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On This Day: 1917

Aviation events for 1917

February 2: The NACA recommended to the President, for transmittal to Congress for approval, that the Government acquire basic aeronautical patents.
 
March 8: German airship pioneer Count von Zeppelin dies.
 
March 25: One of the greatest fighter pilots of WWI, Canada-born Lt. Col. William Avery Bishop, scores his first combat victory over an Albatros single-seat fighter while flying a Nieuport.
 
April 18: William E. Boeing’s Pacific Aero Products Company is renamed the “Boeing Airplane Company.”
 
April 24: Lt. Col. William “Billy” Mitchell becomes the first U.S. Army officer to fly over German lines.
 
April 30: Pacific Aero Products Company changes its name to Boeing Airplane Company, with William E. Boeing as its president.
 
July 1: A School of Aeronautics is established at the University of Toronto in Canada.
 
July 17: Ground is broken for the first building of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) Langley Field laboratory.
 
July 23: Maj. Benjamin D. Foulois, one of the great figures of early American aviation, is appointed commanding officer of the Airplane Division of the U.S. Signal Corps.
 
July 24: Congress approves the expenditure of $640 million on military aviation. It is the largest single appropriation approved by Congress.
 
August 2: Squadron leader E. H. Dunning of the British Royal Naval Air Service becomes the first pilot to land an airplane on the deck of a moving ship when he puts a Sopwith Pup down on HMS Furious.
 
August 5: The first Aero Squadron of the Signal Corps leaves the United States for Europe under the command of Maj. Ralph Royce.
 
August 7: The Morane-Saulnier A. I. Parasol fighter airplane makes its first flight in France.
 
October 16: Final testing is made for the US Army-designed air-to-air radio communication system with a wireless set.
 
October 29: An American-built DH-4 flies for the 1st time.
 
December 11: Katherine Stinson flies 606 miles from San Diego to San Francisco, setting a new American non-stop distance record.
 
 
 

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