1909 in aviation

Events
Fort Omaha Balloon School becomes the first United States Army school for balloon observers.

February
February 23 - John McCurdy makes the first aeroplane flight in Canada in the Silver Dart. He flies 2640 feet at Baddeck, Cape Breton.

May
May 14 - Samuel Cody makes the first aeroplane flight in the UK longer than 1 mile (1.6 km) in British Army Aeroplane No. 1.

July
The International Exhibition of Aviation opens in Frankfurt-am-Main (now known as ILA and regularly held in Berlin).

July 19 - Hubert Latham makes the first attempt to cross the English Channel. He flies 11 miles from Calais and lands in the water.

July 25 - Louis Blériot claims a £1,000 prize from the British Daily Mail newspaper for being the first pilot to cross the English Channel. He makes the crossing in his Blériot Type XI from Les Barraques (near Calais) to Northfall Meadow (near Dover Castle) in 37 minutes. Blériot also received an additional £3,000 from the French government.

July 30 - Orville Wright flies with passenger Lt. Benjamin Foulois at an average 42.58 mph over a measured round-trip course, successfully completing flight tests in the Wright Military Flyer for the U.S. Army at Fort Myer, Virginia. The Army buys the airplane for $30,000.

August
First International Air Races held in Reims. Glenn Curtiss wins Major Prize.

September
September 8 - Samuel Cody flies from Aldershot to Farnborough and back (46 miles in 1 hour and 3 minutes). The first recorded cross-country flight in the United Kingdom.

October
Die Deutsche Luftschiffahrt Aktiengessellschaft (DELAG) becomes the world's first airline, founded at Frankfurt-am-Main.

October 15 - October 23 - Britain's first Aviation Meeting held at Doncaster Racecourse.

October 22 - Raymonde de Laroche becomes the first woman to officially pilot and solo in an aeroplane.(See also September 1908).

October 26 - Marie Marvingt becomes the first woman to pilot a balloon across the North Sea and the English Channel from Europe to England.

October 30 - John Moore-Brabazon in a Short Brothers aircraft flies the first circular mile in the UK and wins £1,000 from the Daily Mail newspaper.

November
November 3 - Alec Ogilvie patents the first airspeed indicator.

November 4 - John Moore-Brabazon makes the first live cargo flight by airplane when he puts a small pig in a waste-paper basket tied to a wing-strut of his airplane.

November 16, foundation of the first air transport company in the world, DELAG (German Aviation Company).

December
December 5 - George Taylor becomes the first person to fly a heavier-than-air craft in Australia, in a glider he designed. On the same day Florence Taylor becomes the first woman in Australia to fly a heavier-than-air craft, in the glider designed by her husband.

First flights

June
5 June - Roe I Triplane

Entered service

March
Zeppelin LZ 3 into the German Army as the Z 1

August
August 1 - Wright Military Flyer into the US Army as Aeroplane No. 1