1908 in aviation

This is a list of aviation-related events from 1908:

Events

• • Month unkown- The United States Army announces plans to buy flying machines.

January – Henry Farman wins the Deutsch-Archdeacon Prize for making a circular flight of over 1 km (0.6 miles).

May

• May 14 – Charles Furnas becomes the first passenger in an aeroplane, piloted by Wilbur Wright. First heavy-than-air passenger carrying flight. Wilbur Wright flew Charles W. Furnas for a distance of 2.5 miles in a Wright Model B.

June

• June 8 – Alliot Vernon Roe flies his first aircraft at Brooklands, Surrey.
• June 28 – Jacob Ellehammer makes the first piloted, powered aeroplane flight in Germany.

July

• July 4 – Glenn H. Curtiss is awarded the Scientific American trophy for a public flight of over 1 km. Curtiss flies 1,550 m (5,090 ft).
• July 8 – Thérèse Peltier becomes the first woman to fly in an aeroplane. She is a passenger on a flight made by Lèon Delagrange at Turin.

September

• Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge became the first person killed in a powered airplane and the first military aviation casualty when Wilbur crashed his two-passenger plane during military tests at Fort Myer in Virginia.
• September 9, Orville Wright flies 1 hour 3 minutes and 15 seconds.

October

• October 5, the Zeppelin-airship LZ IV destroyed by fire at Echterdingen.
• October 14, Henry Farman makes the first cross-country flight in a power-driven aeroplane, from Bouy to Reims (27 km) in 20 minutes.
• October 16 – Samuel Cody makes the first generally recongised aeroplane flight in the UK in his British Army Aeroplane No. 1.
• October 18, Wilbur Wright climbs to 115 metres above Auvours.

December

• December 31 – Wilbur Wright wins a prize of FF 20,000 from Michelin for the longest flight of the year – 124 km (77 miles) from Camp d'Auvours.

First flights

March

• March 12 – AEA Red Wing

May

• May 18 – AEA White Wing

June

• June 28 – AEA June Bug

December

• December 6 – AEA Silver Dart

Entered service