• Races between aeroplanes and cars are won only by racing cars. • The world's first use of a
radio between an aircraft and the ground takes place in the
United States. •
Hugo Junkers gets a patent for his thick wing/all-metal type aeroplane. • A patent is taken out in
Germany for
a device that allows a fixed
machine gun to be fired from an airplane. • The
Imperial Russian Navy orders its first airplane. •
Lilian Bland builds and flies her own
glider, the first
biplane built in
Ireland, from
Carnmoney Hill, soon afterwards fitting an engine and making her first powered flight in late August. •
Pierre Levasseur founds
Société Pierre Levasseur Aéronautique, which initially manufactures
propellers.
January–March • January – Missiles are dropped from an airplane for the first time, when
United States Army Lieutenant Paul W. Beck drops
sandbags simulating
bombs over
Los Angeles, California. • 4 January –
Leon Delagrange is killed in
Bordeaux after the wings on his Blériot collapse. • 7 January • Frenchman
Hubert Latham is the first pilot to climb to . • The first aircraft designed entirely on Brazilian soil is built by Dimitri Sensaud de Lavaud, an engineer, inventor and aviator of French descent, born in Spain and a naturalized Brazilian living in
Brazil. The airplane, baptized as
São Paulo, flies in
Osasco in the state of
São Paulo. The flight takes place in front of a group of onlookers and journalists where today's
Avenida João Batista is located. It is also the first to take off in
Latin America. • 8 January – The Mexican aviator Alberto Braniff flies around
Mexico City in a
Voisin monoplane imported from
France. It is the first flight made by a Latin American aviator in Latin America. • 10–20 January – The first aviation meet in the
United States, the
1910 Los Angeles International Air Meet at Dominguez Field, take place near
Los Angeles,
California. • 8 February –
Louis Paulhan makes the first confirmed flight in
New Orleans,
Louisiana as part of the
Mardi Gras celebrations there. • 15 February - In the
United Kingdom, the
Royal Aero Club is granted its "Royal" prefix. • 25 February - Crew training begins for the British
Royal Navy's first
rigid airship,
HMA No. 1, also known as
Mayfly. • March – The
Imperial Russian Navy sends three
officers to France to receive flight training. It is the beginning of Russian
heavier-than-air naval aviation. • 7 March – English aviator
Claude Grahame-White lands his biplane on
West Executive Avenue in
Washington, D.C. and then lunches with United States Secretary of War
Jacob M. Dickinson. • 8 March –
Raymonde de Laroche of
France becomes the first woman in the world to receive a pilot's licence. • 10 March –
Emil Aubrun (
fr) makes the first night flights, in a
Blériot XI at
Villalugano,
Argentina. • 11 March –
J. W. Dunne flies one of the first inherently stable aircraft, the
Dunne D.5, at Eastchurch. • 13 March –
Paul Engelhard (
de) makes the first flight in
Switzerland, flying a
Wright biplane from a frozen lake at
St Moritz • 14 March – Louis Paulhan flies in a straight route from Orleans to Troyes. • 21 March –
Harry Houdini achieves one of the first powered flights in Australia. • 28 March –
Henri Fabre makes the first flights in a
seaplane, the
Fabre Hydravion, at
Martigues,
France.
April–June • April – The French
Aéronautique Militaire is formed as its own command, with a total of five aircraft. • 2 April –
Hubert Le Blon, an early Bleriot XI pilot, is killed after crashing onto the rocks at
San Sebastian, Spain. He is the second pilot to die in the crash of a Bleriot after Delagrange. • 28 April – Frenchman
Louis Paulhan completes the
Daily Mails
London to Manchester challenge in under 24 hours; the other competitor,
Claude Grahame-White, is forced to retire. • 10 May –
Ernest Failloubaz makes the first flight in
Switzerland by an aircraft built by and flown by a Swiss citizen. The aircraft has been constructed in co-operation with
René Grandjean. • 13 May – Gabriel Hauvette-Michelin, an
Antoinette pilot, is killed after hitting a racing pylon during takeoff at
Lyon. The pylon breaks and falls over, crushing him in his
cockpit. • 18 May – The world's first conference on air traffic, the
International Air Navigation Conference, opens in
Paris, France. • 27 May – The
Caproni Ca.1, the first aircraft manufactured entirely in
Italy, is destroyed during its first flight. • 31 May –
Glenn Curtiss wins a $10,000 (
USD) prize from the
New York World for flying in his
Hudson Flyer from
Albany,
New York, to
New York City in 2 hours 51 minutes, following the course of the
Hudson River. • 2 June –
Charles Rolls makes the first successful return (or round-trip) flight across the
English Channel. • 6 June – The first air race between two cities takes place, a race in France between
Angers and
Saumur with over 200,000 spectators looking on. Of seven competitors, only three manage to take off.
