January 11: First flight of the McDonnell XF2D-1 Banshee, later redesignated XF2H-1.
March 14: Saudi Arabian Airlines begins regular domestic services.
March 16: Saudi Arabian Airlines begins regular international services.
March 17: The first flight of the North American B-45 Tornado. The aircraft is the United States Air Force’s first jet bomber and the first jet to be refueled in midair. Only 143 were produced after it was replaced fairly quickly by the Boeing B-47 Stratojet.
April 4: The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is officially founded in Montreal, Canada. It is an intergovernmental organization, established to regulate air transportation on a worldwide basis, its authority restricted only by the number of signatory nations.
April 4: Largest group of sunspots on record.
April 8: Largest recorded sunspot (7,000) observed.
April 15: BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation) opens its first regular service to Canada; it is a weekly flight by a Constellation from London to Montreal.
May 1: Malayan Airways (predecessor to Singapore Airlines) is founded.
May 28: First flight of the Sukhoi Su-11 (1947), first aircraft with Soviet-designed jet engines.
May 28: First flight of the Douglas Skystreak.
May 28: British South American Airways trials non-stop flights from London to Bermuda using aerial refueling over the Azores.
June 25: First flight of the Boeing B-50.
July 8: First flight of the Boeing 377.
July 10: First flight of the Airspeed Ambassador G-AGUA.
July 16: Geoffrey Tyson test-pilots the first jet fighter to be modified as a flying boat.
July 16: First flight of the Saunders-Roe SR.A/1 TG263.
August 10: A Douglas Skystreak hits 640mph, setting a new world airspeed record.
August 10: BEA begins the world's first regular cargo-only airline service.
September 16: The United States Air Force is established as a separate and equal branch of the U.S. Armed Forces.
September 17: The United States Army Air Forces are separated from the United States Army and become an independent armed service, the United States Air Force.
September 18: The U.S. Air Force becomes an independent service within the unified U.S. armed forces. This change recognizes the fact that air power is to be the nation's 1st line of defense.
October 1: Los Angeles Airways opens the world’s 1st regular airmail service by helicopter, using Sikorsky S-51 machines.
October 1: First flight of the North American XP-86A.
October 14: Captain Charles “Chuck” Yeager becomes the 1st person to fly faster than sound. Yeager “breaks the sound barrier” in his Bell X-1 airplane, Glamorous Glennis, named after his wife. He was able to reach 670-mph or Mach 1.015 at Muroc Dry Lake, California.
October 31: The Avro Tudor 4 enters service with British South American Airways.
November 2: First flight of the Hughes H-4 Hercules ("Spruce Goose").
November 23: The Convair XC-99 (serial no. 43-52436) makes its first flight, piloted by Russell R. Rogers.
December 30: The prototype of the second Mikoyan Type S fighter, an early version of the MiG-15, makes its first flight; it has an imported Rolls-Royce Nene 2 jet engine.
