1923 in aviation

This is a list of aviation-related events from 1923:

Events

January

• Air Union is created by the merger of Compagnie des Messageries Aériennes (CMA) with Grands Express Aériens (CGEA).

February

• The first take-off and landing on the new Japanese aircraft carrier Hosho is made by a British pilot in a Mitsubishi 1MF.
• The RAF conducts operations in Southern Iraq against uprisings led by Sheik Mahmud Barzenci.
• February 1 – the Danish Army Flying Corps is established

March

• Dobrolet is formed, as the first Soviet airline. It will later become part of Aeroflot.
• March 17 – the US government authorises Army aircraft to drop calcium arsenate on Louisiana's cotton fields in order to kill weevils.

April

• April 10 – Daimler Airways begins the first scheduled service between London and Berlin (via Bremen and Hamburg).
• April 16 – 17 – Lt John MacReady and Lt Oakley Kelley establish a new endurance record, staying aloft for 36 hours 5 minutes in a Fokker T-2, covering a distance of 2,518 miles (4,052 km).

May

• May 2-3 – Kelly MacReady complete the first non-stop flight from New York to Los Angeles, in 27 hours in a Fokker T-2.
• May 3 – the Sikorsky Aero Engineering Corporation is formed by Igor Sikorsky at a Long Island chicken farm.
• May 23 – Belgian airline SABENA is formed, adding new European routes to SNETA's routes in Belgian Congo that it takes over.

June

• June 14 – New Zealand forms its first military aviation services, fore-runners of the Royal New Zealand Air Force.

July

• July 19 – Czechoslovakian airline CSA commences operations.

August

• August 21 – first electric beacons start appearing at US airfields, to assist in night flying operations.
• August 28 – Lt John Richter and Lowell Smith establish a new endurance record of 37 hours 15 minutes in an Airco DH.4, covering 3,293 miles (5,299 km). They are refueled fifteen times during the flight.

September

• September 5 – US Army bombers carry out anti-shipping exercises, sinking the obsolete battleships USS Virginia and USS New Jersey.
• September 28 – Schneider Trophy race flown at Cowes, UK. Won by David Rittenhouse (USA) in a Curtiss CR.3 at 285.5 km/h (177.4 mph).

October

• October 6 – Curtiss R2Cs win first and second place in the Pulitzer air race, the winning aircraft setting a new airspeed record of 243.6 mph (392 km/h).
• October 15 – First British motor glider competition is flown, at Lympne, Kent.

December

• December 21 – French airship Dixmude crashes into the Mediterranean. Fifty-two people are killed.

First flights

January

• January 9 – Cierva C.4
• January 19 – Armstrong Whitworth Wolf

March

• Aero A.18
• Hawker Woodcock

May

• Gloster Grebe

June

• June 2 – Boeing XPW-9

July

• July 30 – de Havilland DH.50

August

• August 22 – Barling XNBL
• August 23 – Polikarpov I-1

September

• September 3 – USS Shenandoah
• September 3 – Curtiss R2C

October

• October 2 – de Havilland Humming Bird
• October 23 – Handley Page Hyderabad

Entered service