World Aviation in 1922

13 March
Portuguese pilots Captain Gago Coutinho and Captain Sacadura Cabral set off on a transatlantic flight from Lisbon to Brazil flying a Fairey IIIC. They arrive on 16 June in Fairey IIID ‘Santa Cruz’, their third machine, as earlier two have been wrecked.

20 March
USS Langley, the first United States aircraft carrier is commissioned.

April
The Colombian Army Air Arm is formed.

April
Following the signature of the German-Soviet Rapallo Treaty, preparations are made to establish a clandestine flight training and experimental centre at Lipetsk. In the 9 years it is open, over 450 German military flying personnel are trained there.

7 April
The first airliner collision takes place when a French Farman Goliath of Grands Express flies into the path of a de Havilland DH18 operated by Daimler Airways. The collision takes place over Poix in northern France.

9 June
The first airliner night flight is made by Grands Express, from Le Bourget in France to Croydon.

16 June
Henry A. Berliner demonstrates his helicopter at College Park in Maryland.

18 August
German glider (sailplane) pilot Herr Martens makes the first glider flight over 1 hour in duration. His glider is named ‘Vampyr’.

4 September
Lieutenant James H. Doolittle flies his de Havilland DH4A from Pablo Beach in Florida to Rockwell Field in California in 21 hours 19 minutes. This is the first American coast-to-coast flight to be completed in under one day.

27 September
Naval Aircraft Radio Laboratory technicians at Anacostia demonstrate radar signatures for the first time.

20 October
Lieutenant H.R. Harriss of the United States Army Air Service (USAAS) makes the first parachute escape from a crippled aircraft in the USA, when he jumps from a Loening monoplane.

23 October
The American Propeller Company demonstrates the first reversible pitch propeller.

30 November
The first aircraft carrier to be designed and completed as such makes its maiden sea trials. The Imperial Japanese Navy’s Hosho was laid down in December 1919 and could carry 21 aircraft.

31 December
A Dornier Komet of Deutshe Luft Reederei makes the first landing of a German aircraft on English soil since the Armistice, when it arrives at Lympne.

Also this year…
The Brazilian Naval Air Service and the Irish Air Corps are established.