1915 in aviation

January
January 19 - First Zeppelin raid on the UK by the German Navy.

February
February 15 - Russian Sikorsky Ilya Muromets bombers attack the Vistula-Dobrzhani area of Poland

March
March 7 - the first British tactical bombing raids made in support of ground troops made in Menin an Courtai.

April
April 1 - French pilot Lt Roland Garros scores the first kill using a non-synchronised machine gun when he shoots down an Albatros observation plane from his Morane Saulnier Type L.

April 1 - French ace Jean Navarre, with an observer Lt. Robert, score the first kill.

April 18 - Roland Garros is shot down and taken captive.

April 26 - 2nd Lt William Rhodes-Moorhouse is the first airman to receive the Victoria Cross (posthumous).

May
May 26 - Oberleutnant Kästner and Lt Georg Langhoff score the first German air-to-air victory of World War I.

May 31 - First Zeppelin raid on London, made by LZ 38. Seven people killed, fourteen wounded.

June
June 6 - LZ 37 becomes the first Zeppelin destroyed in air-to-air combat when it is bombed by Flt Sub-Lt Reginald Warneford, RNAS.

July
July 1 Leutnant Kurt Wintgens achieves the first aerial victory by a true fighter plane in history, flying his Fokker M.5K/MG production prototype of the Fokker Eindecker, downing a Morane-Saulnier two-seat "parasol" observation aircraft.

July 6 - Lt Oswald Boelcke claims his first victory, a Blériot Parasol, while flying an Albatros C.I two-seater with Lt von Wühlisch as the observer & gunner.

July 25 - Captain Lanoe Hawker of the RFC wins first Victoria Cross for aerial combat, over France.

August
August 1 - Lt Max Immelmann shoots down his first aircraft, beginning his career as an ace and the period that will become known as the "Fokker scourge"

August 12 - Flt Cdr Charles Edmonds becomes the first pilot to attack a ship with an air-launched torpedo. He is flying a Short Type 184 from HMS Ben-my-Chree. His target is a Turkish supply ship.

August 19 - Lt Oswald Boelcke shoots down his first aircraft flying a Fokker E.I fitted with a gun synchronizer.

August 20 - The first sustained aerial bombing offensive is made by Italian Caproni Ca.2s against Austria-Hungary.

August 31 - the first French ace Adolphe Pegoud is killed in combat. He scored 6 victories.

November
November 3 - Flt Sub-Lt Fowler makes the first take-off of an aircraft with a conventional, wheeled undercarriage from a ship when he flies a Bristol Scout from HMS Vindex.

November 6 - A Curtiss AB-2 piloted by Lt Cdr Henry Mustin is catapulted from the deck of USS North Carolina while the ship is underway.

December
December 12 - Leutnant Theodor Mallinckrodt makes the initial "hop" of the world's first practical all-metal aircraft, the Junkers J 1.

First flights

April
April 11 - Zeppelin-Staaken R.I

May
SPAD A.2

June
June 1 - Airco DH.2

August
August 14 - Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.9

December
Sopwith 1½ Strutter

December 12 - Junkers J 1, the first practical all-metal aircraft

December 15 - Anatra D

December 17 - Handley Page O/400