1905 in aviation

Events

In Santa Clara, California Daniel Maloney flies for 20 minutes with a glider after he started from a balloon at a height of 4,000 ft (1,220 m). He crashes in a later flight.

The engineer Maurice Stanislas Léger's helicopter lifts a person vertically into the air in Monaco.
U.S. Army Signal Corps transferred all balloon school activities to Fort Omaha, Nebraska.

March
March 16-20 - Daniel Maloney is launched by balloon in a tandem-wing glider designed by John Montgomery and makes three successful flights at Aptos, CA, the highest launch being at 3,000 feet with an 18 minute descent to a predetermined landing location.

April
April 27 - Sapper Moreton of the British Army's balloon section is lifted 2,600 ft (792 m) by a kite at Aldershot under the supervision of the kite's designer, Samuel Cody.

April 29 - Daniel Maloney is launched by balloon in a tandem-wing glider designed by John Montgomery to an altitude of 4,000 feet before release and gliding and then landing at a predetermined location as part of a large public demonstration of aerial flight at Santa Clara, California.

June
June 6 - Gabriel Voisin flies along the River Seine in his float-glider towed by a motorboat.

June 23 - First flight of Wright Flyer III.

July
July 14 - Orville Wright has a serious crash with Wright Flyer III, upon which the Wright Brothers radically alter the aircraft. The front rudder is mainly the culprit for the Flyer's insistent pitching.

July 18 - Daniel Maloney makes a launch in a tandem-wing glider designed by John Montgomery at Santa Clara, California. However, a balloon cable damages the glider and upon release Maloney and the aircraft fall uncontrolled to the ground, leading to Maloney's death.

August
August 5 - Nineteen-year old Welshman Ernest Willows makes the first flight of Willows No. 1 a semi-rigid airship he had built.

September
September - The Wright Brothers resume flight experiments with the re-designed Flyer III with performance of the airplane immediately in the positive. Smooth controlled flights lasting over 20 minutes now occur.

October
October 5 - Wilbur Wright makes a flight of 24.2 miles (38.9 km) in Flyer III. The flight lasts for almost 39:23 minutes at Huffman Prairie in Dayton, Ohio.

October 14 - The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) is founded in Paris.

November
November 30 - Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin's LZ2 airship is damaged while attempting its first launch.

December
Neil MacDermid is carried aloft in Canada by a large box kite named The Siamese Twins, designed by Alexander Graham Bell.