January 4: The Brooklyn Dodgers order a Convair CV-440 Metropolitan for $775,000, becoming the first major league baseball team to buy an airplane.
January 16: Five B-52Bs of the Ninety-third Bombardment Wing, commanded by Maj. Gen. Archie J. Old, Jr., commander of the U.S. Fifteenth Air Force, begin Operation Power Flite, the first nonstop round-the-world flight by turbojet aircraft.
January 18: Three Boeing B-52 Stratofortress jets make the world's first round- the-world, non-stop flight by turbojet-powered aircraft. The flight is completed in 45 hours 19 minutes, with an average speed of 534 mph (859 km/h).
January 30: Sikorsky’s HSS-1 S-58 piston-engined helicopter, developed for anti-submarine operations, makes its first flight.
January 31: On the first test flight of the Douglas DC-7B (N8210H), the aircraft collides with a USAF F-89, over Sunland, California. The two DC-7B crewmembers died, and only one of the F-89’s crew safely ejected. The planes hit the ground in a schoolyard, killing 3 more people.
February 1: The Bristol Britannia enters service with BOAC.
February 24: Scandinavian Airline Services (SAS) opens the first regular scheduled service from Europe to the Far East over the North Pole, with departure from Copenhagen, Denmark and Tokyo, Japan; the DC-7C aircraft will circle the pole en route.
March 4: A US Navy airship sets an airborne endurance record of 264 hours and 12 minutes, covering 9,448 miles.
March 11: The prototype Boeing 707 jet lands after a press demonstration flight from Seattle, Washington to Baltimore, Maryland during which it covers 2,350 miles in a record time of 3 hours 48 minutes.
March 11: a Flying Tiger Lockheed Super Constellation sets a new payload record for a commercial aircraft, carrying 41,749 lb (18,937 kg) on a flight between Newark, New Jersey and Burbank, California.
March 12: The prototype Boeing 707 jet lands after a press demonstration flight from Seattle, Washington to Baltimore, Maryland during which it covers 2,350 miles in a record time of 3 hours 48 minutes.
March 15: A U.S. Navy ZPG-2 nonrigid airship sets a new unrefueled endurance record when it lands, having remained aloft for 264 hours (11 days) 12 minutes, beating the record set by the Graf Zeppelin in 1929.
March 17: A Douglas C-47 Skytrain crashes into Mount Manunggal in Cebu, Philippines, killing Ramon Magsaysay, the President of the Philippines, along with 23 others of the 25 on-board (one survivor). The exact cause is unknown, but it is suspected that fatigue in the drive shaft led to the aircraft not having enough power to clear the mountain range.
March 18: A Lloyd Aereo Boliviano Douglas DC-3 (CP-535) crashes in Sayari, Bolivia, killing all of its 19 passengers and crew
April 6: Olympic Airways is created by the shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis from the ashes of bankrupt Greek state airline T.A.E.
April 7: A Varig Curtiss C-46 Commando (PP-VCF) crashes shortly after takeoff due to a fire in the left main gear wheel well. The pilot thought it was one of the engines, and shut it down unnecessarily. A go-around during a landing attempt when the gear doesn’t drop (due to the fire), allows more time for the fire to spread, leading to the left wing separating from the aircraft after the metal fatigue. All 40 aboard the aircraft perish.
April 24: Heli-logging pioneer Columbia Helicopters is founded in Portland, Oregon.
May 15: Over Malden Island in the south Pacific, a British Vickers Valiant piloted by Kenneth Hubbard drops the nation’s first nuclear bomb in a test called Operation Grapple. Designed to yield a one megaton explosion, the bomb fails to detonate properly and only disperses about 300 kilotons.
June 2: The first solo balloon flight into the stratosphere (the upper portion of the atmosphere above seven miles) is made by U.S. Capt. Joseph W. Kittinger, Jr. In his plastic balloon Manhig 1, he stays in the air for six hours, 36 minutes and reaches an altitude of 96,000 feet.
July 4: First flight of the Ilyushin Il-18.
July 13: President Eisenhower becomes the first U.S. president to fly in a helicopter when he is flown from the White House to an unnamed military post in a USAF Bell UH-13J.
July 16: Major John H. Glenn of the U.S. Marines sets a new record for a coast-to-coast flight across the U.S. The flight from Los Angeles, to New York takes just over three hours in a U.S. Navy Crusader supersonic jet.
July 19: A USAF Northrop F-89J Scorpion launches a live AIR-2 Genie ("Ding Dong") unguided nuclear air-to-air missile. It is the only detonation of a Genie.
August 28: A record altitude for manned aircraft is achieved by the RAF Canberra serial no. WK 163 piloted by chief test pilot M. Randrup. He flies the aircraft to 70,310 ft. with the aid of a Double Scorpion rocket motor.
October 4: The Avro Arrow rolls out at the Avro Canada plant in Malton, Ontario.
October 4: The Soviets win round one of the Space Race, launching Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth.