Robert Martinet wins in a
Farman biplane with a time of 31 minutes 35 seconds. • 17 June – Romanian engineer and inventor
Aurel Vlaicu flies his first airplane,
Vlaicu I • 22 June – The first commercial
airship flight takes place, as the
Zeppelin Deutschland (LZ 7) flies from
Friederichshafen to
Düsseldorf,
Germany, with 20 paying passengers – 10 men and 10 women – on board.
Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin is at
Deutschlands helm.
July–September • July – The
United States Navy torpedo boat Bagley becomes the first U.S. Navy ship to embark a
heavier-than-air aircraft when she takes a flying machine invented by
Butler Ames aboard for testing. Tests carried out aboard
Bagley of the
Butler Ames Flying Machine last until August. The flying machine, which relies on the rotation of two large drums for its lifting power, proves incapable of flight. • 9 July – Frenchman
Léon Morane (
fr) sets a new speed record of . • 12 July – The French-built Wright airplane of
Charles Rolls suffers a broken rudder at an altitude of and crashes during a contest at
Bournemouth. Rolls dies in the crash, becoming the first British aviation fatality. • 13 July – The German
blimp Erbslöh suffers an in-flight explosion and crashes near
Leverkusen,
Germany, killing her entire crew of five. • 6–13 August – First Scottish International Aviation Meeting held at
Lanark. • 18 August –
John Moissant becomes the first American to pilot an airplane across the
English Channel. • 20 August – A military firearm is fired from an airplane for the first time when
United States Army Lieutenant Jacob Earl Fickel fires a
rifle from a two-seat Curtiss
biplane. • 6 September –
Blanche Stuart Scott makes the first solo airplane flight by a woman in the
United States subsequently recognized by the
Early Birds of Aviation. • 6 September – The
Peruvian
Jorge Chávez (Geo Chavez) flies at over the city of
Issy, France. • 11 September – English-born actor-aviator
Robert Loraine makes the first aeroplane flight from
Wales across the
Irish Sea, although he actually lands some short of the
Irish coast in
Dublin Bay. • 14 September – The
Zeppelin LZ 6 is destroyed by fire in her
hangar at
Baden-Baden, Germany. • 23 September –
Geo Chavez flies the Blériot monoplane over the Alps from Brig (Switzerland) to Domodossola (Italy) reaching a height of , but is fatally injured in a crash landing at the end of his flight and dies four days later. • 25 September -
Edmond Poillot is killed flying a Voisin biplane. • 26 September -
Captain Washington I. Chambers is designated as the first
officer to have oversight over
United States Navy aviation programs. • 27 or 28 September –
Aurel Vlaicu carries out the first military flight mission in
Romania, delivering a message from
Slatina to
Piatra-Olt.
