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On This Day: 1923

Aviation events for 1923

January 3: French Lieutenant Thoret makes the first soaring flight of more than 5 hours in a Hanriot HD-14 biplane as he flies with his engine stopped in a slope lift (using hill-side air currents) in Biskra, France. Read more...
 
January 9: The first flight of a practical gyroplane or rotocraft is made by Juan de la Cierva’s C-3 Autogiro, which is flown by Spenser Gomes in Madrid, Spain.
 
February 1: Danish Army Flying Corps established.
 
February 9: Aeroflit Airlines is formed.
 
February 10: An experimental night flight arrives to Le Bourget, France, from Croydon, England. The pilot has given his position by radio and used the aviation light beacons to make his approach.
 
March 5: The great aeronautical pioneer Igor Sikorsky sets up the Sikorsky Aero Engineering Corp. in the United States with the financial help of several important leading figures, including Sergey Rachmaninoff. Sikorsky left Russia in 1917 when revolution threatened his work and his life.
 
May 3: U.S. Air Service Fokker T-2 pilots Lts. Oakley G. Kelly and John A. Macready complete the first non-stop flight across the United States in 26 hours, 50 minutes, 38.4 seconds from Roosevelt Field, Long Island to Wickenburg, Arizona.
 
May 26: Lieutenant H. G. Crocker lands at Gordon, Ontario, to complete a non-stop transcontinental south/north flight from Houston, Texas, of 11 hours, 55 minutes.
 
June 14: The New Zealand Permanent Air Force is established.
 
June 27: The first refueling in mid-air (with hose) of one airplane by another is made by a De Havilland D.H.4-b from another one over San Diego, California. The planes are flown by Capt. L. H. Smith and Lt. J. P. Richter.
 
July 15: Dobrolet, the Soviet state airline, opens its first scheduled domestic service, between Moscow and Nizhniy Novgorod.
 
July 27: Edward Stinson lands his Junkers at Mitchell Field in New York after making the first non-stop flight from Chicago.
 
August 21: The first use of electric beacons mounted on the ground to provide sight direction for night flying is made in the United States.
 
August 23: The I-1 (Il-400), the first independent design from Nikolai Nikolayevich Polikarpov, makes its first flight. Polikarpov has worked at the RBVZ [Russko-Baltijskij Vagonnyj Zavod (Russo-Baltic Cart Works)] on the Ilya Muromets and later becomes chief engineer at the GAZ-1 plant.
 
September 1: The Royal Australian Air Force is formed.
 
November 1: Finnair is founded at Helsinki airport.
 
December 21: The French dirigible Dixmude is struck by lightning and explodes over the Mediterranean Sea en route from Cuers-Pierrefeu to Algeria, killing all 52 on board.
 
 
 

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