers make the most destructive air raid on London of World War I. They attack in daylight, dropping 118 bombs,^[36] killing 162 people and injuring 432. The casualty total is greater than inflicted by all the German airship attacks on England combined up to that time.^[37] Nearly 100 British fighters attempt to intercept the German bombers but do not shoot any of them down.^[38]
• June 14 – Royal Naval Air Service Curtiss H.12 Large America flying boat 8677 shoots down the German Zeppelin L.43.^[39]
• Mid-June – The United States Marine Corps bases aircraft at Marine Barracks, Quantico, Virginia, for the first time, beginning a presence which eventually will lead to the establishment of Marine Corps Air Station Quantico there.^[40]
• June 17 – In daylight, 21 German Gotha bombers make Germany's second heavier-than-air bombing attack on England. Seven bombers attack small towns in Kent and Essex and 14 attack London. The bombers kill 162 people and injure 432.^[41]
• June 20 – The British war cabinet decides to increase the size of the Royal Flying Corps from 108 to 200 squadrons, with most of increase coming in bomber squadrons.^[42]
• June 27 – German ace Leutnant Karl Allmenröder is shot down and killed. His 30 victories will tie him with five other pilots as the 28th-highest-scoring German ace of World War I.^[43]
• June 28 – An aircraft takes off successfully from a flying-off platform mounted on a warship's gun turret for the first time when Royal Naval Air Service Flight Commander F. J. Rutland takes off from a platform aboard the British light cruiser HMS Yarmouth in a Sopwith Pup.^[44]

July

• The only Handley Page O/100 in the Mediterranean theater bombs Constantinople in an attempt to begin a bombing campaign against the Ottoman Empire's capital city.^[45]
• July 7 – In daylight, German Gotha bombers make a third attack on England, killing 65 people and injuring 245.^[46]
• July 12 – Royal Naval Air Service Flight Lieutenant O. A. Butcher, manning a kite balloon lofted by the destroyer HMS Patriot off the Shetland Islands, sights the German submarine U-69 at a range of 28 nautical miles (52 km), allowing Patriot to intercept U-69 and sink her with depth charges.^[47]
• July 17 – The United States Navy establishes the Naval Aircraft Factory at League Island Navy Yard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.^[48]

August

• 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.^[49]
• August 2 – A Sopwith Pup flown by Royal Naval Air Service Squadron Commander Edwin Dunning becomes the first aircraft to land aboard a moving ship, the hybrid aircraft carrier-battlecruiser HMS Furious.
• August 7 – Dunning is killed on his third landing when the Pup falls over the side of Furious.
• 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 or not 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.^[50]

September

• Due to increasing losses to new British fighters during daylight bombing raids on England, Germany switches to night bombing.^[51]
• 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.^[52]
• 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 11 – French ace Capitaine Georges Guynemer goes missing in action. Kurt Wisserman of Jasta 3 is credited with shooting him down, but Guynemer's body is never found.
• 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.^[53]
• 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. A shipfitter from her crew is awarded the first Medal of Honor in World War I for rescuing the balloonist.^[54]
• 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 only time an aircraft sinks a German submarine during World War I.^[55]
• 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 Richtofen at the time; Voss will be the fourth-highest-scoring German ace of World War I.^[56]
• September 26 – For the second time, French ace René Fonck shoots down six German aircraft in a day.

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.^[57]
• 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.^[58]
• October 1 – The Royal Navy tests an aircraft catapult for the first time, using a compressed-air catapult aboard the catapult trials ship Slinger to launch an unmanned Short 184 with its fuselage fabric removed and engine replaced by ballast.^[59] On the same day, the Royal Navy conducts the first launch of an aircraft from a battleship or battlecruiser, when Royal Naval Air Service Flight Commander F. J. Rutland takes off in a Sopwith Pup from a platform mounted on a 15-inch (381-mm) gun turret of the battlecruiser HMS Repulse.^[60]
• 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.^[61]

November

• November 21–24 – The German Zeppelin L 59 makes a 6,757 km (4,196-statute mile) journey through Africa in 96 hours at an average speed of 71 km/h (44 mph).

December

• December 6 – Chikuhei Nakajima and Seibi Kawanishi found the Japan Aeroplane Manufacturing Work Company Ltd.^[62] It is the first aircraft manufacturing company in Japan.
• December 9 – Romania signs an armistice with the Central Powers, withdrawing from participation in World War I.

First flights

• Berkmans Speed Scout^[63]
• Orenco A^[64]
• Standard M-Defense, prototype of the Standard E-1^[65]

January

• Sopwith Camel flown by Harry Hawker
• 5 January – Sage Type 3

February

• Junkers J.4

March

• March 19 – Ansaldo SVA^[66]
• March 20 – Sturtevant B^[67]

April

• April 4 – SPAD S.XIII
• April 11 – Marinens Flyvebaatfabrikk M.F.3
• April 20 – DN-1

June

• Sopwith Cuckoo^[68]
• Thomas-Morse S-4^[69]
• June 22 – Port Victoria P.V.7

July

• July 5 – Fairey N.9

September

• September 7 – Port Victoria P.V.8
• September 14 – Fairey III^[70]

October

• October 15 – Alcock Scout

November

• Ansaldo A-1 Balilla^[71]
• November 30 – Vickers Vimy,^[72]

December

• December 9 – Schaefer & Sons R.S.^[73]

Entered service

• Summer 1917 – Breguet 14 with the French Army's Service Aéronautique^[74]

January

• Airco DH.4 with No. 55 Squadron Royal Flying Corps^[75]

February

• Sopwith Triplane with No.1 (Naval) Squadron, Royal Naval Air Service^[76]

March

• Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5 with No. 56 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps.^[77]

April

• Bristol F.2A with No. 48 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps

May

• Airco DH.5 with No. 24 and No. 32 Squadrons, Royal Flying Corps.^[78]

June

• Sopwith Camel with the Royal Flying Corps

References

• Bruce, J.M. "The S.E.5: Historic Military Aircraft No. 5". Flight, 17 July 1953. Pages 85–89, 93.
• Mason, Francis K. The British Bomber Since 1914. London: Putnam Aeronautical Books, 1994. ISBN 0-85177-861-5.
• Robertson, Bruce. Sopwith – The Man and His Aircraft. London: Harleyford, 1970. ISBN 0-900435-15-1.
• Taylor, H.A. Fairey Aircraft since 1915. London:Putnam, 1988. ISBN 0-370-00065-X.
• Thetford, Owen. British Naval Aircraft Since 1912. London: Putnam, 1994. ISBN 0-85177-861-5.