October–December • October –
Romanian inventor
Henri Coandă builds the
Coandă-1910 which he exhibits at the International Aeronautic Salon in Paris. He later claims that this is the first
motorjet, and that two months later it is flown briefly at the airport in
Issy-les-Moulineaux. Most aviation historians assert that the aircraft never flew and was not a motorjet. • 3 October – The
first mid-air collision takes place near
Milan. Both pilots,
Bertram Dickson and
René Thomas, survive, but Dickson is badly injured. • 11 October –
Theodore Roosevelt,
President of the United States from 1901 to 1909, becomes the first former American president to fly in an airplane when he flies with exhibition pilot
Arch Hoxsey at
St. Louis,
Missouri. (Former Italian Prime Minister
Sidney Sonnino had become the first former state leader of any country to fly in an airplane when he flew with Wilbur Wright at
Centocelle near
Rome,
Italy, in
1909.) • 14 October –
Carl Cederström makes the first confirmed flight over
Norway. • 15 October –
Walter Wellman and his crew of five (including
aeronaut and
aerial photographer Melvin Vaniman) depart
Atlantic City,
New Jersey, in the
dirigible America to attempt the first
transatlantic flight. • 16 October – During a six-hour, , non-stop flight from
Compiègne, France, to
Wormwood Scrubs,
London, England, the French military
dirigible Clément-Bayard No.2, piloted by
Maurice Clément and carrying six other men, becomes the first
airship to cross the
English Channel. The overwater portion of the flight takes 45 minutes. • 18 October – Wellman's transatlantic attempt ends when mechanical failures and a shortage of fuel force his dirigible
America down in the
North Atlantic Ocean about east of
Cape Hatteras,
North Carolina, where all aboard are rescued by the ocean liner
Trent. Despite
Americas failure to cross the Atlantic, the flight has set new world records for nonstop distance flown and for endurance (71½ hours nonstop, smashing the previous record, also set by a dirgible, of 37 hours aloft, at time when the airplane record was 5 hours). • 24 October –
Blanche Stuart Scott becomes the first American female stunt pilot and the first American woman to pilot an aircraft at a public event, making her debut at an
air show at
Fort Wayne,
Indiana. • 4 November – Welshman
Ernest Willows makes the first airship crossing from England to France with
Willows No. 3 City of Cardiff. • 7 November • Pilot
Didier Masson takes flight on a biplane designed by
E. Lilian Todd across the
Garden City aviation field at
Garden City,
New York. Todd is credited as the first woman to design airplanes. • The first air flight for the purpose of delivering
commercial freight occurs between
Dayton,
Ohio, and
Columbus, Ohio, in the
United States by the
Wright Brothers and
department store owner Max Moorehouse. The trip is made by Wright pilot
Philip Parmalee. • 14 November –
Eugene Ely takes off from a temporary platform erected over the bow of the
light cruiser USS Birmingham in
Hampton Roads, Virginia, the first take-off from a ship by a fixed-wing aircraft. • 17 November –
Ralph Johnstone, a pilot for the
Wright Exhibition Team, becomes the first American pilot to die in a plane crash when his machine breaks apart in mid-air in full view of about 5,000 spectators at
Denver,
Colorado. • 1 December – The
Curtiss Aeroplane Company is founded. • 3 December – The first multiple-fatality airplane accident in history takes places, when
Italian Army Lieutenant Enrico Cammarota and
Private S. Castellani become the 26th and 27th people to die in a plane crash in a mishap at
Aeroporto di Centocelle, near
Rome,
Italy. • 9 December – The French aviator
Georges Legagneux becomes the first person to fly an airplane higher than , reaching an altitude of in a
Blériot XI monoplane over the airfield at
Pau near
Paris. • 16 December –
Coandă-1910, the first aircraft powered by a
turbo-propulseur, may have been tested near Paris. Another date given in some sources is 10 December. Experts dispute whether it was tested at all. • 19 December –
Imperial Japanese Army Captain Yoshitoshi Tokugawa makes the first heavier-than-air flight in Japan piloting a
Farman III biplane. • 20 December –
Chile establishes its first military aviation arm, the
Chilean Army's
Military Aviation Service of Chile. • 21 December •
Hélène Dutrieu becomes the first winner of the
Coupe Femina (Femina Cup) for a non-stop flight of in 2 hours 35 minutes. •
Georges Legagneux sets a new world nonstop distance record with a flight of . • 22 December – British aviation pioneer
Cecil Grace vanishes over the
English Channel during a flight from
Calais,
France, to
Dover, England. • 23 December –
Lieutenant Theodore Ellyson of the
United States Navy is assigned to flight training with the Curtiss company, making him the first U.S. naval aviator. • 28 December – French aviator Alexandre Laffont and Spanish passenger Mario Pola are killed at Issy-Les-Molineaux shortly after taking off in an attempt to fly to
Belgium with two passengers. Their
Antoinette monoplane collapses in midair. Pola was the owner of the aircraft and had hired test pilot Laffont, of the Antoinette Company, to fly it. • 30 December – French aviator
Maurice Tabuteau sets a new world nonstop distance record, flying in a
Farman MF.7 biplane at
Buc, France, in 7 hours 48 minutes 36.6 seconds. The flight will win him the 1910
International Michelin Cup for the longest nonstop distance flown during 1910. • 31 December – American pioneers
John B. Moisant and
Arch Hoxsey are killed on this day within hours of each other. Moisant at New Orleans in the morning and Hoxsey at Los Angeles in the afternoon. == First flights ==